Top-secret trial of MeToo journalist spotlights China’s use of security laws to ‘stop people speaking up’

There is international outrage over the closed-door trial of two prominent Chinese rights activists after two years of ‘arbitrary detention’, reports Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing have been tried for ‘subversion’ (AP/iStock)

One of China’s leading #MeToo activists and a top labour rights advocate have been tried behind closed doors on charges of “subversion”, their supporters say, in conditions of intense secrecy remarkable even by the standards of Xi Jinping’s authoritarian government.

Journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin was put on trial on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power” along with labour activist Wang Jianbing on Friday, two years after they were detained by police in the southern city of Guangzhou.

The Independent has learned that the trial at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, which was held behind closed doors – a standard practice under the Xi Jinping government – has concluded.