AFP/Beijing
Chinese police yesterday released at least three of the five feminist activists detained for over a month in a case which prompted an international diplomatic outcry, one of their lawyers said. Wei Tingting, Wang Man and Zheng Churan were freed by police, said lawyer Liang Xiaojun, with the status of the other two not yet clear. The release indicates that the trio are unlikely to face charges.
“I don’t have news yet about Wu Rongrong and Li Tingting, but the other three have been released,” said Liang, citing information from family members. He represents Wu.
Police detained the activists — all aged 32 or under — shortly before International Women’s Day last month as they were preparing to hand out leaflets about sexual harassment on public transport. The five women had in recent years been linked to several stunts in different cities aiming to highlight issues such as domestic violence and the poor provision of women’s toilets.
Police told lawyers the activists were suspected of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a vague charge increasingly used by authorities under President Xi Jinping to detain and jail protesters for holding small-scale demonstrations.
But the women activists’ detentions were seen by rights groups as unusually harsh given the small scale of their stunts and the fact that they had been praised in China’s state-run media.
Chinese criminal lawyers said prosecutors had to formally charge them by the end of Monday, or police would be obliged to release them.
Their detention prompted condemnation from rights groups as well as the United States and the European Union, which called for their release.
US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Beijing on Friday immediately to free the women, with similar comments made by Vice President Joe Biden.
“Each and every one of us has the right to speak out against sexual harassment and the many other injustices that millions of women and girls suffer around the world each and every day,” Kerry said in a statement.
Prospective poll candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted that the detentions were “inexcusable” and “must end”.
China rejected the US calls, and said yesterday that it had made “representations” to Washington on the issue.
“We urge the United States to respect China’s judicial sovereignty and stop interfering in China’s domestic affairs,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing.
Ten of the activists’ parents and spouses at the weekend issued a plea to authorities for their release.
The activists were “young, kind-hearted, and full of a sense of responsibility to society”, the group wrote in a letter to Beijing prosecutors that was posted online Saturday.
“Supporting gender equality and the interests of women is no crime!”
Activists Li Tingting, 25, Wei Tingting, 26, Wang Man, 32, Zheng Churan, 25, and Wu Rongrong, 30.
