The New York Times of 22 September 2023 and other outlets report on the increasing crackdown on dissent: Huang Xueqin, the journalist who gave #MeToo Victims a voice, and Wang Jianbing, a labor activist, have been accused of inciting subversion.
On 22 September saw the start of their trial after two years of arbitrary detention. A large number of civil society organisations, including the FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) expressed their deep concern about their conditions of detention and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
Huang Xueqin, an independent journalist who was once a prominent voice in China’s #MeToo movement, and her friend Wang Jianbing, the activist, were taken away by the police in September 2021 and later charged with inciting subversion of state power. Their trial was held at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in southern China.
Little is known about the government’s case, but the vaguely worded offence with which the two were charged has long been seen as a tool for muzzling dissent. Since China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, came to power in 2012, the ruling Communist Party has sought to essentially silence people who have fought for free speech and political rights. A steady stream of activists, lawyers, tycoons and intellectuals have been put on trial and sentenced.
In Ms. Huang and Mr. Wang’s cases, the authorities questioned dozens of their friends in the months after their detentions and pressured them to sign testimonies against the two, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group that is in close contact with many activists.
In the meantime the Washington Post of 22 September reports that Rahile Dawut, a prominent Uyghur academic who disappeared six years ago at the height of the Chinese government’s crackdown in Xinjiang, has been given a life sentence in prison, according to a human rights group that has worked for years to locate her..
Dui Hua, a California-based group that advocates for political prisoners in China, said in a statement Thursday that the 57-year-old professor — who was convicted in 2018 on charges of endangering state security by promoting “splittism” — had lost an appeal of her sentence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region High People’s Court.
At a regular press briefing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said she was “unaware” of Dawut’s case. “What I can tell you is that China is a law-based country and handles relevant cases in strict accordance with the law.”
A former professor at Xinjiang University and leading scholar on Uyghur folklore, she is among more than 300 intellectuals, artists and writers believed to be detained in Xinjiang, amid a government campaign ostensibly aimed at better assimilating China’s Muslim minority and promoting ethnic harmony. Rights groups have accused the Chinese government of committing “cultural genocide” by wiping out previously vibrant local Uyghur culture. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/11/11/rahile-dawut-recipient-of-courage-to-think-award-2020/
“The sentencing of Professor Rahile Dawut to life in prison is a cruel tragedy, a great loss for the Uyghur people, and for all who treasure academic freedom,” said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/21/china/china-metoo-activist-huang-xueqin-trial-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/22/rahile-dawut-life-sentence-uyghur-china/
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
