Chinese Man arrested for SMS Text Message about Water Pollution
This article reports China has detained a man "after he sent text messages telling people of a new case of water pollution,media reported on Thursday. Zhou Qinghai was detained by police for "reporting faulty alarms and making chaos" in Mudanjiang in northeastern Heilongjiang province,the scene of the country's worst water pollution in recent years after an explosion at a chemical pant in November in neighbouring Jilin.
Zhou sent text messages warning people of a possible water cutoff for three or four days after he overheard people talking on a bus about the contamination of the city water source and saw reports by local media questioning the quality of water,the Beijing News said.
He was detained this week, the newspaper said, without saying if he would be charged or giving other details. The "faulty information" had caused "bad social influence", and city residents had been rushing to buy and store water since Monday after an unidentified pollutant was found in the water supply. Xinhua news agency later identified it as a fungus caused by industrial waste. But the taps had not been turned off in the city as water samples had shown the supply to be normal,it added. Environmental degradation,from filthy air in the cities to toxic slicks in the rivers, has become one of the key issues sparking social unrest in China".