The journalist Huang Xueqin has been sentenced to five years' imprisonment for inciting subversive activities by a court in Chinese Canton (Guangzhou).
She was one of the driving forces when the Chinese #MeToo movement took off at the beginning of 2018. Huang then collected testimonies from victims of sexual harassment.
Labor rights activist Wang Jianbing, who was also a supporter of the #MeToo movement, has been sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment for the same offence.
Human rights organisations are critical of the verdicts. Amnesty International's China chief Sarah Brooks says in a statement that the Chinese government has made up excuses to see the convicted individuals' work as a threat.
"These malicious and completely baseless verdicts show how frightened the Chinese government is of the emerging wave of activists who dare to speak out to protect others' rights," she says.
