Chinese star Jiang Mengjie lauded for exposing upskirting blackmail

Actor says incident left her feeling ‘angry’ and ‘disgusted’

Jiang Mengjie (Getty Images for Marc Jacobs)

Chinese actor Jiang Mengjie is receiving praise for telling her story about upskirting.

Jiang told her eight million followers on the Chinese social network Weibo that she had been blackmailed over the explicit video, which had been filmed “many years ago”.

The star who shot to fame on the 2010 television series The Dream of Red Mansions told her fans that the video left her “angry and disgusted, along with a feeling of powerlessness,” per the BBC’s translation.

Jiang revealed that she had been sent private messages about the footage “saying that they would send the video to major film and TV companies and brands, and ruin the rest of my life”.

The police have since told the star that the suspect who blackmailed her has been detained, and she will be “notified in time of their punishment”.

“As a public figure, maybe I can make more people pay attention to such vicious incidents by taking a stand,” she said.

“It is not our fault that we have been secretly photographed. Our lives should not be affected by this kind of thing.”

According to the BBC, Jiang’s post about the story has won her huge plaudits, gaining more than 600,000 likes on Weibo.

In the UK, upskirting was criminalised under the Voyeurism (Offences) Act introduced in April 2019. However, in China “there are no laws prohibiting the sale of hidden cameras”, per The Sixth Tone news website.

A total of 46 men and one teenage boy were prosecuted for 128 offences under the Voyeurism (Offences) Act between April 2020 and June 2021 in the UK, it was previously revealed.

In an interview with The Independent last year, Gina Martin, the activist behind upskirting’s criminalisation revealed how she was subjected to a “terrifying” stalking ordeal for eight years.