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China celebrity crackdown: Companies and organisations distance themselves from China’s ‘prince of piano’ after accusations he solicited a prostitute
- Li Yundi was detained in Beijing on Thursday under the suspicion of visiting a prostitute
- Hailed as the ‘prince of piano’, companies and organisations have severed their links with the famous pianist
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Mandy Zuoin Shanghai
Li Yundi, a renowned pianist in China nicknamed the “prince of piano”, has been quickly boycotted and banned from posting online after police announced on Thursday he had been detained on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute.
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The police statement did not specify how long he would be detained, but, according to Chinese law, soliciting prostitution is illegal and typically leads to administrative detention of between 10 and 15 days. It could be reduced to five days or fewer if the circumstances of the offence are minor.
Li’s boycott, and Weibo ban, was similar to the fate that has befallen other celebrities who have run afoul of Chinese laws, but he has not been completely censored, as has happened in other cases, such as that of Zheng Shuang, who was scrubbed from the Chinese internet after being fined for tax evasion.
China has intensified its crackdown on celebrities behaving badly in the past six months and encouraged ethical conduct and personal integrity.
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The sweeping crackdown has involved criminal cases and also people who ran afoul of sensitive political topics, such as Zhang Zhehan, who has been censored after visiting Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, which is a political flashpoint between Tokyo and its Asian neighbours.
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