China has detained a man for publishing alleged false stories on an overseas news portal insinuating gross rights abuses, police said Tuesday, the latest step in a wide-ranging crackdown on “Internet rumours”.
Xiang Nanfu, 62, had posted untrue stories on the Chinese-language site Boxun since 2009 which “seriously harmed the image of the state” and “caused a very bad influence”, a statement on the Beijing police website said.
Hundreds of bloggers and journalists have recently been arrested in past few months as part of a government-backed campaign to assert greater control over social media.
