The government of the Peoples Republic of China on Monday freed five female activists who had been detained for over a month. The women were released subject to possibly being charged formally at a later date; the investigation into their activities remains ongoing.
Media sources speculated that the release of the five women occurred as a result of a decision made at a high level within the government. Numerous people in the United States, the UK and the European Union had extensively criticized the detention of the five activists.
The five women are: Li TingTing, Wu Rongrong, Wei Tingting, Wang Man and Zheng Churan. They range in age between 25 and 32, and they recently gained widespread press attention by seeking to publicize social issues impacting women in China.
In 2012, the group attracted media attention by going into a public men’s restroom to showcase the need for more public facilities for women in Beijing. Later, some of the women wore blood smeared wedding gowns in public to highlight the problem of domestic abuse.
The women were in the process of preparing posters and stickers for March 8th of this year (on International Women’s Day) when the police arrested them, after they were accused of creating a disturbance. Last month, Chinese authorities conducted a raid on an office of an anti-discrimination group that allegedly worked with the women in Beijing, seizing computers and documents.