US court jails Chinese student who threatened and harassed pro-democracy activist

Shweta Sharma
·2 min read
File: Xiaolei Wu, a citizen of China who at the time was a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, sits for an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation at its office in Chelsea (via REUTERS)
File: Xiaolei Wu, a citizen of China who at the time was a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, sits for an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation at its office in Chelsea (via REUTERS)

A Chinese student who was convicted for harassing an activist demanding democracy in China has been sentenced to nine months in a US jail, officials said.

Xiaolei Wu, 26, a former Berklee College of Music student, had threatened to chop off the hands of the victim and report their family to the Chinese government after a flyer posted on the university’s campus last year called for democracy in China.

A guitarist who was studying jazz in the US, Wu was on a student visa in the country. He has apologised for his “reckless behaviour”.

The leaflet posted at the Berklee College of Music campus on 22 October featured messages including: “Stand with Chinese People,” “We Want Freedom” and “We Want Democracy”.

On Wednesday, US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston announced that Wu would be deported to China upon completion of his sentence, which was shorter than the three years in prison called for by prosecutors.

Judge Casper said that Wu’s harassment campaign against the activist, a US citizen of Chinese origin, was brief – just two days – but also "egregious," and noted that Wu had no prior criminal history.

She added that the sentence was to signify that no other Chinese national can “engage in criminal conduct, particularly conduct to suppress free speech”.

"Mr Wu‘s criminal conduct is very serious. He harnessed the fear of potential retribution from the PRC government to harass and threaten an innocent individual who had posted an innocuous, pro-democracy flier on the Berklee campus," acting US Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement.

"Mr Wu‘s violent threats achieved his goal of instilling fear in his effort to silence this brave victim and others who might want to speak out against the PRC government."

Wu was convicted in January for issuing threats to a US permanent resident who is originally from China and still has family members living there.

After seeing a picture of the activist placing the flyer on the campus, Wu took to WeChat and posted threatening messages on a 300-person chat of Chinese Berklee students and alumni. The message demanded she take down her “reactionary” flyers and threatened to chop off her hands if she posted more.

Wu later apologised and said he needed “to take responsibility and accept what I have done”.