Su Shi
In 1079, the poet Su Shi of Song dynasty was jailed for several months and later exiled by the Emperor Shenzong due to an accusation of writing and disseminating poems alleged to slander the court. This case was also related to the political context at that time. The state was undergoing socioeconomic reform, New Policies, led by Chancellor Wang Anshi. Su Shi as a conservative at the time, however, had expressed his disagreement with certain practices of this reform. Such action triggered the anger of people in support of the reform, which included several persons from the Censorate (yushitai, 御史台) responsible for surveilling officials and fact-finding in the case of legal procedure. One of the censorates, Li Ding, initiated the case by writing to the Emperor and accusing Su Shi for defamation. Under his effort, the Censorate pointed out more than 60 spots of evidence across more than 10 of Su Shi's poems and identified more than 20 people who have communicated with Su Shi through writings.