Journalist Huang Xueqin and workers’ rights activist Wang Jianbing are among those Chinese who, despite the ruthless repression taking place in the country, still dared to mobilize, denouncing sexual assaults against women. The price of this commitment fell on Friday June 14 in the form of a verdict from a Canton court: five years in prison for her, three and a half years for him, for “attempted subversion of the power of the State “. Their conviction comes after already a thousand days of detention.
Huang Xueqin, born in 1988, began her career in official media in the southeastern Guangdong province, before becoming an independent investigative journalist. A victim of sexual harassment at work herself, she noted that many colleagues were faced with the same situation and in 2017 launched a group on WeChat messaging, the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp, where women can denounce attacks.
She thus comes into contact with a former doctoral student at the prestigious Beihang University in Beijing, Luo Xixi, who details how her thesis supervisor, a respected professor named Chen Xiaowu, tried to sexually assault her. They revealed the affair together through posts on Weibo, China’s Twitter, sparking an unprecedented debate in a country where the state press does not discuss these cases. The professor ends up being fired.
“Xueqin saved my life”
Huang Xueqin also carried out a survey at the end of 2017 among several hundred Chinese journalists, which concluded that only 16% of them had never been harassed, 23% had been harassed once, 42% from two to four times, 18% five or more times. A victim testified about him: “Xueqin saved my life. I was sexually assaulted and left deeply troubled by it. It was Xueqin who told me over and over again that what happened was not my fault. »
However, there is no question for the Chinese authorities of allowing a #Metoo movement to take hold even if at the same time, in 2022, the legislation against sexual harassment at work has been clarified and strengthened. Already, in 2015, five feminists who intended to denounce attacks in transport by distributing stickers in the metro on World Women’s Day were detained for several weeks. Tennis player Peng Shuai, who in November 2021 accused a former vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli, of rape, had temporarily disappeared and has since been forced into silence.
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