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Is China’s Civil Law Creating Literacy Persecution?

The “Hero and Martyr Protection Article” in the General Provision of Civil Law that the Fifth Plenary Session of the 12th National People’s Congress recently passed has generated a lot of scrutiny.

The original draft did not contain that article. During the Plenum, Article 185 was added as, “Those who infringe on the names, portraits, reputations, and honor of heroes and martyrs and damage the public interest should bear civil liability.”

Many people have ridiculed this law: It is very difficult to define “heroes and martyrs” legally. In certain periods, the “heroes and martyrs” that the Communist Party promoted were indeed fake. When people tried to go back to the real truth in history, their comments were treated as malicious slander.

“Those of a certain age can still remember that whoever said something negative about Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution would be imprisoned or killed. Now China has ‘improved.’ Whoever criticizes Mao Zedong or other of the Communist Regime’s ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs’ will not be killed. Instead, the Public Security Bureau and the procuratorate may use a civil lawsuit to destroy his family financially.”

It is called, “to use the Civil Law to create literacy persecution (imprison the author who writes something against the regime’s will).”

Sources:
1. Hk01.com, March 14, 2017
https://www.hk01.com/兩岸/77661/民法總則增新條款擬追究褻瀆烈士行為-學者稱-英雄烈士-難界定
2. Radio Free Asia, March 20, 2017
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/yehuazhongnanhai/gx-03202017133305.html