“I’ve been warned not to talk about it,” the woman wrote, before revealing snippets of the day she says she was arrested for publishing gay erotica.

“I’ll never forget it - being escorted to the car in full view, enduring the humiliation of stripping naked for examination in front of strangers, putting on a vest for photos, sitting in the chair, shaking with fear, my heart pounding.”

The handle, Pingping Anan Yongfu, is among at least 8 in recent months which have shared accounts on Chinese social media platform Weibo of being arrested for publishing gay erotic fiction. As authors recounted their experiences, dozens of lawyers offered pro bono help.

At least 30 writers, nearly all of them women in their 20s, have been arrested across the country since February, a lawyer defending one told the BBC. Many are out on bail or awaiting trial, but some are still in custody. Another lawyer told the BBC that many more contributors were summoned for questioning.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 day ago

      Clearly, the BBC made it all up. Because it contradicts them. /s

      Literally the newest top-level comment right now.

    • Corn@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      To be clear, writing and posting erotica isn’t illegal, its profiting off it that was illegal, which is still fucked, but less of a free speech issue.

        • Corn@lemmy.ml
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          14 hours ago

          Correct. But at the same time, once you understand your speech is limited by your reach, which is determined by how big of a megaphone the capitalists will let you have, it becomes more murky. You can say whatever you want in America, and if the government doesnt like it, you will be silenced and ignored. The same applies in China, but there is a greater record of the government actually listening, though often to the worst groups, such as nimbys protesting the expansion of the Shangai maglev and assholes protesting even limited lockdowns in the city with the most covid that keeps infecting the rest of the country.

    • PolydoreSmith@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      You don’t even have to be charged with anything before ICE grabs you off the street at throws you in a van in the US…

    • VitoRobles@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      It’s really weird and kinda reddit-like to see a human rights violation and twist the story to be about some online community.

          • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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            10 hours ago

            Nope, that’s been used for decades you are just seeing the limitations of google’s tools as it happened in places they do not index

            • nomoreyknsfaf@lemmings.world
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              10 hours ago

              I mean there’s something very hypocritical in westerners, living in the countries who manufacture, sell, sometime give actual tanks all over the world, calling people “tankies” lmao

              We get it, the ussr sent tanks in the 80ies. Your country sent tanks half a dozen time since then, idiot. There are tanks doing genocide right now in gaza.

              • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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                10 hours ago

                No, there isn’t. Anyone claiming to support the liberation of the working classes while praising authoritarian systems that are cracking down on those populations looking for freedom are hypocrites.

                It’s weird you would make this about geographic location. Are you doing that because you don’t have a valid critique?

            • nomoreyknsfaf@lemmings.world
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              10 hours ago

              Prove it

              The term continued to be used into the 1980s, especially in relation to the split between the reform-minded eurocommunist wing of the CPGB and the traditionalist, pro-Soviet group, the latter continuing to be labelled tankies. The term is sometimes used within the Labour Party as slang for a politically old-fashioned leftist. Alastair Campbell reported a conversation about modernising education, in which Tony Blair said: “I’m with George Walden on selection.” Campbell recalled: “DM [David Miliband] looked aghast … [Blair] said when it came to education, DM and I were just a couple of old tankies.”[26] In 2015, Boris Johnson referred to Jeremy Corbyn and the left wing of the Labour Party as “tankies and trots”, the latter referring to Trotskyism.[27][b]

              Used by great people like tony blair and bobo the clown lmao

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          23 hours ago

          Yes, that’s exactly what they’re talking about and you’re being extremely weird in making it a priority of discussion on something at best tangentially related.

          It’s just a straw man writ large because you’re miffed at another online argument you had somewhere else.

          • breecher@sh.itjust.works
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            15 hours ago

            We are referring to the staunch defenders of the system which this thread is about, defenders who are very proactive on lemmy. The fact that you cannot see the relevance is on you.

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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              13 hours ago

              Just because you feel like the straw men deserve it doesn’t change that you’re arguing with hypotheticals versions you’ve created instead of actual people.

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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              13 hours ago

              You’ve literally defined the argument of an opposing group to look stupid so you can dunk on them. You’re arguing with a straw man. This isn’t even a critique of your rhetorical basis though, it’s just normal Internet lameness.

              • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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                13 hours ago

                You cannot present a strawman argument when the side you are arguing against isn’t present. Thus I was not making a straw man. That’s just insulting tankies

                Don’t bring these up unless you understand them and in this case you do not.

                • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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                  13 hours ago

                  Lol, what? Do you seriously think you cannot create a straw man argument in anything but direct debate? Sure Mr. Smartman.

                  Hint, logical fallacies are about the logic, not the debate.

                  • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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                    13 hours ago

                    I think you need to be actually arguing with someone to make an argument against them, yes. You cannot make an argument when you aren’t doing so. You need to be debating to make logical fallacies. No one was doing that hence no one made a strawman argument.

                    Do you need this further explained? No argument was made. The side you are claiming I am making a strawman argument against is not present. There is no debate.

                    You used it wrong. Learn from this and move on. Don’t misuse them in the future.

      • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        24 hours ago

        “some” = the one that’s the basis of and technically closely tied to the one you’re using right now

    • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Che Guevara, from Desalinas PFP, was also rather homophonic. I wouldn’t make it a point of purity testing. People in the past did things according to their time (not saying its justified).

      The .ml crew has enought to criticize today. Big part them being a different flavor of impiralism