Chris Buckley and Raymond Zhong, When Toys run Afoul of China's gun Laws. New York Times, Dec 3, 2021, at page B1 (B is Business section except on Sundays).
(a) Excerpt in the window of print: 'This really is a human rights disaster for China.' WANG JINGZHONG, whose son is imprisoned for owning replica guns.
(b) Quote:
(i) the first three paragraphs:
"When the police swarmed into San Cheng's ]郑深] apartment in Beijing late at night and accused him of illegally buying guns, he was sure it was a mix-up.
"True, he had bought dozens of toy guns on Taobao, the Alibaba shopping site * * *
"He was wrong. Mr Cheng, 47, a Taiwanese American game designer, ended up spending three years in detention and prison. In detention, he said, he met 20 or so other men who had also been arrested in a police sweep against buying replica guns online.
(ii) Mr Cheng said "in an interview from New Jersey, where he has been recovering after his release from a Chinese prison last year.
(iii) "The Chinese authorities have mostly prosecuted the buyers of such items [toy guns], and to a lesser extent, the sellers, according to a search of an online nationwide database of court judgments. But the online shopping platforms where these sales take place have rarely been targeted, and it is unclear how much legal responsibility companies like Alibaba have in such situations.
"In Taobao's terms of service, Alibaba warns shoppers that they are buying from third-party merchants, which means the company cannot possibly guarantee that each and every product is safe, high-quality and legal. Alibaba declined to comment.
(iv) "Wang Jinzhong 王金忠, whose son [Wang Yinpeng 王引鹏, 37] was sentenced to life imprisonment in Hebei Province, northern China, in 2016, for owning 16 replicas [ie, toy guns] that the police deemed illegal.