Does China hate women as much as Islam? > #MeToo journalist imprisoned in China for revealing sexual abuse

 

China sentences #MeToo activist Sophia

Huang Xuequin to 5 years in prison

By Clyde Hughes

June 14 (UPI) -- A Chinese court sentenced #MeToo journalist and activist Sophia Huang Xuequin to five years in prison on Friday for "subversion against the state" after holding her trial privately, her supporters said on Friday.

Huang openly talked about the misogyny and sexism she endured in a state-run newsroom and specialized in breaking stories about sexual abuse survivors in China. She had been in custody since 2021 when she was arrested with labor rights activist Wang Jianbing at a Guangzhou airport.

Huang's backers said the journalist was held for periods in solitary confinement before her trial, which started in September 2023. Chinese officials accused her of inciting "participants' dissatisfaction with Chinese state power under the pretext of discussing social issues."

According to Amnesty International, Wang received 3 years and six months in prison. Sarah Brooks, the organization's China director, said the sentence is another example of China's attempt to bury women's voices who speak out against sexual violence.

"Tomorrow marks exactly 1,000 days since Sophia Huang Xuequin and Wang Jianbing were arrested," Brooks said in a statement. "These convictions will prolong their deeply unjust detention and have a further chilling effect on human rights social advocacy in a country where activists face increasing state crackdowns."

Brooks said their intimidation has been extended to family and friends, who have been questioned by local authorities and had their homes searched and electronic devices taken away from them.

"In reality, [Huang and Wang] have committed no actual crime," Brooks said. "Instead, the Chinese government has fabricated excuses to deem their work a threat, and to target them for educating themselves and others about social justice issues such as women's dignity and workers' rights."

Rolling Stone Finally Retracts Bogus Article About Fraternity Gang-Rape @UVA

Students belonging to Phi Kappa Psi house at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., were accused of rape in a story published by Rolling Stone magazine in November 2014. On Sunday the magazine retracted the story. (Associated Press file photo)

Rolling Stone magazine has apologized and officially retracted its discredited article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia.

The magazine took the action Sunday night after receiving a report from the Columbia University graduate school of journalism on the editorial process that led to the article.

Rolling Stone asked for the independent review after other news media organizations exposed flaws in the November 2012 article, titled "A Rape on Campus."

By Dec. 5, Rolling Stone apologized and acknowledged discrepancies in the article. A four-month police investigation produced no evidence that the attack occurred.

The article focused on a student identified only as "Jackie," who said she was raped by seven men at a fraternity house. Jackie refused to co-operate in the police investigation.

The story's autopsy could lead to a shakeup at Rolling Stone, founded in 1967 by editor Jann Wenner. The magazine, best known for its pop music coverage, was a pioneer in the "New Journalism" of the 1960s and '70s, an approach characterized by a reporter's immersion in the subject matter.

Jackie's story
The 9,000-word article described a Sept. 28, 2012, gang rape of a University of Virginia first-year student, identified by her real first name, Jackie, allegedly during a pledge party at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

The article written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely accused the Charlottesville school, the 21,000-student flagship of the Virginia state university system, of tolerating a culture that ignored sexual violence against women. It raised deep concern and national soul-searching about sexual assault at U.S. campuses in general.

The retraction of this article is good news as it puts to rest the accusation of 'out-of-control' fraternities in the University of Virginia. It does not necessarily mean that there is no 'culture-of-rape' on campus, but that if there is, it is not nearly as pronounced as you would think after reading the Rolling Stone excuse for professional journalism.

After its publication, the school suspended fraternity and sorority activities and enacted more safety measures, and Governor Terry McAuliffe urged a review of policies at the school.

But Phi Kappa Psi rebutted key parts of the article, and the Washington Post reported that Rolling Stone had not checked out the rape claim with any of the accused. In December, Rolling Stone apologized, citing "discrepancies" in Jackie's account.

The 9,000-word article described the alleged gang rape of a University of Virginia first-year student, identified by her real first name, Jackie, during a pledge party at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Numerous inconsistencies
Charlottesville police said last month they had found no evidence to back up the story, citing numerous inconsistencies. Jackie declined to give police a statement or answer their questions.

Benjamin, the Duke law professor, said it was doubtful Rolling Stone would face any lawsuit for libel since no one had been identified by name as an attacker.

Fraternities and sororities, social clubs at many U.S. colleges, often have their own housing and are known as the Greek system.

As a public entity, the university is barred from suing. Both the campus chapter and national organization of Phi Kappa Psi also could be too large as groups to claim libel damages, he said.

A suit by Phi Kappa Psi could lead to a potentially damaging "fishing expedition" by lawyers into the fraternity. Rolling Stone's reputation also is likely to be damaged anyway if the Columbia review is damning, he said.

But Bruce Sanford, a Washington media lawyer with the firm of BakerHostetler, said hefty settlements arising from false accusations of rape against Duke lacrosse players in 2006 showed that the fraternity could potentially file a lawsuit.

"The parallels are clear enough that they should worry Rolling Stone considerably, if they're not worried already," he said. 

Sensational Rolling Stone Campus Rape Story Completely Unravels

I'm just grateful that the University of Virginia is not in Spotsylvania. I couldn't stand 3 consecutive stories from Spotsylvania.

Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo told reporters Monday that a
five-month police investigation into an alleged gang rape at the University
of Virginia that Rolling Stone magazine described in graphic detail
 produced no evidence of the attack and was stymied by the accuser's
unwillingness to cooperate. (The Associated Press)

Neil MacDonald (CBC)
For a group of young fellows who may never be able to scrub off the stench of rape allegations, the Phi Kappa Psi frat-boys at the University of Virginia are behaving like gentlemen.

"These false accusations have been extremely damaging to our entire organization," said the group's president in a statement after the local police chief sort of exonerated them of gang rape this week.

"But," he added, with a touch of noblesse oblige, "we can only begin to imagine the setback this must have dealt to the survivors of sexual assault."

I say "sort of exonerated" because, after a gullible, scoop-hunting journalist recounted a female student's tale of being gang-raped in 2012 on the floor of the UVA frat house, as shards of broken table glass tore into her back, and now after having endured nearly a year of investigations that not only turned up no evidence supporting the story, but actually seems to conclusively prove it false, neither the university nor the police could bring themselves to conclusively and explicitly declare anyone innocent.

Instead, after citing evidence that discredited just about every detail of the explosive story in last November's Rolling Stone magazine, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo nonetheless referred to the accuser as a "survivor."

He then expressed hope that eventually, the woman known only as "Jackie" finds "a place where she feels comfortable" so that she might reveal what, if anything, actually did happen on the night of Sept. 28, 2012.

One would think something must have happened to Jackie to cause her to give Rolling Stone her story, albeit a false story. Or perhaps the girl is mentally ill. In any case, she needs some serious help and I hope the university will ensure that she gets it.

Until then, evidence that her story was false, said Longo, "doesn't mean something terrible did not happen to Jackie … we are just not able to gather sufficient facts to conclude what that something may have been."

Investigation still 'open'

As of now, the investigation is suspended, but still open.

To close it, said Longo, would be "a disservice to Jackie," which, incidentally, is not the accuser's real name. Most news outlets are respecting her wish to accuse from under a cloak of anonymity.

Not one of the reporters at the news conference had the wit to ask how much of a disservice the chief thinks his open-ended inconclusiveness might be to the frat members, whose identities are not, unfortunately for them, shielded from the public. It's easy enough to research their names.

Given the permanent memory of the internet, any prospective employer down the road who makes any effort to research the past of some Phi Kappa Psi alum will immediately see references to rape, national scandal and continuing investigation.

Right after the Rolling Stone article appeared in November, UVA rector
George Martin and University president Teresa Sullivan met students
and promised to do a better job dealing with rape complaints on campus

Here, briefly, are the findings of police so far.

Jackie originally told a story of sexual assault and battery to a university dean in 2013, but did not wish to pursue it. Nearly a year later, after telling the same dean another story of gang rape, she agreed to meet with police.

But she refused to provide specific details, other than naming the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. She was insistent: She wanted no police investigation. She feared retaliation by the rapists.

But she was, evidently, willing to co-operate with the investigation — if you can call it that — of Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdeley.

Last November, when Erdely published Jackie's account of being lured into a frat party and raped by seven fellow students, it made national headlines, explosively validating the "rape culture" that activists say permeates university campuses here in the U.S.

The account brimmed with telling details, such as the rapists referring to Jackie as "it."

The school was accused of ignoring predators. Fellow students were accused of encouraging her to keep her mouth shut. Frat-boys in general became national villains. The fraternity in question was vandalized. Students marched.

Unsupported

At the request of the university president, Charlottesville police reactivated their investigation.

More than 70 people eventually co-operated. Fraternity members rather sensibly hired lawyers, but consented to police searches, and submitted to interviews.

The police talked to Jackie's friends, co-workers and fellow students. They searched records and databases for corroborating evidence.

Jackie, though, refused to co-operate, says the official police report. She began communicating only through her lawyer.

"Despite numerous attempts to gain her co-operation, Jackie has provided no information whatsoever to investigators."

Police quickly discovered there had been no frat party on the night in question. The student who Jackie said lured her to the gang rape appeared not to exist. Neither did his phone number, provided by Jackie to her friends.

Essentially, her entire story turned out to be either false in its essentials or, charitably, unsupported.

By December, Rolling Stone was backing down. Almost unbelievably, the magazine admitted its reporter had agreed, out of some sort of weird courtesy, not to check Jackie's story.

Rolling Stone soon decided it could no longer stand by the story; it was a straight repudiation, declaring that the magazine’s naïve trust in Jackie was "misplaced."

 Then, this week Chief Longo appeared before the cameras with his extraordinary dual message: No evidence to support the story, but no evidence that something bad didn't happen, either.

What? No evidence that something bad didn't happen? You have to prove something bad didn't happen? How absurd! Where do you start? "Something bad" can mean a million things - do we just pick one? Where and when did something bad happen? By whom was it perpetrated? You can't even begin to answer questions like that without some honesty from the victim, if there was a victim.

Should someone be sued?

Would Jackie be charged with lying to police on the two occasions she did agree to speak with them? "Absolutely not," the chief said.

Would the force ever charge someone who falsely cried rape? Well, not unless the chief prosecutor agreed, said the chief, and maybe not even then. A charge like that might have a "chilling effect" on reporting sex crimes.

None of the reporters present asked why in heaven's name Jackie still qualifies as a "survivor" or what's wrong with "chilling" false claims.

Protesters picketed and vandalized the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house
at the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville after the
Rolling Stone article appeared. (The Associated Press)

But there would probably have been no satisfactory answer. Under pressure from anti-rape activists, authorities are beginning to treat campuses as islands disconnected from the world, places where the normal rules establishing guilt, innocence, crime and punishment don't apply. And they are right to do so since most campus rapes go unreported to police and are dealt with very gently, if at all.

Hence the spectacle of Chief Longo on live TV, advising that a rape victim's options are, in this order: Doing nothing at all, seeking medical help, letting the university handle it, and, finally, perhaps, going to the police.

The ground has truly shifted when a policeman actually says it's perfectly reasonable for a rape victim to just do nothing, or to let educational officials handle a crime that is serious enough to rank with murder and kidnapping.

The University of Virginia's separate inquiry, triggered by the Jackie case, continues, meanwhile, even though, when asked if a rape culture exists on the campus, the police chief answered: "We could find no evidence that would corroborate such an assertion."

And the Phi Kappa Psi frat-boys are, as respectfully as possible, considering whether, and whom, they should sue: Jackie, who has since said she stands by her story, or the important magazine that decided her story was too good to bother checking.