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    NEWS

    Celeb’s Fans Irate Over Stalker’s Slap-on-the-Wrist Punishment

    A man has received seven days’ detention for interrupting a live television broadcast to “propose” to an actress he had allegedly been stalking and harassing for months.

    A Chinese man has been given administrative detention after interrupting a live television broadcast to “propose” to a celebrity he’d allegedly been stalking and harassing for half a year, The Beijing News reported Tuesday.

    Dilraba Dilmurat — a 28-year-old Uighur actress who is among China’s richest celebrities, according to Forbes — was in the middle of a live broadcast in what appears to be a studio in the central Chinese city of Changsha when a man rushed the stage, according to a video clip shared by domestic media.

    On Sunday, fans of the actress, who is widely known as simply Dilireba, wrote in a post on microblogging platform Weibo that the man had been taken into police custody, according to Dilireba’s agency.

    The fan group added that the man’s stalking and harassment of their idol over such a long period of time should be treated seriously, and netizens have suggested the seven-day detention was too lenient a punishment.

    “This kind of behavior shouldn’t be casually dismissed as a so-called proposal, as it has already seriously threatened her personal safety,” the fan group wrote.

    News of this incident has attracted immense attention on Weibo, where a related hashtag has been viewed over 740 million times. Many users have suggested that the man’s unsolicited gesture should constitute sexual harassment.

    “Exalting sexual harassment as a ‘marriage proposal’ encourages criminal behavior. It misrepresents criminals’ unilateral actions as involving two parties, and it ignores and diminishes the harm women suffer,” one Weibo user wrote. “A popular female celebrity encounters sexual harassment and still can’t protect her rights — what about ordinary women in the same situation.”

    Yang Wenzhan, a lawyer and key opinion leader on Weibo, noted that under China’s public security administration punishments law, such harassment could result in a fine or detention for up to 15 days.

    “Harassing others — especially repeatedly interfering with other people’s normal work and life, using this as an excuse to pick quarrels and provoke trouble — would constitute an infringement,” the lawyer wrote.

    Editor: David Paulk.

    (Header image: Dilraba Dilmurat reacts after a man “proposes” to her during a live television broadcast in Changsha, Hunan province, June 7, 2020. According to the actress’ agency, the man had been stalking and harassing her for months. From Weibo)