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Uniqlo sex video couple arrested, say Chinese authorities Uniqlo sex video couple arrested, say Chinese authorities
(34 minutes later)
Related: Uniqlo sex video: film shot in Beijing store goes viral and angers governmentRelated: Uniqlo sex video: film shot in Beijing store goes viral and angers government
Chinese police have detained five people including a young couple over a sex tape shot in a Beijing clothing store that went viral, according to reports. Chinese police have detained five people after a sex video made in a Uniqlo clothing store changeroom went viral online and incurred Beijing’s wrath for violating the Communist party’s “core socialist values”.
Those detained include the couple suspected of shooting the video, which shows a mostly clothed man and a naked woman apparently having sex in the changing room of a Uniqlo store in the capital. The video – shot in the fitting room of a Beijing branch of the Japanese chain – appeared on the internet and became an immediate online sensation viewed by millions.
The clip rapidly spread on China’s Twitter-like Weibo and mobile messaging service WeChat, with scores of people taking selfies outside the outlet, some mimicking the poses seen in the footage. The video’s two participants – a young man and woman whose names have not been revealed – were among five people who had since been taken into police custody, Chinese state media reported on Sunday.
Police detained the couple on Wednesday night, a few hours after the footage went viral, media said on Sunday, citing an earlier report by state-run broadcaster Beijing Television. “Both the man and the women in the video are in the wrong,” Liu Ning, a Chinese lawyer, told Beijing TV.
“Five people were taken away by police including the man and woman who played the main role,” said a report on the channel. “Fitting rooms provide some level of privacy but they are still public places. This kind of behaviour in a public place is inappropriate and could even violate public security management regulations.”
“The police investigation has two main parts: who published this unsavoury video, and was it an example of hype by the business [Uniqlo],” it added.
China’s online regulator the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said late Wednesday that distributing the footage was “against socialist core values”.
Related: China’s young people have spoken. And what they want is sex | Jemimah SteinfeldRelated: China’s young people have spoken. And what they want is sex | Jemimah Steinfeld
The CAC had ordered senior managers of Weibo’s operator Sina and Tencent, owner of WeChat, to co-operate in an investigation, the agency said in a statement. Authorities have expressed disgust at the one-minute pornographic video, which China’s internet watchdog said had spread “like a virus”.
China’s Communist party oversees a vast censorship system – dubbed the Great Firewall – that aggressively blocks sites or suppresses content and commentary that is pornographic, violent or deemed politically sensitive. Yet for all Beijing’s anger Chinese people have largely reacted with laughter. The scene of the alleged crime has become a compulsory site of pilgrimage for selfie-taking Chinese and even some foreign tourists. T-shirts celebrating the now notorious liaison can be found on online shopping websites.
Popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are inaccessible in the country, as is YouTube. Uniqlo has denied online rumours that the video was part of a viral marketing campaign. However, Beijing police suspected “the case may possibly be a publicity stunt”, state-run China Radio International reported on Sunday.
“Gossip-style marketing is becoming increasingly common,” an editorial in the Global Times tabloid noted last week, lamenting how the internet had become a “free kingdom”.
Liu Ning, the lawyer, told Beijing TV: “Whoever posted this video online risks being accused of spreading obscenities. Publishing this video is not just a simple matter of violating other people’s privacy but could also constitute a criminal offence.”
Additional reporting Luna Lin