Shanghai11:38AM GMT 19 Nov 2012
Friends say Zhai Xiaobing, 36, was taken into custody on the eve of China’s 18th Communist Party Congress, after he used Twitter to post online a spoof film synopsis in which China’s top leaders were killed when the roof of Beijing’s Great Hall of the People caved in.
“The Great Hall [of the People] collapses all of a sudden,” the tweet said.
“All 2,000 plus people in the meeting died instantly except for 7 of them. But the seven died mysteriously one after another.”
“How did the mysterious number 18 unlock the gates of Hell?” Mr Zhai added on Twitter, which is blocked but widely used in China.
Thousands of activists and campaigners were detained or forced from Beijing during the sensitive political handover after coming under pressure from China’s massive state security apparatus.
On Monday, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group claimed that at least two petitioners had died after being assaulted during a Congress-related crackdown on dissent. Among them was Zhang Yaodong, a petitioner from Henan province, who was allegedly beaten to death in police custody three days before the Congress began.
With the Congress now over some of Beijing’s temporarily exiled activists have returned home.
But friends say Mr Zhai has yet to be released from a detention centre in Beijing’s Miyun county.
“Zhai’s family is really worried and panicking. They just hope Zhai can get out soon,” said Liu Yanping, a blogger and the assistant of Chinese artisit Ai Weiwei.
Hu Jia, a prominent human rights activist who has signed an online petition in support of the blogger, said Mr Zhai’s Tweet was a “teasing way of showing dissatisfaction.”
“He simply showed his aversion to the government. We all felt the absurdity of this matter,” he said, attributing Mr Zhai’s arrest to sensitivities around China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition.
“At the time authorities were so nervous they were on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” he said.
Wu Gan, a Fujian-based blogger, said Mr Zhai’s arrest “makes everyone a potential criminal.” “Every word we say may cross the line. It is really a horrible thing. The whole world is moving forward with the free speech trend, and we are swimming against it.” “It is unbelievable they’d take it seriously,” he added.
Ai Xiaoming, a Guangdong-based scholar and documentary maker, also defended the blogger.
“If the authorities regard the joke as inappropriate, they can fight back and argue on open platforms, but not jail people for a literary offence,” she said.
“If Zhai gets released soon, it will send out a good signal for the new government. If not, it will extinguish the remaining faith and hope in the government.”
