Hangzhou, May 29, 2015 - Today is the last business day of May. After the "[anti-feminist] storm" in March and two months of temporary closing, Weizhiming is forced to shut down officially. 

    Weizhiming is a women's organization based in Hangzhou. Since its establishment in the August of 2014, Weizhiming made contributions to various feminist issues, including employment equality for women, sexual harassment prevention, elimination of gender-based violence against women, second shift for women with children, and so on.At the same time, Weizhiming facilitated the Huang Rong case, the first winning lawsuit on gender discrimination in employment. Also, Weizhiming helped to lobby political representatives on the proposal of anti sexual harassment on public transportation.Weizhiming is a professional non profit organization for women's right. It focused on service in the community, and advocacy for the improvement of women's status.The low pay and hard work did not stop Weizhiming. They took an active part in women's issues with their young spirit.

    However, on March 7th, the Chinese authorities detained two of Weizhiming's full time employees WU Rongrong and ZHENG Churan, as well as three of its working partners, LI Tingting, WEI Tingting and WANG Man. A lot of working partners and volunteers of Weizhiming had been questioned by the police since then. Although the persecution of Haidian decided to release these five feminists on April 13rdthey are still on bail as suspects under law. Besides LI Tingting, the belongings of other working partners of Weizhiming have been returned by the police yet. These belongings include their money, cell phones and laptops. However, on April 23rd and 25th, the Beijing Haidian Police came to Hangzhou to interrogate WU Rongrong abusively.

Now, employees of Weizhiming have been forced to stop working and all its projects have been suspended. Weizhiming cannot afford the spending of salary and rent any more. As a result of all the pressure, Weizhiming has no choice but to shut down.

    As a newly developing non-profit group for women's rights, Weizhiming-ers now have to stop working under the name of "Hangzhou Weizhiming Organization" . 

    However,this doesn’t mean that we will stop fighting for gender equality and women's rights. Even though we cannot be employed full time for feminism, each of us will make continued effort on women's rights in our own ways. Never stop trying. At the same time, we hope there will be greater interest in and support for women’s rights from all sectors of society. Just as the meaning of Weizhiming's name implies, let us continue to shout out for women's rights and gender equality in the world.

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