High-ranking Chinese politicians have been accused of taking part in an orgy after more than 100 pictures showing three naked men and two nude women were uploaded to a social media website. The photos, which appeared on China’s Twitter equivalent Weibo, reportedly show the group engaging in sexual acts in a hotel room. It is claimed the men are the Party secretary of Lujiang county in Anhui Province, Wang Minsheng, his deputy, Jiang Dabin, and the party’s youth leader at Hefei University, Wang Yu.
Threesomes are technically illegal in China and suspects can be prosecuted under a ‘group licentiousness’ statute added to the criminal code in 1997, according to reports.
Minsheng has denied any part in the scandal, which has spread like wildfire across the country, and believes the false allegations have been made against him because he is currently handling a corruption case.
He claims the images have been doctored by his political enemies.
Yu, however, has admitted being in the pictures and said one of the women was his school teacher wife.
The Global Times, which is affiliated with the Communist Party, cited a police officer with the Lujiang county public security bureau as confirming the case was under investigation, but did not confirm if a suspect had been arrested, according to The Huffington Post.
The images, which went viral on Weibo last week, have sparked so much attention on the micro-blogging site that the State Council Information Office, China’s top web censor, has stepped in.
It has issued an official directive stating that ‘all websites must stop following and hyping the so-called “Lujiang Indecent Photos Incident.”‘
Phrases such as ‘naked photos’ and ‘vulgar photos’ have been banned from the site, according to www.gawker.com.
Chinese authorities are understood to have revoked the mens’ party membership and Wang Yu has since been fired.
The scandal comes as Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced Communist official Bo Xilai, stands trial accused of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood.