A detained Chinese activist has been charged with “inciting subversion of state power” after he voiced support for a woman who defaced a poster of China’s President Xi Jinping, according to his wife.

Activist Ou Biaofeng has been held in detention in Zhuzhou city of Hunan province since Dec. 3, initially on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” He was known to have publicly supported human rights activist Dong Yaoqiong, who was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after she livestreamed herself splashing ink on a Xi poster in 2018, an act that gave her the nickname “ink girl.”

Ou was recently moved from one detention facility to another, with his charge amended to “inciting subversion of state power,” the wife Wei Huanhuan tweeted on Friday. She posted a photo of the official notice from Zhuzhou city’s public security bureau that said Ou was under “residential surveillance” at a designated facility.

“What a special Christmas gift,” said Wei, who described the notice as a “certificate of honor” reflecting the years of action Ou had taken in activism.

“This made me think about what one of the security officers told me the other day, ‘Why care about matters of the country when you’re just ordinary people?’ Yes, he is but a mere mortal with neither power nor influence, so how could he subvert a country?”

Security officials in Hunan have reportedly told acquaintances of Ou to lie low and not to take questions from foreign media. Ou’s tweets and retweets about Dong have also been deleted since he went into detention early this month.

Dong was released from the psychiatric facility last year and is under surveillance at her home in Hunan.

Analysts feel that provincial security authorities have targeted Dong in order to maintain social stability, given her stunt in 2018 had involved Xi, the Communist Party’s highest leader. Some believed that Ou had crossed the security bureau’s red line by retweeting and publicly expressing support for Dong.

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