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Chinese rage comic firm first to be sued for defamation under ‘heroes and martyrs’ law

Online platform operator ordered to pay US$14,500 in compensation to family of civil war general defamed in spoof film

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Relatives of Ye Ting, a Chinese military leader who died in 1946, successfully sued a company that published a video clip that parodied one of his poems. Photo: Handout

The company behind the popular Chinese “rage comics” that were censored earlier this year for defaming a civil war general has been ordered to pay his relatives 100,000 yuan (US$14,500) in compensation.

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Ye Ting fought for the Communists in the war and was jailed for five years after being captured by the opposition Nationalists. Soon after his release in 1946 he was killed in a plane crash.

Seven of Ye’s relatives filed a civil lawsuit for defamation against Xian Momo Information Technology in May, soon after it had been ordered to shut down Baozou Manhua, its online platform for rage comics which at the time was the biggest in the country.

The ban, which followed the enactment of China’s new Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law on May 1, was imposed because a video shown on the website used a poem written by Ye while he was incarcerated as the basis for a spoof of contemporary advertising for abortions.

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The film, which had originally been shown in 2014, also mocked Dong Cunrui, a People’s Liberation Army soldier who died in a suicide mission to blow up an enemy bunker during the civil war, although that element of the clip was unrelated to the defamation suit.

Xian Yanta District People’s Court in northwest China’s Shaanxi province ruled on Friday that the video had damaged Ye’s reputation and caused a “negative influence” on society, People’s Daily reported the same day.

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