Alibaba Fires Feminine Worker Who Accused Then-Supervisor of Sexual Assault

Ms. Zhou’s accusations in July triggered widespread debate concerning the prevalence of sexual misconduct within the office, prompting a pledge from Alibaba Chief Government

Daniel Zhang

to work to alter systemic cultural points on the e-commerce big. A number of Chinese language tech giants additionally instituted sexual-harassment insurance policies.

The dismissal discover, which stated Ms. Zhou’s firing was efficient that day, describes itself as being issued by Alibaba e-commerce subsidiary Zhejiang TMall Expertise Co. It stated Ms. Zhou had violated the inner firm code of conduct by spreading false info via fliers she distributed to co-workers, messages she posted on inside firm messages boards and banners she unfurled within the cafeteria, “which aroused robust concern from society and broken the corporate.”

The allegedly false info included saying she was raped by executives and that the corporate knew however didn’t do something, based on the discover.

The discover additionally stated that Ms. Zhou hadn’t accepted earlier makes an attempt at outreach by the corporate in search of her cooperation, which included affords to pay her authorized and counseling prices and later making an attempt to barter her departure from the corporate.

Ms. Zhou stated she was in common contact with the corporate and offered screenshots of communications with firm staff that confirmed her asking a number of occasions for an prolonged depart of absence, which she stated was because of despair she suffered within the aftermath of the allegation.

Alibaba didn’t reply to a request for remark. Alibaba staff confirmed to the Journal that she is now not working on the firm.

“I hope that sooner or later, folks will now not hurl insults and abuse at victims when this society confronts sexual-assault circumstances, and that there shall be extra care and concern,” Ms. Zhou stated.

The information of her dismissal, first reported Saturday night by the state-run Dahe Every day, went viral on China’s Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, the place the principle hashtag associated to the information had attracted greater than 660 million clicks by Sunday night.

Details about Ms. Zhou’s case has remained on-line and triggered a number of rounds of public debate round sexual harassment previously months—a distinction to the remedy {of professional} tennis participant Peng Shuai, whose title has been blocked on a lot of China’s web since a publish briefly appeared on her Weibo account in early November accusing a former vice premier of coercing her to have intercourse.

Allegations of wrongdoing in opposition to senior political figures are thought-about extraordinarily delicate in China. Ms. Zhou’s case, in contrast, emerged within the midst of an effort by Chinese language President Xi Jinping to rein in what he sees as capitalist excesses, significantly within the tech sector.

Ms. Zhou accused her then-supervisor Wang Chengwen of molestation and rape in late July, and later posted an 11-page account of the episode on an inside firm dialogue board. Within the account, she wrote that she was pressured to drink at a dinner with purchasers till she was virtually unconscious. She wrote that she later woke to seek out Mr. Wang on high of her in a resort room, kissing and groping her.

A spokeswoman for Alibaba stated on the time that the agency had arrange an inside workforce to research the matter and was cooperating with the police investigation.

Alibaba fired Mr. Wang, who couldn’t be reached for remark, after the scandal grew to become public, and two high managers, together with Li Yonghe, former president of the retail unit the place Ms. Zhou labored on the time, resigned after being accused of failing to take care of her grievance. The corporate later additionally fired a number of staff, accusing them of leaking the girl’s account on-line.

In August, Alibaba introduced new insurance policies to fight sexual harassment.

The case additionally highlighted the issue victims face in pursuing assault allegations via China’s authorized system, which legal professionals and ladies’s rights activists say requires extraordinarily excessive requirements of proof and infrequently makes it simple for the accused to retaliate with defamation claims.

Chinese language authorities dropped Ms. Zhou’s case in September, saying the actions of Mr. Wang didn’t rise to the extent of a criminal offense. The investigators stated they confirmed that Mr. Wang had entered her resort room a number of occasions and engaged in “forcible indecency” however stated they discovered no proof of rape. Police subjected Mr. Wang to fifteen days of administrative detention.

Mr. Li, the previous Alibaba high-level govt, filed a defamation swimsuit in opposition to Ms. Zhou in late November, saying that he had, in truth, responded promptly to her complaints on the time, based on Shanghai-based state-run information group The Paper. He demanded that she ought to concern a public apology to him on the corporate’s nationwide web site for 15 consecutive days to revive his repute and pay him 1 Chinese language yuan, price about 16 cents, in compensation.

Mr. Li couldn’t be reached for remark.

Ms. Zhou issued an announcement in response to the swimsuit, denying she had broken Mr. Li’s repute and saying her lawyer had requested a suspension of court docket proceedings.

Some Chinese language social media customers cheered information of the dismissal on Sunday, accusing Ms. Zhou of organising harmless males. “I believe it’s very scary to make use of intercourse variations to make up false tales at will and body others,” learn one such remark that pulled in 3,000 likes.

However many others pushed again on these criticisms, noting that police confirmed Ms. Zhou had been sexually molested.

“How can ‘forcible indecency’ not be sufficient to represent a criminal offense? What sort of world is that this?” one consumer wrote in a remark that garnered greater than 62,000 likes.

Write to Sha Hua at sha.hua@wsj.com