A Malawian court found a Chinese national guilty of racism and child exploitation in connection with a series of online videos and subsequently ordered him to leave the country on Thursday.
In Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, a judge sentenced 27-year-old Lu Ke to 12 months in prison after finding him guilty of procuring children to partake in videos and racially exploiting them.
According to public prosecutor Masauko Chamkakala, Lu, who was arrested last year, has been granted seven days to leave Malawi, as he has already served his prison sentence.
Lu is accused of filming children singing racist chants in Chinese, which the children did not understand, and then profiting by selling these videos on Chinese social media.
In one of the videos, a young child, approximately nine years old, was heard saying, “I am a monster with a low IQ.”
Chamkakala stated that Lu has provided compensation to the victims, but the specific amount remains undisclosed.
Lu was apprehended in June of the previous year in neighboring Zambia for illegal entry and was extradited back to Malawi.
When the accusations emerged, the Chinese embassy in Malawi released a statement condemning the actions of the accused, asserting that “the Chinese government has zero tolerance for racism.”