Party boss's online critic censored and sent for re-education

APPARENTLY dismayed by the power of Bo Xilai, the rising Communist Party leader in the south-central Chinese city of Chongqing, Fang Hong went online and, in crude verse, compared Mr Bo's regard for the rule of law to excrement.

As a result, Mr Fang, 45, a retired forestry worker, is now serving a year's sentence in a Chongqing "re-education through labour" camp.

His travails, revealed only this week, are a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about belittling Communist Party leaders. Since the Middle East erupted in democratic revolts this year, China's rulers have dealt ever more harshly with anything they deem a threat to stability, even while permitting open comment on other issues.

But Mr Fang also picked an especially prominent official to mock.

Mr Bo, Chongqing's populist party secretary, is widely seen as aiming for a spot in the nation's ruling elite when China's leadership turns over next year. Mr Bo has made his mark with theatrical political stunts, including a revival of Mao-era songs and pageantry, and a bare-knuckle crackdown on corruption which some critics have condemned as over-zealous.

It was the anti-corruption campaign that Mr Fang challenged, and which brought swift retribution from the state.

Mr Fang apparently went online to satirise Chongqing's prosecution of Li Zhuang, a well-known lawyer who had defended one of the leading targets of Mr Bo's war on corrupt officials and their backers.

Li was convicted of perjury and spent 18 months in jail, but a range of critics complained that the prosecution had framed him for opposing Mr Bo's campaign, and that the case underscored the degree to which politics had trumped the rule of law.

Mr Fang posted his criticism on the Chinese social network Tencent on 21 April. In it, he compared the case against Mr Li to excrement that Mr Bo had handed to his underlings for delivery to Mr Li - who then returned it, with emphasis, to Mr Bo. For good measure, Mr Fang's post made a crude sexual pun on Mr Bo's name.

On his blog, Mr Fang had commented on supposed miscarriages of justice many times before, but the reaction to his April post was swift. Censors ordered the its deletion the very next day.

An account by Mr Fang's son Fang Di, posted on the website of a lawyer, Chen Youxi, explained what followed.

The elder Mr Fang was invited to visit the local police station for a chat, his house was placed under surveillance and his electricity and gas were shut off. On 24 April, he was detained. And on 25 April he was shipped to a prison for "re-education through labour", a punishment meted out to small-time criminals and political critics by police officials without judicial oversight.Mr Fang's last post appeared on 25 April. It was a message to the lawyer, Mr Chen, who has written about Li Zhaung's trial. It read, "Hello, are you there? I'm looking for you. There is an extremely important matter."

Attempts to reach Fang Di were unsuccessful.

A post on an internet site related to human rights, Weiquan Wang, said that Fang Di vanished on Tuesday afternoon after notifying his lawyer that he was at a local police station.

Most internet references to the Fangs' situation appear to have been erased by censors, but a few survive. In one of them, a political science professor at Beijing's Renmin University, Zhang Ming, repeated the crude word that Mr Fang used to describe the Li Zhuang case. Then he added: "Excuse me, Chongqing police. Please re-educate me through labour."