China #MeToo journalist sentenced to five years in prison, supporters say

Hong Kong CNN —

A leading #MeToo journalist in China has been sentenced to five years in prison on subversion charges, according to supporters, as the ruling Communist Party ramps up its effort to dismantle what remains of the country’s civil society.

Huang Xueqin, an independent journalist, was found guilty by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court Friday for “inciting subversion of state power,” supporters said.

Labor activist Wang Jianbin, another defendant in the case, was sentenced to three and a half years, according to supporters, who shared a copy of the verdict on X.

Huang told the court she would appeal, the supporters said, though it was not immediately clear if Wang would also appeal.

Huang, 36, and Wang, 40, have already spent nearly three years behind bars within China’s opaque judicial system.

They were detained by authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou in September 2021 and stood trial behind closed doors in September last year.

Huang, who worked as an investigative reporter for liberal-leaning media outlets in Guangzhou before becoming an independent journalist, had been an instrumental figure in sparking China’s #MeToo movement.

In 2018, she helped bring about the country’s first #MeToo case, using her influential social media presence to amplify the voice of a graduate student who accused her PhD supervisor of unwanted sexual advances.

She also spoke up about her own experiences of sexual harassment as a young intern at a national news agency, where she claimed she was groped and kissed by a senior male reporter and mentor.

To show the prevalence of the issue, she surveyed 416 female journalists in 2018 and found 84% of them had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

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