On May 26th Legal Daily published an article about the need to create procedures to punish "bad actors/performers" in the light of the law and stop them from coming back in disguise in a roundabout way.
In the piece, we can read a few times that "bad performers" should not have the possibility to use private social platforms to carry out bad behavior or profit from them.
We can’t help but think that the author is supposedly referring to Zhang Zhehan as the zhangzhehan_super3 IG account has been active since 31st of March promoting the EHz.Z brand. We shared before our investigation about the ownership of the EHz.Z brand that belongs mostly to Xie Yihua: https://forpeoplejustice81.wixsite.com/website/post/zhang-zhehan-s-instagram-update
After reading this article, we are worried that CAPA may try to degrade his case from being a social issue to a one person problem or a fandom problem. His image is already tarnished, the traitor’s patch is still stuck to him, he’s still on CAPA’s immoral artists list and he is still banned over chinese social media platforms. Having an active account, promoting merch may further hurt his case and public image. We are aware that some chinese celebrities also have IG accounts (mostly those who work abroad), still IG is blocked in China and accessible only through approved VPN and we need to consider that Zhang's situation is vastly different from other celebrities due to the smearing 813 campaign.
The possibility of CAPA using this against him to delay or stop his case from progressing and take away the sympathy of public opinion in China is real so we need to be alert. This article shows clearly that they can try taking this route in the future if positive news about Zhang Zhehan’s case arise and as we already know, they have the capacity to spread their message throughout official media or water armies.
This piece was already shared by different outlets:
https://share.api.weibo.cn/share/308679710,4773288586512266.html?weibo_id=4773288586512266
https://share.api.weibo.cn/share/308679884,4773256999732082.html?weibo_id=4773256999732082
One of them even managed to post 2 hours before the original:
Source: QuelleVous on Twitter
The article does not explicitly state Zhang Zhehan's name but what also makes us believe it’s referring to him, is that the author decided specifically to bring up the problem of bad influence artists/performers could have on minors (as we can remember it was one of the reason that CAPA gave to boycott Zhang Zhehan) and also quoted Ma Lihong in saying "For some serious illegal and criminal acts, such as (...) behaviors with extremely bad social influence, such as insulting or slandering martyrs, a zero-tolerance attitude should be adopted."
What is also suspicious, the supposed “national first class director” and the ED and deputy secretary-general of the China TV Drama Directors Committee Chē Jìngxíng (车径行) who stated that “immoral artists” should not be allowed to comeback isn't on the Leadership List of the China TV Drama Directors Committee and isn't listed as a director on the Committee's Baike page either.
Comments