Chinese law professor falls foul of online backlash over posts defending Hong Kong protesters
- Academic from Nanchang Hangkong University faces ‘serious punishment’ after screenshots of private WeChat discussion in which he appeared to challenge official narrative are leaked online
- Niu Jie has personal details leaked after becoming latest mainland figure to suffer nationalist backlash
A Chinese professor has become the latest target of an online backlash on the mainland after his chat messages that appeared to support the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters were leaked online.
Niu Jie, a law professor at Nanchang Hangkong University in eastern China, was targeted by angry Weibo users, some of whom published his personal details, on Wednesday for his messages, which appeared to have been written in a private WeChat group.
The university in Jiangxi province acknowledged in an official Weibo post on Wednesday that it had investigated Niu’s “inappropriate remarks” and pledged “serious punishment” for the professor.
“These so-called rioters are all kids, they haven’t killed a single person,” read one of his message lines.
Chat logs show that he posted photos of schoolchildren arrested by riot police, and implied that Monday’s incident of a middle-aged man in Ma On Shan being set on fire by protesters was “fake” when challenged by another group chat user.
Weibo users were particularly irked by his assertions that the man set on fire was purely acting, and many asked Niu how it would feel to personally experience such an anti-humanitarian act.