A journalist who tried to start a #MeToo movement in China and a labor rights activist were charged with “inciting subversion of the state” and “publishing articles attacking the national government.” This is what a support group indicated this Saturday, September 23.
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Journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin and union activist Wang Jianbing, arrested in 2019 and detained for two years, were due to have their closed-door trial open on Friday September 22 in Guangzhou. The Chinese authorities accuse the two activists of having held meetings at their home to talk about feminism, the rights of LGBT+ people or even labor rights. Informal meetings where participants also watched films or played board games while drinking tea.
Sophia Huang Xueqin previously participated in the movement #MeToo by denouncing on social networks that she had been the victim of sexual harassment in a Chinese press agency where she worked. She was arrested with Wang Jianbing two years ago, when she was preparing to move to the United Kingdom, where she had obtained a scholarship.
The prosecution accuses Wang Jianbing of having published “ erroneous articles and speeches attacking the Chinese political system and government » and having joined « online groups abroad “, including one commemorating the deadly repression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, according to the indictment presented.
Those close to Sophia Huang Xueqin assured last February that she had lost a lot of weight and that she no longer had her periods, among other health problems. The young woman had already been arrested in 2019, for a few months, after covering pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. This time, she and Wang Jianbing face nearly five years in prison as the Chinese regime increasingly represses civil society movements and rights defenders.
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(And with AFP)