Chinese doctor who called health tonic ‘poison’ released after public outcry
After three months behind bars, Tan Qindong says he is looking forward to getting back to being ‘a good doctor’
The Chinese doctor who was detained for three months for describing a health tonic as “poison” was released on Tuesday following a public outcry as to why police became involved in a civil dispute.
Tan Qindong, who had been held at a detention centre in Liang county, northern China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, since January, said he was looking forward to going back to work.
“I’ll go back and be a good doctor,” he was quoted as saying by the Shanghai-based news website Thepaper.cn. “This is what a doctor should do.”
Tan’s release came after the Communist Party’s Central Politics and Law Commission, which oversees the police, published a commentary on its social media platform late on Monday to address growing public concern about the case.
It said that while it was inappropriate for Tan to refer to the drink, made by made by Hongmao Pharmaceutical Company, as “poison”, it was debatable whether the dispute was a criminal matter that warranted his arrest.
