Shoe thrower said to be sought by Chinese police
Whether the target is an American president visiting Iraq or a notorious mastermind of Internet censorship in China, there is a temptation for some to find amusing the political protest act of tossing a shoe.
While that’s understandable on one level, Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who in 2008 threw a shoe at President George W. Bush, would probably have advised the latest leather-hurler in the news to have held his fire. Al-Zaidi served nine months in prison for his outburst, and not before reportedly being tortured.
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Apparently undeterred, however, an as-yet-anonymous man this week threw a shoe (and eggs) at Fang Binxing, who is known as the father of “The Great Firewall of China,” while Fang was speaking at Wuhan University.
The man, whose Twitter account is @hanunyi (it’s in Chinese), explains his motivation in an IDG News Service story on our site:
“I spend money to buy all this official software, but I can’t use it (because of the censorship). This has made me really unhappy,” the man said in an email message. He did not specify what software he is using.
Chinese microblogs have been abuzz with postings about Fang Binxing, often called “Father of China’s Great Firewall”, being hit with a shoe while speaking at Wuhan University. The assailant tweeted about the act on his Twitter account, adding that he also threw eggs at Fang, which missed.
Chinese authorities are said to be searching for the man, and, given his penchant for public boasting, it’s likely that he will not be difficult to find.
And what are the odds that the Chinese authorities will be more lenient than were their Iraqi counterparts?
You can read more about Fang on Wikipedia, which has already been updated to include the shoe-throwing incident.
Aside from Al-Zaidi’s jail term, the incident involving Bush spawned a host of online shoe-throwing video games, so many, in fact, that they inspired a Top 10 list.
The targeting of Fang will likely to do the same, although I wouldn’t want to be caught distributing such frivolity in China.
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