On March 6, 2015, the authoritarian regime in China
detained five feminist activists because they planned to campaign against sexual harassment on buses right before International Women’s Day on March 8, 2015.
This
is part of what has now become current practice in China. On the one hand, there is legislative endorsement of activists’ work on various issues from corruption to domestic violence and on the other no shelter from capricious crackdowns on ‘unauthorized’ public demonstrations, practices in which, like many other things, China is much like India.
Since coming into power in 2012, President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has overseen a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, as well as a crackdown on civil society groups ranging from human rights lawyers to NGOs building libraries in rural China. Feminist and LGBT activists say their events are frequently monitored or shut down by local police.
These five young feminist activists are Tingting LI, Man WANG, Tingting WEI, Rongrong WU, and Churan Zheng. They devote themselves to the mission of raising gender awareness among the general public by using
innovative methods to change gender norms and promote gender equality. They are leading a new wave of the feminist movement in China
Twenty years ago, China hosted the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, signed the Beijing Platform for Action and made a commitment to promote women’s rights and gender equality. What the Chinese government has done to the five young feminists is unacceptable and violates the spirit of the Beijing Platform for Action and CEDAW.
We stand in solidarity with these five women whose whereabouts are not known and demand their immediate release. The coercion of women human rights defenders happens everywhere and we MUST send a message that this is unacceptable.
WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OF ALL FIVE WOMEN!
WE DEMAND AN APOLOGY FOR THESE
UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND UNACCEPTABLE ARRESTS!
SHAME ON YOU, CHINA! RELEASE
THESE WOMEN NOW!
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