Thursday, December 22, 2016

Adultery, PLA-style

Sixth Tone reports here on a case in which a man was convicted for having an affair with the wife of a PLA soldier. Excerpt:
Last Sunday, a man was prosecuted under a controversial Mao-era law, originally conceived to prevent military spouses from straying. 
The man, surnamed Zhang, hails from Beijing and reportedly lived with a soldier’s wife for two months, according to the Beijing Morning Post. The court found Zhang guilty of “destroying a military marriage” — a crime introduced during the early 20th century to encourage army spouses to be faithful while their partners were away at war — and sentenced the man to seven months in prison. 
According to Han Xiao, a lawyer at Kangda Law Firm in Beijing, before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Communist Party devised a series of rules — including “the crime of the destruction of military marriage” — to prevent soldiers from being betrayed by their left-behind spouses.
Sixth Tone is a state-funded media outlet. Background here. The article does not indicate whether the case was tried in a military court.

1 comment:

  1. The case was tried in a civilian court (http://www.itslaw.com/detail?judgementId=4fec827a-f804-47db-9be2-7baedbbfc297&area=1&index=5) located court outside of Beijing. A search of a judgment database reveals 17 cases in the last 3 years.

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