-Defaming martyrs, attacking Police to be punished under new amendments in Criminal Law
BEIJING: China’s top judiciary authorities added 22 clauses, including defaming martyrs, attacking police and disturbing operation of public transportation, into the Criminal Law in a supplementary regulation, which will come into effect on Monday.
The regulation was published by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Saturday. The newly added crimes also include illegally implanting gene editing and cloning embryos, hunting and selling terrestrial wildlife, producing and selling counterfeit drugs, and throwing objects from high buildings. Most of the newly added clauses have triggered heated public discussion and debate on social media. According to the supplementary article of the Criminal Law, those who insult, slander or otherwise infringe upon the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention if the circumstances are serious. The addition of this clause into the Criminal Law came after seven people were detained last week for defaming in cyberspace the Chinese martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the Galwan Valley border clash with India in June 2020. Other parts of the amendment of the law relate to violent assault on police, specifying that those who attack the police during their duties will be punished by up to three years of imprisonment. The amendment came amid a surge in attacks on the police in China. On January 22, a man in Hong Kong was sentenced to nine months in prison for attempting to throw bricks at a police officer during an illegal gathering in Tsim Sha Tsui in 2019. The inclusion of the act of disrupting public transportation in the regulation also came in response to calls from the public after a fatal bus plunge in Southwest China’s Chongqing in 2018, in which a passenger attacked the driver with fists and caused the driver’s hand to come off the steering wheel, leading to the confirmed deaths of 13 people and two still missing.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
