article_snippet.sent: The five activists on women's rights -- aged from 25 to 32 -- were picked up by police in three different cities just before March 8, the International Women's Day.
article_snippet.sent: the International Women had been planning a campaign against sexual harassment on public transportation.
article_snippet.sent: Police had recommended last week that prosecutors press charges of "assembling a crowd to disturb public order," which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
article_snippet.sent: Many have called the five members of Women's Rights Action Group trailblazers.
article_snippet.sent: Staging their protests through performance art or flash mobs, their highlighted feminist causes ranging from fighting domestic violence, gender equality at work, to more female public bathrooms -- drawing nationwide attention and even state media praise.
article_snippet.sent: their detention had drawn widespread condemnation, including from the United States.
article_snippet.sent: Each and every one of us has the right to speak out against sexual harassment and the many other injustices that millions of women and girls suffer around the world," said John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, in a statement Friday.
article_snippet.sent: Kerry's predecessor Hillary Clinton -- a longtime champion of women's rights who just announced her bid for the U.S. presidency -- called the jailing of the feminists "inexcusable" on Twitter, joining the "free the five" hashtag campaign.