TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – In a possible coup in the #MeToo movement in China, a court ruled that two former journalists defamed a third journalist by publishing an account 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 allow anyone to firmly believe without any doubt that what was described was actually to pass”.
The court ordered He and Zou to pay 11,712 yuan ($ 1,813) in damages. They plan to appeal the sentence.
The lawsuit was based on an article written by He that Zou published online in 2018, in which he claimed that Deng lured her to a hotel room in 2009 to discuss ideas for the story, then took off her clothes and went try to kiss her and feel her.
She said at the time she was a 21-year-old fellow in a news magazine where Deng was chief reporter.
The article appeared amid a wave of allegations as young women across China made themselves public with stories of sexual assault and misconduct as part of the global #MeToo movement.
However, the movement has struggled to gain strength in China, where politics, the arts and the business world remain dominated by most men. Public and anonymous accusations against a few dozen men in industries ranging from the media to academia have provoked a backlash and, since 2018, at least six men have filed defamation lawsuits against their accusers or people who helped publicize the allegations.
Deng denied the allegation, writing on his Wechat microblog that “he had never done anything so stupid or so bad.” He successfully requested that the details of the case be kept out of the public record to protect the privacy of third parties who could be cited.
“I didn’t even get a chance to find the relevant evidence to prove my innocence and besides, considering that ten years have passed, I don’t even remember this person who was said to have only seen me one once, “Deng wrote.
Throughout the process, Zou and He said they had a higher burden of proof under Chinese law. Although China allowed sexual misconduct as a reason for lawsuits in 2019, the definition of this type of harassment remains bleak and very few cases are reported. Many have been prosecuted in court as labor disputes or under laws to protect the public reputation.
Tuesday’s decision could deter others from reporting sexual misconduct in the future, the defendants said.
“This is the same as telling someone humiliated, injured, that if you don’t have audio or video recordings of the event, it’s best to hurry up and shut your mouth,” Zou and He’s lawyer Xu Kai said . in a statement. “The court had imposed the entire burden of proof on Zou Sicong and He Qian.”
“If then we had the surveillance footage and the police report and in court I told this to Deng Fei, we should be at your place of accuser,” Zou said. “This will definitely have a creepy effect.”
He said the trial was a setback, but he still has hope for the move.
“I want to know how far we can go with the existing legal system,” he said.
Deng did not respond to the messages they left on their social media accounts.
Zhou Xiaoxuan, the face of one of China’s most prominent #MeToo cases, said he did not see the ruling as a defeat. “It was very brave then for He Qian to talk about it with his real name. He 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.