Courts step up efforts to protect reputations of heroes, martyrs

Over the past few years, Chinese courts have intensified efforts to protect the reputations of heroes and martyrs by harshly cracking down on behavior that denigrates them, in a move to help advance law-based governance and uphold justice.

The Supreme People's Court, China's top court, published 10 influential cases concerning heroes and martyrs on Thursday, urging society to remember the contributions made by those people and enhancing legal awareness to protect their reputations.

In one case the court disclosed, a man surnamed Qiu was sentenced to eight months in prison by a court in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, last year for making posts online that distorted the heroic deeds of Chinese soldiers who died in a border clash with Indian troops in June 2020.

The court ruled that Qiu — who went by "labixiaoqiu" online and had more than 2.5 million followers on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform — had greatly harmed society as his posts had been forwarded over 200,000 times before he was ordered to remove them.

In addition to the sentence, Qiu was also required to make a public apology on major websites and national media.

While strengthening punishments, courts nationwide have also stepped up efforts to implement compensation policies for families of heroes and martyrs and provide services to protect their memorial facilities.

The SPC said compensation can help solve some of the practical problems that martyrs' family members face in terms employment, education and healthcare, and protecting facilities creates a better environment for Chinese people to memorialize heroes and martyrs.