A man in north China’s Hebei Province was taken into custody after complaining about the food in a local hospital’s cafeteria in recent days, which has led to an online uproar.

A man surnamed Zhang from Shexian County, Handan City, has reportedly published a post criticizing the cafeteria for “being expensive and poor in quality.” The original post has been removed, but according to media reports, the complaint included “a bowl of noodles is 14 yuan (about 2 US dollars),” “there is no meat in the 10-yuan food set,” and “in the past, one can eat well at 7 to 8 yuan, but now 20 yuan is not enough.”

Local police later detained Zhang for “forging facts and disturbing public order.” When the news quickly spread online, the public questioned whether the incident was handled properly, as the man was detained for “being picky of food.”

While others argue that the hospital could sue the man for spreading rumors online to tarnish its image, but how could the police act on their own to detain the man? 

After further investigation, Handan police said that Zhang used to be an operator of the cafeteria, who lost the bid to run the new one when the hospital was moved to a new place. So the drunken man published information online which is not in line with the fact to vent out his anger.

At the same time, Handan police admitted that the former decision was not appropriate, and released Zhang over the weekend. The police who is in charge of the case has been suspended from his post and required to apologize to Zhang.

People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, commented that the most sincere correction of wrongdoings is to safeguard citizens’ rights to give bad ratings. The hospital and relevant parties should always be mindful of netizens’ complaints.