HONG KONG \u2014 Chinese Canadian pop star Kris Wu was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison by a Beijing court on charges including rape, in one of China’s more prominent #MeToo cases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The sentence was welcomed by women’s rights advocates, who have clashed with Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and grass-roots activism under President Xi Jinping. <\/b>Chinese lawyers said that Wu had the right to appeal his conviction. He had previously denied the.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, rose to fame as part of the South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo, and later became a solo performer. He was detained in 2021 after multiple accusations were levied against him, which led to public widespread condemnation. At the time, luxury brands like French fashion label Louis Vuitton and German automaker Porsche distanced themselves from the pop idol, with whom they had commercial deals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt’s encouraging news, especially in the context of women’s rights in the country being continuously eroded in the past decade,\u201d Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said of the sentencing. \u201cNow, other victims of sexual assault in China can feel empowered that they, too, can come forward with their stories and seek justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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However, Wang cautioned that censorship of women’s rights activists in China continued. She also noted that, in the case against Wu, the prosecution was \u201cshrouded in secrecy\u201d and \u201csome of the criticism of authorities’ handling of his case was scrubbed from the Chinese internet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIn other words, the ruling Chinese Communist Party can take today’s victory and progress away any time,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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On Friday, Wu was sentenced to 11\u00bd years imprisonment for rape, plus one year and 10 months for \u201cgroup lewdness,\u201d according to a statement on the Beijing Chaoyang <\/b>District Court’s Weibo account. The court said that he would be imprisoned for a total of 13 years and deported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The court’s statement detailed that Wu had assaulted three women, who were under the influence of alcohol and \u201cunable to resist,\u201d at his home from November to December 2020. In 2018, he colluded with others to organized \u201clewd activities\u201d with two women , the court said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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After restaurant attack, authorities continue to gaslight China’s women<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The statement said that Canadian embassy officials were present at the sentencing. Wu, who was born in China but moved to Canada as a child, holds Canadian citizenship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The online firestorm began when Du Meizhu, the first woman to publicly accuse Wu of assault, detailed her in an interview with NetEase, a Chinese media outlet. In the interview, Du said Wu lured her to his home and plied her with alcohol when she was 17 years old. About two dozen women came forward with after Du spoke out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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On the day of the sentencing, Du wrote on her verified Weibo page that \u201cjustice was delayed, but it has arrived.\u201d Each post was liked more than 2.5 million times as of Saturday afternoon. What’s On Weibo, a news site that tracks Chinese social media, reported that Du \u201ccelebrated\u201d the sentence in a live stream, and that a Chinese-language hashtag, translated as \u201cWu Yifan Gets 13 Years,\u201d had been viewed more than 1.7 billion times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Separately on Friday, Wu was fined roughly $84 million by authorities <\/b>for tax-related offenses committed between 2019 and 2020, Reuters reported. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Healy reported from Washington. Eva Dou contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comment on this story Comment HONG KONG \u2014 Chinese Canadian pop star Kris Wu was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison by a Beijing court on charges including rape, in one of China’s more prominent #MeToo cases. The sentence was welcomed by women’s rights advocates, who have clashed with Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent …<\/p>\n
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