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Shanghai (AFP)
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Sunday it was cooperating with a police investigation into sexual assault allegations made by a company employee.
An Alibaba statement said the company also suspended “affected parties suspected of violating our policies and values,” saying it had a “zero-tolerance policy against sexual misconduct.”
An unidentified employee made the allegations in a lengthy internal publication cited by Chinese media, which AFP is unable to verify.
She accused her manager and a client of sexual assault while on a work trip to Jinan City, Shandong Province, media reported.
A hashtag for the claim was among the most viewed articles on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Sunday.
Sexual misconduct has gained increasing attention in China, especially since the country’s #MeToo movement was sparked by Chinese feminists in 2018.
In one of the most significant cases to date, Beijing police said earlier this month that Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu was arrested on suspicion of rape.
Wu was accused by a 19-year-old student of raping her when she was 17, which drew widespread condemnation from the singer on Chinese social media and led several luxury brands to strike deals with him.
Alibaba had already come under close scrutiny from the government, which has launched a massive campaign to curb the growing weight of the country’s tech giants.
In April, regulators fined Alibaba a record $ 2.78 billion for practices seen as an abuse of its dominant market position.
State media quoted an internal memo on Sunday that was reportedly released by Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang as saying he was “shocked, furious and ashamed” about the misconduct case.
Jinan police said they were investigating a suspected rape case involving an Alibaba employee, according to a statement on Weibo that gave no further details.
© 2021 AFP
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