A popular Chinese blogger, detained for his comments regarding military casualties of Galwan valley clash with India. After which the Chinese government has sentenced him for eight months in prison.
The blogger identified as Qiu Ziming is an internet celebrity. He has more than 2.5 million followers, while on Monday he received a jail term of eight months for `defaming martyrs`, marking the first such case in China since a new amendment was attached to the Criminal Law, reported Global Times. The blogger whose online identity is as `Labixiaoqiu`, was also ordered to publicly apologize through major domestic portals and the national media within 10 days. These ordered were made at a Nanjing court in East China`s Jiangsu Province. The court noted that Qiu had ``truthfully confessed to his crime``, entered a guilty plea and said in court that he would never commit the crime again. On March 1, Qiu made an open apology for his remarks during a broadcast on China`s state broadcaster CCTV. The 38-year-old blogger confessed "I feel extremely ashamed of myself, and I`m very sorry.” The comments came after China admitted for the first time that four of its soldiers had been killed and one seriously wounded in the clash that took place in the Himalayas. Blogger Qiu, a former reporter with the weekly Economic Observer, had published two posts that suggested a commander survived the clashes because he was the highest-ranking officer there. He also suggested that more Chinese soldiers might have been killed in the conflict than those disclosed by the authorities.
The government has always attempted to muzzle critics by making them disappear without a trace. Both the neighborhood countries, India and China have been engaged in a border standoff since last year. The situation along the Line of Actual Control deteriorated in June last year following the Galwan Valley clash. Twenty Indian soldiers lost their lives in the violent face-off on June 15-16.
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