Fang Binxing, China's Internet Firewall Designer, Hit By Shoe

BEIJING -- Chinese police were seeking the man who allegedly threw an egg and shoes Thursday at the computer scientist famous for designing China's Great Firewall of Web controls.

The attack – if true – is a particularly bold one for China and underscores how strongly people feel about the country's strict Internet censorship.

A Twitter user posting under the name "hanunyi" claimed that one of the shoes struck computer expert Fang Binxing while he was visiting Wuhan University in Hubei province. Fang, president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, is popularly known as the "father of the Great Firewall" and is reviled by many Chinese Web users.

An officer at the Luojiashan Public Security Bureau confirmed police were sent to the university to investigate a shoe-throwing incident that targeted Fang. The officer, who refused to give his name, said Fang was on his way to the airport.

"Hanunyi" posted a live account of the alleged shoe toss on his Twitter page, including photos of the door to the lecture hall where it happened, a hand clutching an egg in preparation and bare feet after he fled.

"The egg missed the target. The first shoe hit the target. The second shoe was blocked by a man and a woman," he wrote.

He described running away from the scene and three hours later expressed surprise at the huge online response.

"I didn't think this little thing would get such a big response," he wrote on Twitter.

Chinese Web filters routinely block searches for content that authorities deem too politically sensitive, such as the banned spiritual group Falun Gong or jailed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. Blogs and news websites are scrubbed of postings or articles that are overly critical of the Communist leadership.

Fang has felt the ire of the online community before. When he launched his own microblog in December, it was taken down within hours after anonymous posters peppered the Web journal with hundreds of caustic or sarcastic comments.

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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.

Comments

[zbb]

12:24 AM on 05/23/2011

It's hard to believe so many people give a big hand to this attack. Why should a computer engineer be responsible for a flawed government policy?

[hottingers]

06:06 PM on 05/22/2011

He should have made a shoewall.

[Stilyagi]

05:54 PM on 05/22/2011

Next time guys, make it a grenade not a shoe. Children throw shoes and tantrums. Adults throw grenades and molotov cocktails.

[POPE INNOCENT]

04:19 PM on 05/22/2011

Fang should be "FISHED" with a farm raised walmart salmon loaded with MERCURY AND DISEASE!!

[Pod-gers]

04:05 PM on 05/22/2011

LOL Another obviously foreign made attack on China and Chinese. The concept of throwing shoes comes from the Iraq journalist who threw hes shoes at GW in Iraq. The reason was that the Journalists had been invited to a surprise photo op, and had been agressively searched and questioned before being approved.

Later, in various political stunts, shoes were thrown at Hillary, Obama, and other leaders.

But this is NOT a "Chinese tradition."

BTW, just ask Gore, we no longer have "one internet": in the US. The US government was concerned about the proliferation of science on the web, so they have created a shadow internet. Folks, don't you just love the stench of the doubvle standard?

PU

[chiropter]

07:40 PM on 05/22/2011

you're a disgr@ce to humanity

[mheister]

08:14 PM on 05/22/2011

Throwing shoes is not exactly an American tradition, either. You think news doesn't get around and people don't adapt interesting ideas?

[Pod-gers]

09:58 PM on 05/22/2011

The Chinese culture has many ways of casting aspersion, this is not one of them. It's not that news doesn't get around, it's that this incident was staged to play to the western MSM. China Bashing sells!

[portfolio]

10:18 AM on 05/22/2011

China is so interesting.

They will spare no expense in tracking down a shoe thrower.

Meanwhile, the people who beat a journalist to death don't merit an investigation.

[THE GREAT PURIFIER]

10:18 PM on 05/21/2011

Was the shoe Made-in-China?

[WujiUIBe]

08:41 PM on 05/21/2011

Suppression of the written word does not change the truths living in people's hearts that inspired the written word. Continued suppression will only lead to a moment where the dam breaks from the surge and strength of truth determined to break and float free; that can no longer be held back, contained, or denied by those who would seek to control the truth.

[joeamerican3]

11:58 PM on 05/21/2011

That was beautiful :)

[P51MUSTANG]

08:17 PM on 05/21/2011

Didn't Fang used to be a woderator for Huffpo?