US cyberattack on petition calling for Fort Detrick lab probe should be condemned

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

On Saturday night, the server of an online petition calling for the World Health Organization to investigate the Fort Detrick lab faced cyberattack launched from US IP addresses. We strongly condemn this cyberattack.

It's a sacred right of Chinese netizens to sign the petition. Chinese public has formed a strong demand to ask the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick lab since the pandemic began to spread across the world, especially as the US was heavily hit by the virus. The demands have been particularly voiced out on the internet. Therefore, some netizens wrote an open letter to the WHO and later a petition was initiated to garner signatures from netizens.

So far, the number of signatures has exceeded 10 million. This is a large number. We predict that with the news of the joint signing activity spreading, more netizens, even some foreigners may participate in, to jointly demand WHO start an investigation into Fort Detrick.

Some forces in the US are obviously concerned about the growing momentum. At the time when the signatures to the petition were approaching 10 million, the petition came under cyberattacks coming from the US. It seems some people particularly don't want to see the signatures exceeding 10 million and they want to crush this campaign.

Fortunately, the server withstood the cyberattacks and suffered very small losses. The forces in the US may launch more cyberattacks targeting the server. We will make full preparation to withstand the attacks, protect the online petition and continue safeguarding Chinese netizen's sacred right of expression.

We call for more Chinese people who haven't signed the petition to join this campaign. It's clear that some forces in the US dislike this petition very much, even fear it. The US, as the country that has been hit the hardest by the pandemic, with the highest death toll, is suspected to have witnessed the earliest virus cases and spread them to the world. The Fort Detrick lab plays a very suspicious role in it. Some American forces are afraid of the lab being investigated because they have a guilty conscience.