Rock singer fined, under detention

A rock singer detained in Beijing on suspicion of “fabricating fake terrorism information” has been moved from criminal detention to administrative detention and will be set free on Aug 2, the singer's lawyer said on Wednesday.

Wu Hongfei, lead singer of the rock band Happy Avenue, was detained and placed under criminal detention after she posted comments on the micro blog site Sina Weibo on July 21 saying that she wanted to blow up the offices of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The blog post was quickly deleted, but not before it was circulated on the Internet, and police detained Hongfei with a view to pressing criminal charges carrying a possible five-year sentence.

Chen Jiangang, Wu's lawyer, said on Wednesday that police in Beijing's Chaoyang district had informed him that the singer had been transferred to administrative detention that will last 10 days.

The singer will also be fined 500 yuan ($81) as punishment for her comments, police said.

However, talking to China Daily on Wednesday, Chen could not say whether Wu might face criminal charges in the future.

While Wu's micro blog post was removed from the Internet early on, versions of it are still circulating online. However, there is little indication of the motivations for Wu's apparent threats, nor why she directed her wrath at these particular government offices.

Wu's arrest comes in the wake of several violent incidents across China, including one on July 20, in which a man set off a small homemade bomb at the Beijing Capital International Airport, injuring himself and a security guard. Ji Zhongxing set off the explosion in protest at an alleged attack by police in Guangdong province in 2005 that left him paralyzed from the waist down.