China’s Feminist Five unbowed a year after detention, says activist in Hong Kong for forum
Women held in Beijing to foil protest against sexual harassment on Chinese trains are crowdfunding to place Guangzhou metro ad about same issue and using social media to promote gender equality, fellow activist says
Chinese feminist activists who caught the world’s attention with their creative antics have vowed to take their fight online following their detention in Beijing last year.
Xiao Meili, a member of the Feminist Activist Group, told a Hong Kong academic symposium that the group had discovered social media was an effective alternative to street protests, something she said none of them would dare attempt now for fear of being arrested.
On March 7, 2015, Beijing police arrested five of her fellow activists – who would come to be known as “the Feminist Five”. Their alleged crime was “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a blanket charge that, in their case, was linked to their plan to stage a protest on International Women’s Day against sexual harassment of women on public transport.
Li Tingting, Wang Man, Wei Tingting, Wu Rongrong and Zheng Churan were detained for 37 days without being charged and subjected to endless interrogations and thinly veiled threats, Xiao said. The police were still refusing to drop the case a year after their release, meaning the five continued to live on edge and had trouble finding work, Xiao said. Their account on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, had been shut down by Sina, owner of the popular microblogging site, Xiao said.
