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Coronavirus ‘rumour’ crackdown by Wuhan police slammed by China’s top court
- Supreme People’s Court says authorities should have tolerated messages posted about the illness in a group chat, even if they were not completely accurate
- Chinese media report that a doctor posted information about the illness on an alumni forum before coming down with the virus himself
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China’s top court has lashed out at police in the epicentre of a deadly coronavirus outbreak, arguing that Wuhan officers should not have punished a group of people in a medical discussion group for “spreading rumours” about the illness.
In an article published on the Supreme People’s Court’s social media account, a Beijing-based judge said that while the information shared in the group was not accurate, it should have been tolerated.
“It might have been a fortunate thing if the public had believed the ‘rumour’ then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitisation measures, and avoid the wild animal market,” the judge said, referring to a market believed to be the source of the outbreak in Wuhan.
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The article, published on Tuesday under the name of the court’s official mouthpiece, underlines growing dissatisfaction at the initial handling of the outbreak by authorities in the central Chinese city, with delays in the disclosure of information and punishment of those who chose to do so on their own.
It follows an announcement by Wuhan police on January 1 that they had “taken legal measures” against a group of eight people who had recently “spread rumours” on the pneumonia-like illness.
The police did not identify the accused, what they shared, or how they had been punished. On Wednesday, after the article was published, local police said that those people had not been warned, detained or fined, and were only summoned for a talk.
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