BEIJING — A Beijing court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by a plaintiff in a high-profile Chinese sexual harassment case involving a widely known host of state broadcaster CCTV, a choice prone to deal a blow to China’s #MeToo motion.
Zhou Xiaoxuan, 29, accused certainly one of CCTV’s premier leisure present hosts, Zhu Jun, of groping and forcibly kissing her in 2014 when she was an intern working for him, allegations he denies.
Zhou’s accusations, posted on social media in 2018, rapidly went viral and he or she sued Zhu for damages that 12 months. In September 2021, after two closed-door hearings, Haidian People’s Court, a district court within the Chinese capital, rejected her claims as a result of inadequate proof.
Zhou vowed to appeal. Following an extra closed-door trial, the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court stated late on Wednesday it “rejected all of Zhou’s appeals and upheld the original judgment.”
“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 stated on its official Weibo account.
Zhou can apply to appeal once more if new proof is found.
Neither Zhou nor Zhu instantly responded to a Reuters request for remark. However, Zhou did submit a video on her WeChat account on Tuesday, a day earlier than the decision was introduced, by which she stated she hoped folks wouldn’t be discouraged.
“I have no regrets about standing up to all this, and I know that all painful feelings and hardships are precious, and I hope that you are like me, but still believe that everything has meaning.”
China’s #MeToo motion took off in 2018 when a school scholar in Beijing publicly accused her professor of sexual harassment. It unfold to NGOs, media and different industries.