TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – In a possible blow to the #MeToo movement in China, a court has ruled that two former journalists slandered a third journalist by publishing a report accusing him of sexual misconduct .
A court in the eastern city of Hangzhou on Tuesday ruled that the testimony given by Zou Sicong and He Qian against prominent journalist Deng Fei was not enough to make anyone believe without hesitation that what was described was true. did not happen. ‘
The court ordered that He and Zou should pay 11,712 yuan ($ 1,813) in damages. They plan to appeal against the verdict.
The lawsuit was based on an article written by He that Zou published online in 2018, in which he claims that Deng lured her to a hotel room in 2009 to discuss story ideas, took off her clothes and tried to kiss and touch her. .
He said she was a 21-year-old intern at a news magazine where Deng was chief reporter at the time.
The article came amid a flurry of allegations when young women across China became known with stories of sexual assault and misconduct as part of the global #MeToo movement.
However, the movement has struggled to gain a foothold in China, where politics, the arts and the business world are overwhelmingly dominated by men. Accusations made in public as well as anonymously against several dozen men in industries ranging from media to academia have caused a setback, and since 2018 at least six men have made defamatory charges against their accusers or people who help the accusations announce, brought.
Deng denied the allegation and wrote on his Wechat microblog that he “never did anything so stupid or bad”. He successfully requested that details of the case be kept out of the public record to protect the privacy of third parties who may be named.
‘I did not even get the chance to find the relevant evidence to prove my innocence, and further, given it was ten years ago, I can not even remember this person who himself said that she had only seen me once did not, ‘Deng wrote.
During the trial, Zou and He said they faced a higher burden of proof under Chinese law. Although China allowed sexual misconduct as grounds for litigation in 2019, the definition of such harassment remains unclear and very few cases are filed. Many were prosecuted in the courts as labor disputes or under laws to protect the reputation of the public.
The accused said the decision on Tuesday could discourage others from coming forward with reports of sexual misconduct.
“It is tantamount to someone who is humiliated, or hurt, saying that if you do not have audio recordings or videos of the event, you better hurry up and shut up,” said Xu Kai, Advocate Zou and He, said in a statement. “The court imposed the entire burden of proof on Zou Sicong and He Qian.”
“If we had the surveillance footage and the police report at the time, and when I told Deng Fei in court, then we should be in your position as the accuser,” Zou said. “It will definitely have a cooling effect.”
He said the verdict was a setback, but she still had hope for the movement.
“I want to know how far we can go with the existing legal system,” she said.
Deng did not respond to messages left on his social media accounts.
Zhou Xiaoxuan, the face of one of China’s most sensational #MeToo cases, said she did not view the ruling as a defeat. ‘It was then very brave for He Qian to speak to her with her real name about this. She did it for the rights of other women. ‘
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This story corrects that the court ruling involved a civil lawsuit, not a criminal conviction.