Chinese blogger charged with ‘defaming martyrs’

Chinese prosecutors formally charged a popular social media influencer with "defaming martyrs" yesterday, for suggesting the death toll of the China-India border clash was higher than the official count of four. The blogger, listed in the indictment by his surname Qiu, was charged under a newly added provision to China's criminal law that bans the "defamation of martyrs and heroes" and came into effect yesterday. Qiu had more than 2.5 million followers on the Twitter-like platform Weibo under the pseudonym "Crayon Ball".