A University of Minnesota student has been arrested in China and sentenced to prison for tweets he posted while in the United States.
Luo Daiqing, 19, was arrested in July 2019 after returning to Wuahn, his hometown, following his spring semester at the University of Minnesota. He was sentenced last November to six months in prison for "provocation."
According to court documents, Daiqing used his Twitter account to criticize Chinese president Xi Jinping.
A full report
from new organization Axios says the Chinese government counted more than 40 comments "denigrating and national leader's imag and idecent pictures." Posts included images of cartoon characters including Winnie the Pooh, a character censored in China.
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement regarding Luo Daiqing on Wednesday: "The Chinese Communist Party ought to release Luo Daiqing immediately, and the University of Minnesota ought to give him a full-ride scholarship. Don't forget that the Chinese Communist Party has banned Twitter, so the only people who even saw these tweets were the goons charged with monitoring Chinese citizens while they're enjoying freedom here in the United States. This is what ruthless and paranoid totalitarianism looks like."
