BOSTON (Reuters) - A Chinese music student went on trial on Monday on U.S. charges that he harassed an activist who posted fliers at the Berklee College of Music in Boston supporting democracy in China and threatened to report her activities to Chinese law enforcement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alathea Porter told a federal jury in Boston that Xiaolei Wu, 25, scared the activist, referred to only as Zooey in court, by making threats online to chop off her hands and report her to the Chinese government because of her “reactionary posters.”

“She was afraid for herself, and she was afraid for her family, who was back in China,” Porter said in her opening statement to a 12-person jury.

The trial comes as U.S. and Western authorities continue to warn that China’s government has increasingly exerted pressure to silence its critics abroad.

  • Lemminary
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    3911 months ago

    Inb4 the token “Westerners are so brainwashed with propaganda” guy who shows up in every other thread about China or Russia

    • FunkyMonk
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      1011 months ago

      bruh one of the tankies really argued that chinese authority is the only path for earth.

      • @stoly
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        411 months ago

        They told me that I am racist for supporting Ukraine because Russia, you see, has decided to re-exert its Asian identity. Oh, and totally check out these two articles that prove what they are saying. Oh, and I’m a terrible person for not agreeing.

        • FunkyMonk
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          211 months ago

          yeah the antileftist arguement for the longest time is 'HEY COMRADE? You hate ethnocentricity… Well try OUR flavor!"

          • @stoly
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            11 months ago

            I was also shocked to find that tankies think that anyone who talks about human impacts on the Earth are ecofacists. Weird people.