A Chinese music student studying jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston has been sentenced to nine months in prison for harassing and threatening a fellow student who distributed fliers advocating for democracy in China.
Xiaolei Wu, 26, who grew up in Beijing, had no previous criminal history. Judge Denise Casper noted this fact when issuing the sentence, but also stated that Wu’s actions were “egregious” and served as a deterrent to other Chinese students in the US who might engage in criminal behavior, especially actions aimed at suppressing free speech.
Wu’s harassment took place over several days in October 2022 and included using WeChat, email, and Instagram to communicate directly with the victim, identified as “Miss Zooey”, regarding her campus activism. Wu also threatened to report her activities to Chinese law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Wu, who was a graduate student at Berklee, also encouraged others to locate the victim’s residence and publicly shared her email address with the intention of inciting online abuse.
Wu’s defense called his remarks an “immature” online disagreement between two people with differing political beliefs. However, prosecutors described Wu’s conduct as “serious” and said their office and the Department of Justice would never tolerate “censorship and repression campaigns here”.
The FBI’s Boston office, which led the investigation, said that Wu had now “learned there are serious consequences for harassing, threatening, stalking and infringing on a fellow student’s constitutional rights solely because she was critical of the ruling Communist Party of China”.
The FBI also stated that they would do “everything it can to ensure that those who try to infringe on our fundamental rights will face similar consequences”.
