- Zhou Xiaoxuan became the face of China’s #MeToo movement in 2018.
- She accused CCTV host Zhu Jun of groping and forcibly kis*ing her in a dressing room.
- A court ruled against her in 2012, citing “insufficient evidence,” but she appealed.
Wednesday, a Chinese court rejected an appeal by a former intern for state television against the dismissal of her landmark MeToo case accusing a prominent presenter of sexual harassment.
Zhou Xiaoxuan, better known as Xianzi in China, became the face of the country’s MeToo movement in 2018 when she publicly accused CCTV host Zhu Jun of groping and forcibly kissing her in a dressing room when she was a 21-year-old intern working on his show four years earlier.
Zhu, who was 50 years old at the time of the alleged incident, denied the accusation and filed a defamation lawsuit against Zhou. She then countersued, igniting a years-long legal battle that coincided with a broader crackdown on feminist activism and online discussion of women’s rights by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
A court in Beijing ruled against Zhou in September 2012, citing “insufficient evidence.” In response, she asserted that the court lacked procedural fairness. Zhou stated that the judge had repeatedly denied her requests to retrieve corroboration evidence, such as security camera footage from outside the dressing room.
Wednesday, the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court dismissed her appeal for the same reasons.
“The court held that the evidence submitted by the appellant Zhou was not sufficient to prove that Zhu had sexually harassed her, and that the appeal could not be substantiated,” the court said on its official Weibo account.
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