Chinese student given 9-month prison sentence for harassing person posting democracy leaflets
A former Berklee College of Music student from China was sentenced Wednesday to nine months in prison for stalking and threatening a person who posted a flyer in support of democracy in the Asian country, authorities said.
The leaflet that was posted on the campus in Boston on Oct. 22 read, “Stand with Chinese People,” along with other statements such as “We Want Freedom” and “We Want Democracy,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said.
In response, Xiaolei Wu, 26, threatened to chop off the person’s hands, reported their family to China’s public security agency, asked others to find out where the person was living and publicly posted their email address, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Wu’s criminal conduct is very serious. He harnessed the fear of potential retribution from the PRC government to harass and threaten an innocent individual who had posted an innocuous, pro-democracy flier on the Berklee campus,” acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement. “Mr. Wu’s violent threats achieved his goal of instilling fear in his effort to silence this brave victim and others who might want to speak out against the PRC government.”
https://apnews.com/article/china-student-conviction-berklee-college-of-music-3f28d880226150f3d26a6a3981137f93Open linkView original on lemmy.world
It's sad that this will have no impact on the china simps.
It sucks even more that the victim was terrorized and that it's entirely likely that their family will actually be retaliated against.
Bunch of hypocrites... they come to the west and enjoy the freedom and benefits of a free country and then still support the the ditactorial and oppressing chinese regime...
This guy didn't come to West for freedom, he come to be educated by, and live in, the current global hegemonic power. By itself that is valuable experience, but it also carries significant social and political currency to the individual when they move back to China.
They didn't come for freedom, this person surely has some wealthy parents who sent him to the US to get the US university diploma. That's the sole purpose of them being in the US.
They are the Texans of countries. Can't shut the duck up about where they're from but you couldn't fuckin pay them to go back.
Holy crap that's spot on. I'm gonna be repeating that observation about Texans as it's painfully true about the ones in my city.
Yeah and then they got a music degree. That is not something that's going to be useful back home so presumably it's about prestige rather than anything else.
...
So that person's family members were granted asylum, right?
Right?
One would hope... We would have to get them here first though which seems very unlikely :/
Yeah, harassing 🙄🙄
This is like those students in the UK who prevented a student from completing their presentation because they were talking about Taiwan in terms of being a country. I guess that this is what propaganda does for you.
lol what was in the flier to set this psychopath off?
The words freedom and democracy… scaaaary
For Super Earth.
Chinese anti-democracy sentiment engrained in its people
Come on, do you really believe that? Dude was living in America, if democracy was the sleeper activation phrase that causes him to threaten to cut off a woman's hands, it would have happened years ago.
It's probably different when he sees it coming from a fellow Chinese citizen.
And it was specifically about pushing for democracy in China, not just generalized pro-democracy content
A Winnie Pooh reference maybe.
It didn't matter, it was symbolic. They took it as a personal attack.
I hope he is immediately deported as soon as his sentence is over.
Can we.... Can we chop off his hands as punishment? Only befitting a music student