APRIL 3, 2015 10:08 AM April 3, 2015 10:08 am
An anti-graft campaigner who was detained for allegedly soliciting a prostitute said on Friday that he planned to take legal action against the authorities he said set him up and tried to publicly shame him in retaliation for his investigations into official corruption.
“We will sue very soon,” the campaigner, Ou Shaokun, who was released on Thursday, said in a telephone interview. “I wasn’t in detention for more than 30 minutes before they released my name. Is that not that a deliberate effort to blacken my name? I told the authorities that the definition of soliciting prostitutes involves a financial transaction and sexual activity, neither of which I did. So how can you use a prostitution charge to accuse me?”
The detention in Changsha last week of Mr. Ou, 61, attracted national news media attention, with newspapers such as The Beijing News and The Beijing Times running commentaries questioning the police action. Mr. Ou, also widely known as Uncle Ou, is a former Guangzhou government employee who first gained prominence by helping local villagers organize and devise ways to fight land seizures. More recently, he has gathered a large following online by posting photos of officials improperly using government vehicles for private purposes.
In the past, embarrassed officials have responded by beating Mr. Ou or offering him bribes to halt his activities. On March 26, hours after he posted photos of government vehicles he suspected were being used privately in Shaoshan, Mao Zedong’s hometown in Hunan Province, he was taken into custody in nearby Changsha, the provincial capital.
In an interview with Thepaper.cn, a state-financed media site, after his release, Mr. Ou said he had traveled to Hunan Province last week with Xian Yaojun, another campaigner for villagers’ rights in Guangzhou, at the invitation of a man who had approached Mr. Ou online expressing support for his anti-graft activities. The man, who used the online name of Chun Sang, met Mr. Ou and Mr. Xian when they arrived in Changsha and took them to meet a man he said was his boss, Chen Jialuo.
Mr. Chen offered to cover all expenses for the trip, and Mr. Ou said he accepted. The report on the interview posted by Thepaper.cn has since been deleted.
Mr. Chen hosted the men at dinner and then invited them to a karaoke bar, Mr. Ou said. After a few songs, Mr. Ou excused himself, saying he felt unwell, and he returned to his room at a four-star hotel, which Mr. Chen had paid for.
A woman Mr. Ou said he had seen speaking with Mr. Chen earlier then knocked on his door, entered his room and undressed. Mr. Ou said they had just begun to kiss when the police burst into the room and took photographs. Mr. Xian was also taken into custody with a woman.
