Update 1: Cheng Wanyun’s legal name (name on ID) is Cheng Aihua (程爱华).
Update 2: Telephone numbers: PSB State Security Office of Nanchong Municipality (南充市公安局国保办公电话): 0817-2803084. PSB of Xichong County (西充县公安局值班电话): 0817-4200085. State security chief of Xichong PSB Zhao Yanlin (西充县公安局国内安全保卫大队负责人：赵晏林主任): 0817-4202969.
Update 3: Cheng Aihua’s father is willing to speak to the media and the public about his daughter’s case. His home number is 0817-4224168.
Update 4: This is believed to be the post that got her in jail: “This is gonna be fun to watch. All manners of ugly bootlicking to please the emperor. We on the other hand would work harder to seek justice for all who have died in earthquakes, school-bus accidents, floods and brutal abortions.”
Update 5: On Chinese New Year’s Eve, AP managed to write a story that everyone is talking about but no one appears to believe: the mysterious “Study Xi Fan Group” account that has garnered nearly 800,000 fans in less than three months and posted real-time, close-up pictures of XJP is owned by a migrant worker who decorates walls in the city of Wuxi (无锡).
Update 6: Cheng Aihua is freed around noon on Monday, Beijing Time, subversion charge against her being revised to “administrative detention.”
Updates 7: The exact words that landed her in jail: “Where is the sniper? Get him for me!” (“狙击手在哪儿？给老子干掉他！”) Mimicking what XJP might say to his security details, she was poking fun at the mysterious fan who seemed to follow XJP closely wherever Xi goes. The case illustrates how ubiquitous, and efficient, internet surveillance is in China.
According to news found on Tencent Weibo and brought to Twitter, on February 6, activist Cheng Wanyun (程婉芸) in Nanchong, Sichuan (四川南充), was detained shortly after she made a comment under a post by Xi Jinping fan club (http://t.qq.com/txuexifensituan/). Well-known activist Liu Shasha (刘沙沙), who spoke to Cheng shortly after the latter arrived at the police station that evening, confirmed the cause of Cheng’s detention. It’s unclear what exactly her comment is, but she apparently didn’t think it was a big deal at all at the time.
Cheng Wanyun posted the following message in her Tencent account “ensslin之梦” before she went to the police station: “My sister-in-law just called, saying the police came all of a sudden taking away my younger brother and the computer in the store. Because it’s the same computer we use both in the store and at home, I don’t know whether it was because something I had said online. My brother didn’t have his cellphone with him, so I am going to the police station right now to find out. My cellphone number: 13488860702.”
That number has since become unreachable.
Cheng’s father told an “information collector” working for Weiquanwang (维权网) that the family received Notice for Criminal Detention (刑事拘留通知书) on the 7th, and the stated allegation is “inciting to subvert state power.” She is currently detained in Xichang Detention Center (西充看守所) in Nanchong, Sichuan.
The family visited Cheng yesterday, and Cheng merely asked her parents to send a few books to her.
Cheng Wanyun’s mother, a Christian, said she didn’t want to trouble her daughter’s friends; instead, she would wait for God to rescue her.
Veteran activist Hu Jia pointed out on Twitter that, in China, public security on district/ municipality level is not authorized to initiate subversion charges, so charge against Cheng Wanyun had to be recommended by Sichuan provincial Committee of Politics and Law (政法委) and Public Security Department (公安厅), and approved by the Party secretary of Sichuan province (四川省委书记) and State Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security (公安部国保局).
There have been no words about legal representation yet. But it is expected to be arranged soon. Meanwhile, the phone number of Xichong Detention Center (四川西充看守所) is: 0817 4229837
Cheng Wanyun is a Christian too, an accountant divorced with a college-going daughter. In 2011, she was detained for months, along with hundreds of others across China during the brutal, wide-spread crackdown on activists whom the government suspected of organizing Jasmine gatherings. She has been very active online, and for a period was a volunteer with the equal education rights campaign in Beijing. Her probation was lifted only a few months ago.
Fellow dissident and activist Hua Ze (华泽) tweeted that “On August 17 and 23, 2012, I interviewed Wanyun for total 4 hours. She recounted what happened to her during the Jasmine crackdown and her participation in defending rights. She’s been in jail twice in less than two years. I’m saddened.”
Over the last few days, Xi Jinping has been inviting “sharp criticism” of the Party and urging the Party to be tolerant. He shouldn’t be surprised that his calls are met with ridicules.
(The XJP fans club link is incorrected; I have corrected it in my post. –Yaxue)
Sources:
http://canyu.org/n67892c6.aspx
http://wqw2010.blogspot.com/2013/02/blog-post_4982.html
https://twitter.com/lss007/status/299891105019867136
https://twitter.com/hu_jia/status/299977011831652352
What has to do being a Christian with the story? anyway, I don’t think God is going to help. Other details would be helpful.
[…] confirmed that the charges against her are in related to her online activities leading observers to assume that her crime was posting a critical comment on the Party Chairman […]
[…] be a reference to Cheng Aihua, who was detained by the police on February 8 after posting on the Tencent Weibo Learn from Xi Fan Club accou…, as reported by Yaxue Cao at Seeing Red in China. Cheng has since been […]
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