Woman Detained for Calling Official ‘Idiot’

A woman in Bijie, Southwest China’s Guizhou Province was illegally detained by police for three days after calling her community’s Party secretary an “idiot,” authorities said. According to the woman surnamed Ren, she directed the insult through WeChat to the Party secretary because the official was rude after she made a complaint about her community’s newly hired property management company. Police detained Ren for defamation, which is a civil charge, not a criminal one. Law enforcement in Bijie later admitted that officers had illegally detained Ren and promised to investigate for corruption, as Ren alleged that the Party secretary’s ex-husband is a police officer in Bijie.