China sentences reporter who promoted the #MeToo movement in the country to 5 years in prison

A Chinese journalist who promoted women’s rights as part of the nascent movement #MeToo in the country she was sentenced to five years in prison for incitement to subvert state authority, almost three years after her arrest along with an activist, according to her supporters.

The verdict provided to The Associated Press indicated that Huang Xueqin also faces a fine of 100,000 yuan ($14,000), indicating the ruling Communist Party’s intolerance of any activism outside its control in a system whose top ranks are dominated by men. .

The Chinese #MeToo had a short journey before being stifled by the government. China often silences activists by holding them incommunicado for long periods of time and then sentencing them to prison.

Huang is scheduled to be released on September 18, 2026, for the time she had previously spent in detention. The other defendant, Wang Jianbing, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for the same charge. Wang is best known for his advocacy on labor rights, but he also helped women report cases of sexual harassment.

The cases of Huang and Wang appear to have become intertwined with the most recent wave of repression against rights activists, a trend that predates the #MeToo movement that includes previous incidents such as the arrest in 2015 of women distributing leaflets against sexual harassment. on public transportation.

In her work as a freelance journalist, Huang helped uncover the country’s first #MeToo case in 2018, when she published a graduate student’s sexual harassment allegations against her doctoral supervisor at one of China’s most prestigious universities.

According to their friends, Huang and Wang disappeared on September 19, 2021, a day before Huang was scheduled to travel to the United Kingdom to start a master’s degree in gender violence and conflict at the University of Sussex. They were tried in September 2023.