‘Brutal chilling effect’: Chinese feminists fear for the future of #MeToo as leading activist faces judgment
- Activists Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing face years in prison for ‘inciting subversion of state power’
- ‘We don’t know where the boundaries of activism are’, advocate says, in a case that has attracted international attention
Chinese feminists fear a chilling effect and more restrictions as the journalist who helped to ignite China’s #MeToo movement stood trial recently, and now faces years in jail.
Journalist and feminist activist Sophia Huang Xueqin and her friend, labour activist Wang Jianbing, have been in detention for two years.
They stand accused of “inciting subversion of state power” and were tried in the southern city of Guangzhou on September 22, according to friends.
Under China’s criminal law, the charge could result in up to five years in prison, however a person deemed to be a “ringleader” could face a longer sentence. Authorities have yet to announce a verdict, which is not uncommon in such cases.
The case has also gained international attention.
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On September 25, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tweeted that American diplomats had attempted to attend the trial but were blocked outside the courtroom.
Lu Pin, a feminist activist now living in the US, said that after Huang’s case, “We [feminist activists] don’t know where the boundaries of activism are.”
Huang, 35, has been a journalist for more than a decade. In early 2018, she helped to reveal a history of sexual harassment by a prominent professor at Beihang University, who was later stripped of his government-certified Changjiang scholar honour.
In 2018, Huang published the results of a survey she conducted that indicated more than 80 per cent of the Chinese female journalists polled, said they had been sexually harassed. Months later, she spearheaded an sexual harassment investigation that led to the suspension of an anthropology professor at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University.
Then in August 2019, before she was to start studying at the University of Hong Kong to pursue a master’s degree in human rights law, Huang was detained by Guangzhou police and accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. She spent three months in detention, according to friends.
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She was arrested again, along with Wang, in September 2021. This time they faced an indictment. Official charges seem to be centred around gatherings that began in late 2020, hosted by the pair.
Wang, 40, has a long history of NGO work in support of the disadvantaged. Since 2018, he has focused on advocating for the rights of workers with occupational diseases.
Guangzhou authorities have not made public any details of the pair’s case, including a trial date, the indictment, or the expected time of the judgment.
But according to an indictment posted by supporters of the pair and published on a social media account they set up, the gatherings were prosecuted for “inciting subversion of state power”.
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Calls to the People’s Procuratorate of Guangzhou City to verify the contents of the indictment, have not been returned.
The document also stated that Huang published articles online from 2019 that “distorted and attacked our government, attacked and denigrated our political system, and propagated the ideology of subverting state power”.
The charge also states that Huang provided online training that “used major events and social movements at home and abroad to incite participants’ dissatisfaction with state power”.
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Huang had invited scholars and activists to speak in the courses, the friend said.
News of Huang’s trial was blocked on social media in mainland China, but it has caused deep concern among feminist activists.
“It’s the feminist activists who feel the chilling effect the most. They will have to self-censor and consider what actions are problematic for the authorities,” Lu said.
Another feminist activist, who requested anonymity, said that given Huang’s special position in China’s #MeToo movement, the case showed that “officials see #Metoo as something that needs to be curbed”.
After Huang’s imprisonment, another high profile #MeToo case in China surfaced over allegations by retired tennis star Peng Shuai that she had been sexually assaulted by former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli. Censors scrubbed much of the news about Peng after her social media revelations in November 2021.
In September 2021, in another landmark #MeToo case, screenwriter Zhou Xiaoxuan, also known as Xianzi, who sued state broadcaster CCTV’s famed host Zhu Jun for sexual harassment, had her case dismissed by a court in Beijing. Her appeal was then rejected in 2022.
