Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Tuesday 17 april 2018

China's Weibo site backtracks on gay censorship after outcry

By YANAN WANG Hua said a Weibo manag-
Associated Press er told him to stop posting
BEIJING (AP) — One of while the "cleanup" was to
China's top social network- take place. He complied,
ing sites announced Mon- and his announcement
day that it will no longer be that Voice for China LGBT
censoring content related would be going on hiatus
to gay issues after the plan was shared nearly 40,000
triggered a loud public out- times.
cry. Now that Weibo has admit-
Weibo.com was flooded ted its mistake, Hua said,
over the weekend with the it should apologize to the
hashtags "#I'mGay" and LGBT community.
"#I'mGayNotaPervert" after "Like China, which has de-
the Twitter-like platform said veloped so quickly in such
that cartoons and short vid- a short time, sex education
eos with pornographic, vio- in the country is a work in
lent or gay subject matter progress," he said.
would be investigated over On Sunday, more than
a three-month period. 20,000 people marched
The microblogging site, in a "Rainbow Marathon"
which saw its Nasdaq in Nanjing to raise aware-
shares fall on Friday, said In this April 15, 2018 photo released by Jiangsu Tongtian Volunteer Group, participants pose for ness of LGBT issues. While
in its amended post: "This photos during a "Rainbow Marathon," organized months earlier, to raise awareness of LGBT issues the marathon was planned
clean-up of games and in Nanjing in eastern China's Jiangsu province. months in advance, the
cartoons will no longer tar- Associated Press organizer, Lucas Chen,
get gay content." A com- said Weibo's announce-
pany spokesman refused China, the country's inter- say online while still trying to ences as an LGBT person or ment gave it "added signifi-
to clarify how the platform net regulator, did not im- reap the economic ben- a parent of one. cance."
would treat short videos mediately comment. efits of internet use. Hua Zile, the founder of "The main objective of the
with gay content. Regulators have been While homosexuality is not "Voice for China LGBT," marathon is to help every-
The investigation will in- ratcheting up control over illegal in China and few Weibo's first LGBT-themed one courageously come
stead "primarily focus on Chinese microblogs in re- Chinese have religious ob- account, said he was en- out of the closet," Chen
pornographic and violent cent months, ordering op- jections to it, a traditional, couraged by the outrage said. "So it was meaning-
material," Weibo's state- erators like Weibo to set up conservative preference against the site's censorship ful that people online were
ment said. a mechanism to remove for conventional marriage plan. also bravely speaking out
"Thank you everyone for false information after criti- and childbearing creates "The response shows that and showing that they
your discussions and sug- cizing it for allowing prohib- barriers for LGBT people. we LGBT people in China were not defeated by neg-
gestions." ited material to spread. It Following Weibo's initial an- are slowly realizing our ativity."
The company previously was the latest of new mea- nouncement Friday, more rights," Hua said. "Gay peo- The People's Daily, the of-
said that it was acting in sures imposed by President than a million users have ple who would not have ficial paper of the ruling
accordance with China's Xi Jinping's government to viewed hashtags in support spoken out years ago are Communist Party, also ap-
cybersecurity laws. The Cy- tighten control over what of LGBT rights, with many now letting their voices be peared to criticize Weibo in
berspace Administration of China's public can see and sharing their own experi- heard." a Sunday editorial.q

8 suspects in rape, killing of

Indian girl plead not guilty

uary, a week after she went all the charges they faced were all innocent.
missing while grazing her before the next hearing on Six men, including two po-
family's ponies. Police say April 26. lice officers, are accused
the accused men planned The case has led to protests of being directly involved in
the child's kidnapping for across the country and the attacks on the girl. One
over a month as part of a came to national promi- of those policemen also al-
plan to scare her Muslim nence last week when legedly joined in the search
nomadic tribe away from thousands of members of a for her body. Two other po-
the area. Hindu radical group, Hindu licemen were arrested for
A police vehicle carrying the accused in the gang rape and Police said the child was Ekta Manch, or the Hindu attempts to destroy evi-
killing of an 8-year-old Muslim girl arrives at the District and Ses-
sions court in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir, India, Monday, April sedated and held captive Unity Platform, marched dence. At least two law-
16, 2018. at a Hindu temple where in support of the accused makers from India's ruling
Associated Press she was repeatedly raped men. Hundreds of lawyers Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
before being strangled from the local bar associa- Janata Party also spoke out
NEW DELHI (AP) — Eight state pleaded not guilty and bludgeoned to death. tion also tried to prevent in support of the accused.
Hindu men accused in the Monday in their first court The court on Monday in- police from entering a court The case highlights the in-
gang rape and killing of an appearance. structed the investigators complex to place their in- creasing religious polariza-
8-year-old Muslim girl in In- The child's battered body to make sure that the ac- vestigation before a judge tion in India since the BJP
dia's Jammu and Kashmir was found in a forest in Jan- cused men had copies of and said the accused men swept to power in 2014.q