In China, bloggers go after the bad guys
The bloggers of China are after corrupt officials and they are doing pretty well. Score at the moment is vigilante bloggers 3, bad guys 0.
The latest loser is Zhou Jiugeng, the director of Nanjing’s property bureau, was fired just days after pictures of him appeared on the Internet wearing a Vacheron Constantin watch worth over $14,000. You can just see it in the picture at the beginning of this report.
Now authorities have become great readers of blogs and forums. It tells them who to fang and provides the evidence.
Mr Zhou allegedly also allegedly drove a Cadillac (there is a model built in China) despite his moderate wage as a Communist Party official.
Nanjing’s local government said Zhou Jiugeng had been dismissed for ‘purchasing high priced cigarettes using public funds’ and for speaking to the media without authorization about the city’s property market.
The Chinese have spectacular phrases for almost anything and mostly they do not translate well. But in this case the Internet vigilantes have acquired a name which translates into ‘human flesh search engine’ and, elated by their success so far, they are seriously going for some other government officials.
Some of their results have been very important.
An example: in November, the party secretary of Shenzhen’s marine affairs bureau was fired after a video of him molesting an 11-year-old girl appeared on the Internet. Lin Jiaxing was seen trying to abuse the girl, who eventually escaped from his grasp.
When her family complained, he boasted that his high rank gave him immunity. He said, ‘What the —- are you people to me?’ In fact, the end of his career.
You might think that a minor punishment for attempting to molest a young girl. Not so. Being stripped of his official standing he is now exposed and in the open and it will be very easy to charge him using the video as evidence. One would not wish to be in the shoes of Lin Jiaxing.
A few weeks later, a group of 23 officials from the eastern city of Wenzhou were punished after a set of lavish travel expenses for their trip to Las Vegas was posted on the Internet.
During the trip, the officials stayed in a $1,000 a night hotel and visited a sex show in San Francisco. Two of the officials have been fired already. The chances of the others remaining employed are remote.
Plainly, for people in China to find that they have the power to react to bent officials — not all are like that. Probably the same proportion as in the United States or Australia — is an amazing freedom.
Now they have had a taste of ‘human flesh’ there is no doubt that members of the ‘human flesh search engine’ will be eager for more.
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