A prominent Chinese journalist who reported on #MeToo and the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests has been jailed on spurious charges of “subversion against the state”.
Sophia Huang Xueqin was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison, nearly 10 months after she initially faced trial. As a result of her conviction, Huang will be deprived of political rights for four years and fined $100,000 RMB (£10,800).
A well-known feminist activist and journalist, Huang first rose to prominence for her work uncovering stories of sexual assault, as well as her criticisms of the widespread misogyny prevailing in Chinese newsrooms.
After surveying the treatment of female journalists in China, Huang played a pivotal role in the ‘Hard Candy’ alliance which drew attention to allegations of “inappropriate language and behaviour” and sexual assault committed by Xie Yungeng, the then deputy dean at Shanghai University.
Huang was arrested and sentenced alongside labour activist Wang Jianbing, who was handed a three-year prison sentence and was fined $50,000 RMB.
Both were charged with inciting subversion of state power, which the prosecution alleged was evidenced by their role in organising social gatherings where labour issues, feminism and LGBTQ+ rights were discussed. The Chinese authorities also pointed to their part in publishing supposedly distorted articles which smeared the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and incited “national dissatisfaction”.
Advocates for the pair claim that prior to the hearing they were held in a Guangzhou detention centre and subjected to secret interrogations, torture and ill-treatment. They are also said to have endured months of solitary confinement during their pre-detention custody, which lasted for nearly 1,000 days.
In a further blow to civil liberties, their hearing was conducted with just one day’s notice, with the public and press excluded from the closed-door trial by a heavy police presence.
Human rights campaigners have condemned the actions of the Chinese government. Amnesty International say that Huang and Wang were jailed “solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression”, and have called for their immediate release.
According to the organisation’s China Director, Sarah Brooks, these convictions “will prolong their deeply unjust detention and have a further chilling effect on human rights and social advocacy in a country where activists face increasing state crackdowns.”
“In reality, they have committed no actual crime,” she added. “Instead, the Chinese government has fabricated excuses to deem their work a threat, and to target them for educating themselves and others about social justice issues such as women’s dignity and workers’ rights.”
Huang was initially arrested one day before she was due to fly to the UK to begin a master’s degree at the University of Sussex. But even if she had made that flight, would she have escaped the long arm of the CCP’s transnational surveillance systems?
Last year, a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament warned that the CCP is able to exert ideological pressure on Chinese students based at UK universities.
One of the CCP’s primary means for monitoring and controlling the behaviour of Chinese students is its network of over 90 Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) in the UK, one of which is based at the University of Sussex.
As Prof Steve Tang, the Director of the SOAS China Institute in London, recently pointed out, although CSSAs have a welfare function, providing practical advice to students on living and studying in their host country, they are also used by the Chinese state to monitor students and to exert influence over their behaviour.
In his evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s inquiry on China, Prof Tang elaborated, saying: “The student bodies are infiltrated … there are meetings that happen through the middle of the night and the following morning some Chinese students can get rung up by somebody at the cultural or education section of the embassy to ask them: why did you say that? Why did you do that?”
The result, according to Prof Tang, is that a culture of fear and suspicion has sprung up among Chinese students in the UK. “We are seeing that… in the class where there is only one Chinese student, that Chinese student usually engages in discussions and debates much more openly than in a class that has quite a few Chinese, [where] they don’t know who [if anyone] is going to report on them,” he added.
