By David Kirton and Laurie Chen
GUANGZHOU/BEIJING (Reuters) – Leading Chinese #MeToo activist Huang Xueqin has been given a five-year prison sentence after being found guilty of state subversion in a court in southern China on Friday, according to a group campaigning for her release and a copy of the court’s judgment.
Huang, a 35-year-old independent journalist, plans to appeal her sentence, supporters said. Labor activist Wang Jianbing, 40, who also stood trial with Huang, was sentenced to three years and six months. It was not immediately clear whether he will appeal.
“(The sentence) was longer than we expected,” a spokesperson for the Free campaign group Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing said, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.
“I don’t think it should have been so serious, and it is completely unnecessary. That is why we support Huang Xueqin’s intention to appeal.”
The pair had been detained by Chinese authorities since September 2021 and tried last year. The pair denied any wrongdoing during the closed-door trial, supporters say.
The sedition charges against the couple were based on the meetings they often held for Chinese youth, where they discussed social issues.
“Their efforts and commitment to labor, women’s rights and broader civil society will not be undone by this unjust process, nor will society forget their contributions. On the contrary, as oppression continues and injustice grows, more activists like them will continue to rise,” the campaign group, made up mainly of foreign-based activists, said in a statement ahead of the verdict.
There was heavy security around the People’s Intermediate Court in Guangzhou on Friday morning, with police questioning bystanders.
The charge of “incitement to subversion of state power” is widely used by the Chinese government against dissidents and carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, but could be longer if the suspect is considered a leader or has committed serious crimes.
The day before her arrest on September 19, 2021, Huang was due to fly to Britain to begin a master’s degree at the University of Sussex on a British government-funded scholarship, the campaign group said.
Huang, who reported on China’s #MeToo accusations and anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019, was detained by Chinese police for three months in late 2019.
The two activists were placed in solitary confinement for months, supporters previously said. Police in Guangzhou did not respond to a faxed request for comment.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen and David Kirton; Writing by Laurie Chen; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
