China: Victory for press freedom — journalist and #MeToo activist Sophia Xueqin released after three months of detention

CHINA, Guangzhou, January 17, 2020 — The Coalition For Women In Journalism welcomes the release of freelance journalist and #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin. She has been finally freed after being detained for three months in Guangzhou, a city in southern China.

The serious public order charges placed against our colleague left us concerned about her safety and future in China. We are glad to learn that Sophia is now a free citizen.

In 2018, Sophia, a prominent journalist and feminist, was at the helm of the #MeToo movement in China. She was taken into custody after being summoned on October 17, 2019, following charges for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble”. The charges are often used to detain human rights activists in China in a bid to silence and threaten them. If proven guilty, the charged individual can face up to five years in prison. Our colleague was held inside the Baiyun District Detention Centre, while her family and friends were not allowed to visit her while she was detained there.

A couple of months before being held, Sophia was covering the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and shared photos of the demonstrations on her social media. She was reporting for Matters, a media outlet based in Hong Kong.

Her activities were monitored by Chinese authorities after her passport was confiscated in August 2019, when she returned to China after her six-months-long academic trip to the U.S., Hong Kong, and Taiwan. However, it remains unclear whether she was detained following her activities in the protest-ridden financial hub controlled by China.

Sophia has not commented on her release and her lawyers have also not commented about the journalist facing any further charges, following the sensitivity of the matter. Our colleague’s release comes as a surprise, as censorship is prevalent in China and anything against the state narrative is dealt with strictly by the country’s authoritative government.

We urge China to also ensure freedom of the press without holding its journalists, especially women journalists, to account for merely doing their jobs. They should be allowed to perform their duties without the fear of being persecuted and imprisoned for upholding the values of press freedom.

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The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world, and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.

Follow us on Instagram @womeninjournalism and Twitter @CFWIJ.

Our website is WomenInJournalism.org and we can be reached at press@womeninjournalism.org