BEIJING, December 15 (RIA Novosti) – Four Chinese doom-mongers will meet the expected end of the world in police detention, serving short jail terms for spreading rumors about the Apocalypse, local media said on Saturday.
Two men were held as they were preaching through a loudspeaker to people in the streets of Chongqing, a municipality of 28 million in the country’s southwest, China Daily said.
The other two were detained last Wednesday as they were distributing leaflets with doomsday warnings in the city streets.
All were sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest, which means they would be behind bars when the prospective Apocalypse is expected to hit next Friday.
Local police pledged to continue the crackdown on those who spread rumors disturbing the public order.
The worries are not entirely unfounded, as the Chinese have amassed a record of odd reactions to the doomsday, according to the country’s media. A telling example saw a woman in the coastal Zhejiang province pawn the family apartment in hopes to hand over the money to local orphans “so that they enjoy life” a bit before the world meets its untimely end. The alleged good deed was foiled by the woman’s husband who made her annul the deal.
Many Chinese cities also expect a “wedding boom” on Dec. 21, when the world is set to end according to some interpretations of an ancient Maya calendar that are rejected by mainstream science.
