Beijing: Two men in China have been punished with detention in separate cases for starting or spreading website rumours and causing public unease.
Both will face 10-day administrative detention, Xinhua quoted China’s Law of Punishment for Public Security and Administration as saying.
In one case, a 25-year-old man surnamed Li in Chenzhou City of Hunan province spread false information, warning locals “not to hang out in highly populated areas” as “the police had seized dozens of knives in Ailian Lake Park of the city”.
“These knives are pretty much the same as those used in the terrorist attack at Kunming Railway Station (March 1),” his post read.
The information was forwarded by microbloggers and messaging app WeChat users, triggering unease, police said.
In second case, a man surnamed Jiang in Yichang City of Hubei province said on his microblog at sina.com Tuesday night that in a “major incident” “a child was poisoned to death by teachers of Jinbei Kindergarten in Yichang City”.
“Even though the teachers there fed antiviral drugs to kids out of kindness, it is not acceptable… It’s so heart-wrenching,” the post read.
Jiang was arrested at a rental property in downtown Yichang early Wednesday morning.
He told police that he did it “to attract the attention of netizens”.