Followers of China’s struggling #MeToo movement have been gripped by a series of recent allegations, including against a professor at a high-profile university, which went viral online and been reported by state media.
The professor at China’s largest public university, has been suspended after being accused of the historical sexual assault of a then-16-year-old girl.
The case, which has been reported by multiple state media outlets, is the most recent in a #MeToo movement which is often hampered by censorship and crackdowns on activists. It comes just weeks after allegations of abuse were made against a Chinese screenwriter, Shi Hang, by at least a dozen women. Shi has denied the allegations. In April accusations were also levelled at a prominent publisher of feminist texts.
On Tuesday night a woman accused a male professor at Zhengzhou University in Henan, of manipulating her and sexually assaulting her 11 years ago, when she was 16. She said she became pregnant, and the professor accompanied her to the hospital where she got an abortion.
“Hello, Professor,” she wrote in the post, according to a translation by the China Media Project. “I’m the girl you brainwashed, that you mentally controlled for two and a half years, that you violated, that you destroyed.”
The university published a statement the following morning saying it had “zero tolerance for moral misconduct” and had set up a special investigative taskforce. The professor had been suspended in the interim. He has not commented publicly on the allegations.
The woman’s post and associated discussions have been read more than 300m times on Weibo and attracted tens of thousands of comments. Some called for evidence, to which she replied that she could prove the abortion but not that it was connected to the professor. She suggested she did not expect consequences for the professor but wanted to share her story.
The comments appeared overwhelmingly supportive, with some quoting the Maoist slogan “a single spark can start a prairie fire”, which has been repurposed in the #MeToo movement.
Previous #MeToo allegations have attracted a lot of attention on social media before being effectively muted by China’s extreme censorship. Multiple advocates have been harassed or detained, including Huang Xueqin, a journalist and activist who has been held in jail without charge for about two years.
Tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared for several weeks after she posted allegations of sexual assault against Zhang Gaoli, a former high-ranking member of the Chinese Community party’s politburo standing committee. The original post and all discussion was strictly censored. After a global campaign for assurances of her wellbeing, she later reappeared and retracted her comments.
Some cases have remained highly visible, including the allegations against Shi Hang, and the conviction of a Chinese-born Canadian pop star, Kris Wu, for rape.
Posts about the Zhengzhou university case remain online, and it was widely reported by state media, albeit in a uniform way that focuses almost exclusively on the university’s statement.
A China analyst and director of the China Media Project, David Bandurski, said: “The complete lack of follow-up by Chinese media, and the near uniformity of treatment, suggests that restrictions on the story were already in force by early Wednesday morning, instructing editors to use the Zhengzhou University notice only, and to avoid independent reporting.”
