In China, Alleged Attempt to Intimidate a Student Activist

A Peking University student who filed a request for records related to an alleged rape of a student by a professor 20 years ago said university officials tried to intimidate her after she submitted the request, National Public Radio reported. The student, Yue Xin, said that university authorities told her she was being manipulated by hostile foreign forces and that she could be prosecuted for treason or separatism for requesting the information.

Yue also said she was woken by her college adviser and her mother in her dorm room after midnight and told to stay away from the case and delete all related material on her electronic devices. Yue's parents subsequently took her home and grounded her.

Administrators at Peking, an elite Chinese university in Beijing, did not respond to NPR’s inquiries about the case. Yue has remained defiant.

"Was the freedom of information request a crime?" she wrote. "I'd done nothing wrong, and could not regret exercising my glorious right as a Peking University student."