Police in Inner Mongolia have been embroiled in scandal after they arrested a doctor in south China's Guangzhou, dragged him 1,700 miles from his home and detained him for almost 100 days. Dr Tan Qindong was taken after he posted an essay online warning about a medicinal tonic produced by Inner Mongolia's Hongmao Pharmaceutical Company – and used by many elderly people in China – which Dr Tan said was not backed by evidence and might harm people who take it.
China's top national prosecutor, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, ultimately ordered the police to release Dr Tan due to a lack of evidence. Police involvement was controversial given the case appears to have no criminal basis, a commentator for The Paper said. Dr Tan, a practicing doctor with a master's degree in anaesthesiology, wrote an analysis that was scientific in nature and was circulated primarily among doctors, who viewed it around 2,000 times, writes Shen Bin. The commentator also questions what the pharmaceutical company claimed was a causal relationship between the essay's publication and a fall in sales of 800,000 yuan (US$126,000).
China's Criminal Law does criminalize damaging the integrity of a business or product by fabricating claims which cause major losses or other serious outcomes. But given the article doesn't appear to be responsible for the losses – nor could its claims be dismissed outright – the proper remedy for the company would have been civil, and it was illegal for the police to arrest him, Shen said.
Shen concedes Dr Tan should not have used the word 'poison' in his essay, but criticizes the police for conflating inapt language with criminal behaviour. While praising what he called recent efforts to combat online rumours, he warned Dr Tan's case harmed the right to expression.