The failed rescue attempt is one of more than 10 similar cases Mei knows of where advocates have been arrested and questioned by police since she joined an informal network providing support to the LGBTQ+ community some years ago.

In recent years, China’s LGBTQ+ community has been swept up in the Chinese Communist party’s broader crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression.

In 2021, the founder of another group, LGBT Rights Advocacy China, was detained and released on condition that he close the organisation, which shuttered shortly after.

“In China, there is systematic persecution,” says Fangqing*, 23, a gender-fluid advocate who, before going into exile overseas, was pressed by police to admit to selling harmful drugs after attempting to help a victim of domestic violence.

While China has a law against domestic violence, it fails to adequately protect victims, especially LGBTQ+ people, say advocates, with crimes often dismissed as family affairs.

Those who help victims escape violence can be arrested and made to confess to charges such as illegally selling drugs, kidnapping or even “group licentiousness”, says Fangqing.

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