Campaigners welcome China release for five feminist activists

Campaigners today welcomed China's release of five feminist activists held for more than a month, saying the surprise move after an international outcry showed Beijing does sometimes respond to outside pressure.
The five, all aged 32 or younger, were taken into custody shortly before International Women's Day last month as they were preparing to hand out leaflets about sexual harassment on public transport.
The European Union, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton had all issued calls for their freedom, while Beijing said it was an internal issue.
Their lawyers said all five were released on bail yesterday, the deadline for prosecutors to formally charge them.

But authorities said today an anti-discrimination group connected with them, Yirenping, was suspected of breaking the law and would be punished "in accordance with the law".
China's ruling Communist Party does not tolerate organised opposition, and often clamps down on small activist groups, with controls tightening since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

Nonetheless the women's detentions were seen by rights groups as unusually harsh given the small scale of their stunts, and previous positive coverage they received in China's state-run media.
If Chinese activists are charged, prosecution and a guilty verdict normally follow but the women's release showed that Beijing had bowed to the "unprecedented global response" to their case, said Maya Wang, China researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to co-host a women's summit at the UN in September, and rights groups called for a boycott of the event unless the five activists were released -- a potential embarrassment for Beijing, which is seeking to build an image as a "responsible stakeholder" on the global stage.
"The optics of this arrest were obviously pretty terrible," said Joshua Rosenzweig, a human rights researcher based in Hong Kong.
The EU delegation to China said in a statement it noted the release "with relief".
The five were held in Beijing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou during a meeting of China's rubber-stamp parliament in the capital, when security is stepped up nationwide and activists often detained or warned not to travel.