Photo: Weibo
Citizens posted on China’s Weibo and WeChat social media sites with the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech to express their outrage over the Chinese government’s early attempts tohide the threat of disease, as well as anger about Dr. Li Wenliang’s death.
Li returned to work at the hospital, where patients were coming in with the deadly respiratory illness. He developed a cough on Jan. 10 and was formally diagnosed with coronavirus on Saturday. He died Thursday, Wuhan Central Hospital confirmed.
That night, Weibo and WeChat filled with anger-filled posts about his death.
“I haven’t seen my WeChat timeline filled with so much forlornness and outrage,” Xu Danei, founder of a social media analytics company, wrote on WeChat,The New York Timesreported. “Tonight is a monumental moment for our collective conscience,” he wrote in another post.
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Another poster wrote: “A system that won’t allow truth finally kills an honest, brave, and hard-working citizen. We should be not only angered but also ashamed! Why can’t people have freedom of speech? Why can’t we question?”
That post and more than 2 million more under the #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech were quickly censored or deleted,The Washington Postreported. Li’s name is currently the most censored term on Weibo, according tofreeweibo.com, a site that exposes the blocked terms on the Twitter-like social network.
“He was an ordinary figure, but a symbol,” Zhang Lifan, an independent historian in Beijing, told thePostabout the online rage. “If it weren’t for the epidemic and nobody could leave their home, there would likely be demonstrations right now. Officials are absolutely concerned.”
There are now31,530 confirmed casesof the new coronavirus worldwide, the majority of which are in mainland China. As of Feb. 7, 638 people have died from the illness — all but two deaths were in mainland China.
source: people.com
