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Film star sex scandal causes internet storm in China

Jonathan Watts
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday February 12 2008

A Chinese website showing a photo of film star Zhang Bia Zhi,
allegedly taken from Edison Chen’s laptop. Photograph: Dan Chung

An unlikely coalition of pop idols, communist censors, Hong Kong police and a Catholic bishop are fighting to stifle the biggest celebrity sex scandal in the history of the Chinese internet.

They are struggling to halt the spread of thousands of lurid digital photographs apparently showing one of Hong Kong’s most famous actors, Edison Chen, in bed with eight of the territory’s top actresses, singers and businesswomen.

The images were illegally copied from a customised pink Macbook belonging to the star, best known for the Infernal Affairs police films. They have prompted a media frenzy here that has, in terms of scale and interest, utterly eclipsed the fixation about Britney Spears on the English-language web.

As well as crashing internet servers in celebrity-obsessed Hong Kong, the gossip has spread to the mainland, where one online discussion about the subject generated more than 25m page views and 140,000 comments.

Police investigating the cause of the scandal have focused on Chen’s pink laptop, which he nicknamed Cotton Candy Mac. According to local newspapers, the photographs were illegally copied from the computer while it was being serviced by technicians.

Since the first images appeared more than two weeks ago, an unknown culprit has uploaded dozens of fresh pictures every day, each time putting more celebrities into more compromising positions.

Emperor Entertainment Group – the management company for Chen and at least one other of the stars pictured in the videos – iinitially claimed the pictures were fabricated. But Chen has since made an apology.

“The lives of many innocent people have been affected by this malicious and criminal conduct. And in this regard, I’m filled with pain, hurt and frustration. I hereby use this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has been affected by this strange, strange ordeal,” he said in a short video statement.

The Vancouver-born actor and rap singer called upon anyone in possession of the images not to pass them on.

“I urge you to please destroy them immediately. Let’s help the wounded heal their wounds. I urge you to help the victims and not make it any worse.”

As the pictures spread like wildfire, a similar appeal was made by the John Tong, the Catholic bishop of Hong Kong.

“It is also biblical teaching that we should speak no evil, see no evil and hear no evil. It is important that we should keep our mind decent and perhaps needless to say, we should not post or circulate pictures,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Criticism has been mixed with sympathy for the victims. Bloggers accused pop singer Gillian Chung of hypocrisy because she was making speeches against pre-marital sex at about the same as she was photographed apparently doing the opposite with Chen.

“I admit that I was naive and very silly, but I’ve grown up now,” Chung told a packed press conference yesterday.

Hong Kong police have arrested eight suspects and warned that people may be prosecuted for sharing the images. This has prompted a march by several hundred free speech activists, who believe the crackdown has gone too far.

But the daily leak of new images has continued on servers in the US and Australia, circulated through photo sharing website Flickr, by email and passed on by hand in the form of shared memory devices.

The gossip has spread rapidly to the mainland, where internet sources say it is dominating celebrity news forums even though censors remove the images almost as soon as they are put up.

On the popular Tianya bulletin board, a single discussion string about the veracity of the pictures has attracted 25.8 million page views and 140,000 comments.

Visitors to the Tianya site also share tips on where to download the latest images, criticism about the behaviour of the stars and – in one or two extreme cases – speculation about when the victims might commit suicide.

The condemnatory tone of many postings has prompted some commentators to turn on the gossipers.

“You people are very hypocritical, scolding the female stars at the same time waiting for new photos and links,” wrote one poster.

Mindful that similar discussion groups have been closed down, along with links to the forbidden images, Tianya switched its tone today.

A new discussion thread highlights the need for morality and links the “mass voyeurism” of the scandal with democracy.

One commentator said it proved mainland-style politics are better than the intrusive democracy of the Hong Kong and the UK.

“Britain has democracy but the biggest selling newspapers there are tabloids, which report all the private matters of the royal family. The US has democracy, but its internet is filled with the Paris Hilton sex video. We have more democracy than Hong Kong.”

Others, however, were dismissive about the significance of the story.
“This is a very big celebrity story, but I don’t see any deep meaning except that one should beware of geeks,” said another mainland media source, referring to the technicians suspected of taking the images.

Public Response to Gillian Chung’s Press Conference

Source: MingPao

For the first time since the Edison Chen photographs appeared on the Internet, Gillian Chung made a public appearance before the press. She made a statement but did not take any questions.

Gillian Chung began by saying Happy New Year to those present. She said that this incident has caused great distress and hurt to herself and those around her. She admitted to being very naïve and very stupid before, but she has now grown up. She expressed her gratitude towards the company, her family and her friends for their concern and support. She apologized for the effect of the affair on society at large. In the future, she will continue to work hard and live actively. Finally, she thanked the media for their concern and the fans who never abandoned her.

Did anyone coach her on the script? How can she say that she had been “very naïve, very stupid” (很天真,很傻) before? This phrase is likely to become the second Internet pop phrase of the year. She can use any other words to express the same idea, but not with two “very’s.” This is because the first Internet pop phrase of the year was the now famous “Very Yellow, Very Violent”. How can anyone fail to draw that analogy?

The Internet forum response has been quite negative. Throughout her statement, there was no description of what the affair was about. The netizens did not take kindly towards her description of being “very naïve, very stupid.” People pointed to the KY jelly in the background of one of her photographs and asked: “If she had been ‘very naïve, very stupid’ at the time when she was using KY jelly in a hotel room, then what is she doing now that she has grown up?”

Why is the Internet forum public so hostile towards Gillian Chung this time? When photographs of her changing in the dressing room appeared in EasyFinder magazine in August 2006, the public was overwhelmingly on her side. But the tide appeared to have swung the other way around. One reason was that her company Emperor Entertainment Group had claimed initially that the photographs were computer modifications. When more photographs appeared, EEG went silent and refused to comment on the grounds that there was an ongoing police investigation. Even at today’s press conference, EEG stated that the company and all its artistes will decline comment in the future in the interest of not causing more social harm. The Internet forum users consider Gillian Chung and EEG evasive.

The more significant reason is captured in this comment by the Those Were The Days blogger:

The privacy of an artiste is clearly different from that of a public servant. The private life of a public servant may affect his job performance. For example, when a politician cheats on his wife, the public may begin to doubt his character. Therefore, the public and the media have cause to be concerned about the private lives of public figures. Meanwhile, the artistes only have to be concerned about their singing and acting, because their private lives do not affect their job performance. The public and the media should not be exposing and judging the private lives of artistes.

That might be correct in general, but things are different in Hong Kong. European and American artistes are selling their singing/acting abilities and not their moral conduct and character. I have not seen any European and American artistes who would leverage positions on pre-marital sex, chastity and multiple sex partners to package their images. European and American artistes, especially those in rock ‘n roll music, are notorious for being licentious and involved in drug abuse. But they don’t need to disguise that because they are selling their singing and not any saintly image.

In the Hong Kong entertainment industry, some artistes have become upholders of morality. They criticize the media for being very yellow and very violent; they preach morality; they say that this or that magazine should not have published something or the other because corrupts young people; they describe themselves as clean, self-respecting and pure beyond belief. In recent years, the government likes to appoint these artistes as their youth ambassadors on account of their influence among young people. So these artistes are happily shaking hands with Donald Tsang or participating in a national day gala festival in Beijing. Do they realize that they are longer just artistes anymore? If they want to be pure artistes, then they should not be staking out moral positions, or acting as government spokespersons, or engaging in politics. If they do so, they must be prepared to sacrifice their privacy and restrict their own private lives because they are now public figures. For example, if an American movie star supports the Republican Party, then the fact that she once had an abortion cannot be just waved away as a “private matter.”

In this affair, the citizens and netizens are reacting strongly because certain artistes have been behaving as more than artistes. They are using every means to criticize any negative information and reports about them. They are setting themselves at the highest moral point in order to criticize everybody else as immoral. Why else would the citizens and netizens call the artistes (藝人) as fake people (偽人)?

A while ago, the former wife of a hairdresser wrote a book that exposed the private affair between her husband and an actress. But the media and the public showed no interest and the story could not even make the local news page. Why? Because the actress was just an artiste! Who cares about her private life? If you don’t live in Hong Kong, if you don’t understand popular sentiments in Hong Kong and if you don’t know what has been happening before this, you cannot understand why people feel this way now about this affair.

In August 2006, EasyFinder published photographs of Gillian Chung changing her clothes in a dressing room. In the ensuing press conference, Gillian Chung spoke of wanting to die and never being able to face young people again. The photographs back then revealed nothing except her armpit. At today’s press conference, Gillian Chung was beaming with confidence. The photographs now revealed just about everything of her. It is hard not to notice the incongruence.

The Biggest Lesson of Edison’s Scandal is the Exposure of Hypocrisy

Source: Li Yi at Apple Daily

So Gillian Chung finally emerged to face the media and the public. She had to come out sooner or later because she does not want to give up her artist career and her company does not want to abandon a goose that lays golden eggs. She said that she was very naïve and very silly, but now she has grown up. In those few short sentences, she did not admit to any mistakes but she has practically admitted that the photographs were not the product of computer modification.

In truth, Gillian Chung had not been very naïve and she was not silly. Her image of an innocent little angel was posed. Two years ago, she cried publicly after the EasyFinder photos and said that she could not face up to young people who idolize her. Another time, she saw Cecilia Cheung and Nicholas Tse kissing and she said that she was disgusted and that she would never do that. She attended the <Chaste School Campus Inauguration> organized by the City of David Cultural Centre and stated clearly that she opposed pre-marital sex. While she was saying those words in 2006, she was also posing for those obscene photographs. In a comment left at Apple Daily, someone wrote: “We despise you not for your licentiousness, but for your hypocrisy.”

This gets right to the point. In truth, Gillian Chung is not the only hypocrite. Her company Emperor Entertainment Group was also hypocritical. On the first obscene photographs appeared, EEG announced that these photographs were manufactured by “criminal elements” using “computer modification” and they filed a police report immediately. The Performance Artists Association was also hypocritical. During the EasyFinder episode, the Association was up at arms. In the face of these obscene photographs, the Association only said that “this was not just sad for the entertainment industry, but for all of the people of Hong Kong as well.” The performance artists may be sad because they are afraid their own private affairs will also be revealed, but what has the majority of the people of Hong Kong got to be sad about? Why is there any need for the people of Hong Kong to be sad over the sorrows of a few individual entertainers?

The police were also hypocritical. Before the Obscene Articles Tribunal even made any classifications, the police arrested netizen Chung Yik-tin for posting one obscene photograph and remanded him without bail for eight weeks. This was clearly a case that the police was using to intimidate netizens from circulating the obscene photographs, but they claimed that Chung was involved in another fraud case. It is unprecedented for someone to be held without bail on two unrelated cases. This is the hypocrisy of law enforcement. Commissioner of Police Tang King-shing rendered an “interpretation of the law” when he claimed that possession of obscene photographs “with intent to distribute” is against the law. It was clear that the police wanted to intimidate people.

The hypocrisy of the police also showed up in that they knew that the obscene photographs originated from the computer of Edison Chen, but they still kept looking for the ’source’ everywhere. Why not summon Edison Chen directly for interrogation and ask for an accounting to see if the photographs were taken secretly or with consent? To whom were the obscene photographs given to? How did it circulate to the outside? They knew where the source was but they didn’t bother. Instead they went around arresting people all over the street. This showed that the police was unfair and hypocritical in enforcing the law.

Some of the media were also hypocritical. They raised the banner of morality. They condemned those who possess and view the obscene photographs. They even condemned the other media which reported on these obscene photographs for publishing edited versions. The exposure of the truth should be the duty of the media. It is especially important to expose the true faces of performance artists who pretend that they are morally upright or innocent little angles, so that the fans won’t be fooled.

The storm over these obscene photographs revealed all sorts of hypocrisies. This may be the reason why “Kira” released more photographs each time that another hypocrisy was committed, including escalating the degree of obscenity. The storm over these obscene photographs tell us that some people think that they can do anything or tell any lies as long as they close the door and leave no material evidence (such as photographs).

What is hypocrisy? In law, this refers to acts or speeches that present a narrative that is inconsistent with the facts. Simply put, this refers to certain misleading or deceptive narratives. The series of hypocritical acts and speeches brought up by the obscene photographs lets people feel that Hong Kong has become a city of hypocrisy.

Fortunately, there are still some media that are awake and insistent on uncovering the truth. Fortunately, there are still the netizens, especially those who protested against the hypocritical police on the day before yesterday.

Edison Chen’s Scandal: 24 year old man charged, 100 new photos found – pictures uploaded to server in Cyprus

Translation by: evodrift @asianfanatics
Source
HK time: 1:00pm

This morning, a 24 year old man was brought to court in the Kwun Tong and charged with possesion and distribution of pornographic materials. The defendant is allowed to be released on bail. His case will be brought up again on the 11th of next month. In order to the police further investigate. The defendant is allowed to be released on bail.

It is reported that the defendent works in the civilian sector and is suspected of uploading 100 obsence photographs to an internet server in Cypus and then released back into a forum in Hong Kong. These 100 new obscene pictures were not in the original 1300 photographs that police had obtained earlier.

Edison Chen’s Sex Scandal Case – The Rights and Powers Behind Photographs

Source
Shao Jian at Southern Metropolis Daily

The “Sex Photos Gate” is a farce. At this time, the uploaders have been arrested but the Hong Kong citizens are unhappy. They wanted to march on February 10 to protest the unfairness of the Hong Kong police who only know to go after small citizens while ignoring the source.

They marched yesterday to the Wanchai police headquarters to protest the threatening words from Commissioner of Police Tang King-shing, who said that possession of large numbers of obscene articles may be inferred to be evidence of intent to distribute. The awareness of Hong Kong citizens is high and, under “one country, two systems,” they could march to express their will in front of the police station. This was also a fight between rights and powers. In a normal democratic society, the powers have to listen to the sounds of the rights even if they are reluctant to do so.

However, one must be wary that the improper actions of the police have triggered inappropriate demands — 70% of netizens voted to de-criminalize uploading and they also wanted the police to arrest Edison Chen for taking the photographs and being the source. But this is demanding the authorities to hurt another victim. Chen may be the photographer, but he is also a victim whose privacy has been invaded. Unless the photographs were taken by force, it is not against the law to take such photographs; the criminals are those who circulated the photographs on the Internet.

No matter how you look at it, this was a major invasion of privacy that caused severe mental distress on the principals. In examining this case, we see that the authorities must not selectively enforce the law. When that happens, there will be a reaction from the citizens whose rights are infringed upon. Once the people are incensed, conflicts among various rights may lead to more injustice and damages.

Disc of Obscene Photographs of HK artistes sold in the streets

Source

Yesterday in Shuiwei (Futian district, Shenzhen city), our reporter observed people selling laser discs containing the obscene photographs of Hong Kong artistes. Previously, people have only read about these photographs in the newspapers. Yesterday, a video store was showing them on television.

A crowd of gawkers were drawn in. According to the salesperson, each disk contains 258 photographs. Priced at HKD 20 apiece, the reporter observed that a stack of 30 discs were quickly sold out in less than an hour. The video store also offered to download the photos onto mobile telephones for HKD 10.

Under Chinese law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell such discs. If found guilty, the offender faces between three to seven years in jail. But it is not a crime to purchase such discs or share them among friends.

Hongkong Star Edison Chen in Suicide Bid Claim

HONG KONG heartthrob Edison Chen has reportedly attempted suicide after partially nude images of him with several starlets started circulating in the Internet.

In a scandal that has dominated Hong Kong headlines last week, at least 10 suggestive photos posted online seemed to show Chen, singer-actress Gillian Chung, former actress-singer Bobo Chan and actress Cecilia Cheung.

The images are believed to have been copied from Chen’s computer when it was serviced at Elite Multi Media Shop in the Central district.

China Press said yesterday that the singer-actor became depressed over the issue and avoided food lately.

He had also reportedly confined himself to his home in the United States, where he fled to after the controversy erupted.

The daily said Chen’s image hit rock bottom after the scandal came to light.

Several companies which had sought Chen’s endorsement for their products have also terminated their contracts with the star.

Chen had apologised, calling the postings of the photographs ‘intentionally hurtful and malicious’.

In a one-minute video statement released to the media through a law firm, the 27-year old urged all who were still in possession of the images to destroy them immediately.

Police arrested six men and two women over the case last week.

A 23-year old man was charged last Tuesday with acessing a computer with criminal or dishonest intent in 2006, said Sing Tao Daily. But he denied he was the source of the photos.

He was released on bail of HK$50,000 (S$9,000) and will go on trial on Feb 22. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Source: TheStar Online

New Maggie Q Pictures?

I’m not sure if the picture is for real but it has been circulating thus i posted it up. i will update if there is news on it. meanwhile….

Notice the similiarities….

Kira: 3 Edison Chen Sex Videos Will be Uploaded at 3am?

Mysterious Kira has left a message in traditional Chinese (below is a rough translation) on HKGloden forum at 23:41 pm February 11 (Hong Kong time)

Today February 11 is the day when Gillian Chung met up the fans. I/We originally planned to upload Edison Chen sex video(s) simultaneously along with the event, but couldn’t make it due to some reasons.

Now I/we decide again to post three of videos at 3am (Feb 12) which are the original footages that had been made into pictures posted earlier and some new contents that were previously unseen. Please be patient.

Besides, the concerned authorities, please don’t detain any scapegoats [RC note: Hong Kong police made the 9th arrest]. Catch me if you can.