Woman sentenced to labor camp for satirical message on Twitter

Associated Press

BEIJING

China has sentenced a woman to a year in a labor camp for “disrupting social order” by re-tweeting a satirical message urging Chinese protesters to smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, an international-rights group said.

Cheng Jianping, 46, re-posted a message from the social-networking site Twitter last month hinting that Chinese protesters should smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo and adding on the message “Angry youth, charge!” according to Amnesty International, which condemned the sentence.

Amnesty and Cheng’s husband said her re-tweet was meant as satire, mocking anti-Japanese demonstrators who had grown in number since tensions between the countries increased after a dispute over islands claimed by both.