A well-known female proponent of the MeToo movement in China received a five-year prison term for “subversion against the state”.
Friday saw the sentencing and conviction of Sophia Huang Xueqin, over ten months after her trial began.
Wang Jianbing, a labor organizer who was tried alongside Ms. Huang, received a sentence of three years and six months in jail.
One of the most well-known voices in China’s #MeToo movement, Ms. Huang, 36, broke groundbreaking stories about victims of sexual abuse.
She had also made public the sexism and misogyny she encountered in Chinese newsrooms.
Chinese officials have not provided any clarification on the charges of subversion leveled against the two. The trial took place behind closed doors.
However, their backers claim that because they organized frequent gatherings, they were arrested.
When Ms. Huang was arrested at the airport in Guangzhou in 2021, she was on her way to begin her master’s program at the University of Sussex, which was financed by the UK government.
Supporters claim that throughout their approximately 1,000-day pre-detention captivity, both of them suffered months of solitary confinement. The trial did not start until September 2023.
Both were being held in secret sites known as “black jails,” where they were subjected to solitary confinement, according to a investigation conducted in 2022.
A crackdown on various activists operating in various fields was initiated by Chinese authorities in 2021, coinciding with Covid lockdowns and mounting public indignation.
