Jan. 11 (UPI) — A federal grand jury has indicted a Chinese national attending Berklee College on charges of stalking and threatening a pro-democracy advocate who was calling for political change in the Asian nation.
Xiaolei Wu, a 25-year-old Berklee College of Music student, was indicted Tuesday in Boston on one count of cyberstalking and one count of interstate transmissions of threatening communication, the Justice Department announced in a statement.
Wu was arrested mid-December when he was originally charged with one court of stalking.
Prosecutors said that over two days in October, Wu sent threatening messages via WeChat, Instagram and email to a person who had posted a flier calling for democracy in China on or near the Berklee College of Music campus in Boston.
The flier, a photograph of which was included in an affidavit supporting the charges, reads: “We want freedom. We went food on our tables. We want to breathe. We want art. We want democracy. we want to love. Stand with Chinese people.”
The flier was posted amid protests against the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Beijing as anger mounted over their strict COVID-19 restrictions.
The person behind the flier posted an image of it to their Instagram account, which was viewed by Wu who then allegedly sent his victim the threatening messages.
“Post more, I will chop your bastard hand[s] off,” Wu is accused in court documents of having sent the unidentified victim.
Wu is also accused of telling the person that he “already called the tipoff line” of China’s public security agency about the posting of the flier and that government agents “will go greet your family.”
The court document states that China’s Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security investigate political dissidents and that a threat to report a person’s anti-Chinese Communist Party activities “would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to that person.”
Wu also allegedly attempted to locate his victim’s residence, including asking someone in Berklee College of Music’s information technology department to provide him with the information despite knowing to do so would be illegal.
He also publicly posted his victim’s email address online while asking others to send the person harassing messages, according to the court documents.
“Wu said that he sent the communications to Individual 1 because Wu wanted to stop Individual 1 from posting pro-democracy posters; because he intended to frighten Individual 1; and because he hoped people would ‘abuse’ Individual 1 online,” according to the affidavit.
“He further stated that he had no sympathy for Individual 1, because he believed Individual 1’s [actions] constituted a serious crime in the PRC and Individual 1 does not deserve to be Chinese as Individual 1 betrayed their home country.” PRC are the initials of China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
If convicted, Wu faces up to five years’ imprisonment, three years of supervised released and a $250,000 fine for each of the two charges.
