Alibaba sexual assault allegation sparks outrage, investigation



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An allegation of sexual assault against a director of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. sparked a storm of public criticism, prompting general manager Daniel Zhang to intervene in a situation that raised questions about sexual harassment in Chinese workplaces.

An 11-page account of an employee’s allegations circulated on Alibaba’s internal chat room on Saturday evening Beijing time and had become a hot topic of conversation among staff, according to company employees. contacted by the Wall Street Journal. Screenshots of the internal chat were then posted on the wider Chinese internet, where they quickly went viral.

According to the woman’s account, the alleged perpetrator was a manager named Wang Chengwen, her supervisor at the time the alleged incident took place in late July. She wrote that Mr. Wang had taken her with him to a client event, where he forced her to drink excessively. She woke up naked the next morning in a hotel room, she said, and vaguely remembered crying the night before while Mr. Wang was lying on top of her, kissing her and fiddling with it.

The woman did not reveal her identity in the account, although company employees said Alibaba staff who saw internal messages in which she alleged sexual assault could have discovered who she was.

Mr. Wang could not be reached for comment.

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