People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers raise the Chinese flag during a memorial ceremony at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall on the annual national day of remembrance to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the massacre in Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on Dec 13. — AFP photo
SHANGHAI: Fans of the Shanghai Sharks basketball team taunted their Nanjing opponents with a death chant on the anniversary of the 1937 massacre of Nanjing, triggering outrage and an investigation.
The Sharks, best known as the team where Yao Ming made his name before starring in the NBA, apologised to visitors Nanjing Tongxi Monkey King following the abuse on Thursday evening.
With the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) match going to the wire, home Shanghai fans are accused of shouting at the side from nearby Nanjing: “Why didn’t the Nanjing massacre kill your team?”
Police said on Friday that a 23-year-old man had been given five days’ ‘administrative detention’ for ‘picking quarrels and stirring up trouble’.
The massacre is a hugely sensitive topic in China, which says that 300,000 people died in a six-week spree of killing, rape and destruction by the Japanese military in Nanjing.
Some respected foreign academics estimate a lower number of victims, but mainstream scholarship does not question that a massacre took place and each year solemn memorials are held on Dec 13 in China to remember those who suffered or were killed.
After the match, which Shanghai won 111-103, Nanjing Tongxi said they “strongly condemn” the abuse directed at their players.
The abuse “crossed a moral” line, the club added.
Fans and both teams stood in silence before the match to remember the Nanjing victims, and the Sharks said they were ‘deeply sorry’ for what later transpired. — AFP