Parents of detained Chinese feminists make last-minute plea for release
Detained activists may face up to five years in jail if police charge them by Monday's deadline
The parents of five feminists detained for more than a month issued an eleventh-hour plea to authorities for their release on the weekend, as a lawyer for the activists said prosecutors had until Monday to charge them.
The young women face being charged with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble", which could see them jailed for up to five years after they were detained by police in early March.
The vague charge of "provoking trouble" has been increasingly used by police under President Xi Jinping to detain and jail protestors for holding small-scale demonstrations.
The five women - Li Tingting, 25, Wei Tingting, 26, Wang Man, 32, Zheng Churan, 25, and Wu Rongrong, 30 - had in recent years been linked to several stunts aiming to highlight issues such as domestic violence and the poor provision of women's toilets.
They were taken into custody a day ahead of International Women's Day on March 8 as they were preparing to hand out leaflets about sexual harassment.
The activists are "young, kind-hearted, and full of a sense of responsibility to society," 10 of their parents and spouses wrote in a letter to Beijing prosecutors.