Support for Hong Kong protests in China has consequences for some mainlanders

Huang and other mainland supporters of Hong Kong’s protest movement are finding there is a heavy price to pay for speaking out

Key figure in China’s #MeToo movement was detained last month for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’

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Sophia Huang Xueqin has been moved into residential detention at an unknown location. Photo: Thomas Yau

Published: 5:01pm, 30 Nov 2019Updated: 12:29pm, 1 Dec 2019

Feminist activist and freelance journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin – who was detained last month in southern China – has been put under residential surveillance, apparently for supporting anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.

The outspoken activist was first taken into police custody in mid-October but has since been moved to an unknown location and denied access to lawyers or visits by family members, according to sources in the activist community.

Huang, 32, a key figure in China’s #MeToo movement who has also written extensively about the Hong Kong protests after spending six months in the city earlier this year, was accused by police of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a vague charge that is frequently used to detain activists and dissidents.

Chinese law generally restricts criminal detention to 30 days, so Huang’s transfer to residential surveillance appears to be a means of extending her detention.

Three fellow activists, two of them based in Beijing, said Huang had been transferred to residential surveillance in an unknown location. She was previously held at the Baiyun District Detention Centre in Guangzhou, where she was not allowed visitors.

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