Followers of an X account that circulates news censored in China find themselves in hot tea for ‘thought crime’.

By Nectar Gan and Yong Xiong | CNN

Summary

The Chinese followers of a popular X account known for circulating information about China’s “White Paper Protests” and news otherwise censored in China, are receiving summons for tea from the country’s Ministry of Public Security.

To “have tea” in China is a euphemism for police questioning which, in this case, is focused on the X account Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher belonging to Li Ying, a Chinese artist turned dissident based in Italy. Under the handle @whyyoutouzhele, Li reposts images and videos followers send him before they are wiped from Chinese social media by censors.

His account surged in popularity for its dissemination of information related to the “White Paper Protests” in 2022 prompted by China’s severe COVID-19 lockdowns.

A CNN report on the Ministry of Public Security’s interest in Li’s followers, spotlights a call to tea one Chinese follower, a lawyer identified as Lee, received in February. Lee told CNN that once he was at the police station “it became clear that the officer had only one target in mind.”

“The police asked me if I followed the account ‘Teacher Li is not your teacher,’ but I honestly didn’t know,” said Lee, who, under the watch of an officer, found the account and unfollowed it. Once he left the station, however, he refollowed Teacher Li “the moment I stepped out of the door.”

“Teacher Li’s content tells the truth. He’s one of the few accounts on X who don’t talk nonsense,” said Lee, adding that he does not feel “any sense of fear because I’ve done nothing bad or wrong.”

According to the CNN report, Li warned his Chinese readers the Ministry of Public Security was going through his 1.6 million following “one by one” and to unfollow him and protect their accounts. At the current time, Li’s count is holding strong at 1.4 million.

Yaqiu Wang, a research director for China with the advocacy group Freedom House, told CNN that police interrogations for merely following an X account is an escalation from the past, when X users were usually targeted for expressing their own views.

“To the authorities, following a certain account means that you are thinking of the wrong things in your head and should be punished, in other words, committing ‘thought crimes,’” she said. “This is a clear sign of the Chinese government’s further tightening control of freedom of expression in the country.”

Read the full report at the publisher’s website here