US charges China-based Zoom executive Xinjiang Jin with disrupting Tiananmen crackdown commemorations
- Court papers said Jin’s employer is based in San Jose, California, where Zoom is headquartered
- Jin is not in US custody and a lawyer for Jin could not immediately be identified
US prosecutors on Friday charged a former China-based executive at Zoom Video Communications Inc with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown at the request of the Chinese government.
Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his company’s systems to censor speech, the US Department of Justice said.
In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said the software engineer, Zoom’s main liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence, helped terminate at least four video meetings in May and June, including some involving dissidents who survived the June 4, 1989, student protests.
Jin allegedly fabricated violations of Zoom’s terms of service to justify his actions to his superiors.
Prosecutors also said his accomplices created fake email accounts and Zoom accounts, including in dissidents’ names, to suggest meeting hosts and participants supported terrorism, violence and child pornography.
