'Feminist 5' Arrests Warning for China's Feminists

[niyad]

'Feminist 5' Arrests Warning for China's Feminists


In China, feminism made strides for many years when other types of political discourse was discouraged. But now the government is methodically isolating independent voices. This time there is no special pass for women.



BEIJING (WOMENSENEWS)-- As a point person for five young feminist activists released in April after 37 days in detention, veteran activist Feng Yuan has been monitoring their rocky reintegration into regular life. She says they are suffering recurrent nightmares, are forbidden to speak to the press or to travel without permission. "I don't think they have income," Feng said in a recent phone interview. "Their cellphones were not returned to them so they cannot communicate. They need friendship but they cannot have any work or social opportunity." Released pending charges, the threat of prison remains as the police continue, ostensibly, to cast for evidence of illegal activity. Police have already pulled one of the activists back into an eight-hour-long interrogation, Feng's husband told the New York Times. A hundred more surrounded and blocked access to the suburban Beijing neighborhood where another's parents live in the wake of a visit from the foreign press, according to Chinese microblogs says Feng.

The case of China's Feminist Five, as people have dubbed the five activists whose plan to post anti-groping stickers on buses and trains in several cities led to their arrests, touched off protests around the world, from New Delhi to New York, and drew condemnation from U.N. diplomats and high placed government officials.

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While few women hold real political power, China is a rare country thought to be on schedule to meet MDG No. 5, to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015, according to an analysis published in the Lancet (2015 statistics are not yet available).


China is also going to cohost a meeting of heads of state at the U.N. in September to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which forged a powerful global agenda for progress on gender equality. The Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action were unanimously adopted by 189 countries and have been the blueprint for policies to help women achieve health and economic and political power on par with men around the world ever since.

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http://womensenews.org/story/equalitywomen%E2%80%99s-rights/150519/feminist-5-arrests-warning-chinas-feminists