TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – In a possible blow to the # MeToo movement in China, a court 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 ruled on Tuesday that the evidence provided by Zou Sicong and He Qian against prominent journalist Deng Fei “was not enough to make anyone believe without hesitation that what was described actually happened.”
The court ordered He and Zou to pay 11,712 yuan ($ 1,813) in damages. They plan to appeal the ruling.
The lawsuit was based on an article written by He that Zou that went online in 2018, in which he alleged that Deng lured her into a hotel room in 2009 to discuss story ideas, then took off her clothes and tried to kiss and touch her.
He said she was then a 21-year-old intern at a news magazine where Deng was the lead reporter.
The article came amid a wave of allegations when young women across China came out with stories of sexual assault and misconduct as part of the global #MeToo movement.
However, the movement is struggling to gain traction in China, where politics, art and business are still predominantly male-dominated. Allegations brought both publicly and anonymously against a few dozen men in sectors ranging from the media to academia have sparked backlash, and since 2018 at least six men have filed defamation cases against their prosecutors or people who helped defame the charges. to publish.
Deng denied the charge, writing on his Wechat microblog that he had “never done anything so stupid or so bad”. He successfully filed a petition to keep the details of the case off the public records to protect the privacy of third parties who may be mentioned.
“I didn’t even get a chance to find the relevant evidence to prove my innocence, and since it’s been 10 years, I can’t even remember this person who said she saw me only once,” Deng wrote .
Throughout the trial, Zou and He said they faced a higher burden of proof under Chinese law. While China allowed sexual misconduct as a ground for lawsuits in 2019, the definition of such harassment remains unclear and very few cases are filed. Many have been prosecuted in court as labor disputes or under laws protecting public reputation.
Tuesday’s decision could discourage others from reporting sexual misconduct reports in the future, the defendants said.
“This is tantamount to telling someone who has been humiliated, who has been injured, that if you don’t have any audio recordings or videos from the event, you better hurry up and shut up,” said Xu Kai, Zou en He’s attorney. . in a statement. “The court had placed the full burden of proof on Zou Sicong and He Qian.”
“Then if we had the surveillance footage and the police report and I told Deng Fei about this in court, we should be in your position as prosecutor,” said Zou. “This will certainly have a chilling effect.”
He said the verdict was a setback, but she still has hope for the movement.
“I want to know how far we can go with the existing justice 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 controversial # MeToo cases, said she didn’t see the ruling as defeat. “It was very brave for He Qian to speak out about this with her real name. She did this for the rights of other women. “
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This story corrects that the court decision was a civil suit, not a criminal conviction.