BEIJING—A Beijing court ruled against the accuser in a closely-watched sexual-harassment case Tuesday, delivering a blow to Chinese civil-society activists who have fought to sustain a fledgling women’s-rights movement.

Zhou Xiaoxuan, a former intern at state broadcaster China Central Television, had accused a prominent host, Zhu Jun, of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2014, when she was an intern at the station. Mr. Zhu has denied the claims.

The...

BEIJING—A Beijing court ruled against the accuser in a closely-watched sexual-harassment case Tuesday, delivering a blow to Chinese civil-society activists who have fought to sustain a fledgling women’s-rights movement.

Zhou Xiaoxuan, a former intern at state broadcaster China Central Television, had accused a prominent host, Zhu Jun, of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2014, when she was an intern at the station. Mr. Zhu has denied the claims.

The court said in a statement posted late Tuesday that Ms. Zhou provided insufficient evidence to support her claim, though it didn’t say what evidence it had considered. The proceedings, which lasted roughly ten hours, were closed to the public.

When Ms. Zhou emerged around midnight from the courthouse, she told her supporters that the judge had refused to admit certain evidence, including surveillance footage outside the room where the alleged incident occurred and a recording her parents made to police shortly afterwards.

“I’m very sorry there wasn’t a better result,” said a tearful Ms. Zhou, according to video footage shared by supporters. “We will definitely appeal in the future.”

A young man named Fey carried a copy of China’s civil code in support of the sexual-harassment accuser outside a courthouse in Beijing on Tuesday.

Photo: Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal

The crowd cheered, with one shouting: “In our hearts, you’ve already won.”

Ms. Zhou filed her civil suit against Mr. Zhu in 2018. That same year, he filed a defamation case against her, as well as against a woman who shared Ms. Zhou’s story on China’s Twitter -like Weibo platform. Ms. Zhou had initially shared an essay containing her allegations in a private social-messaging group. The status of the defamation case isn’t known.

When Ms. Zhou shared her essay in 2018, a number of Chinese women were also coming forward with accounts of rape, sexual assault and harassment. Women’s rights activists in China hoped that a #MeToo movement could take off in their country, as it did in the U.S.

But Chinese authorities largely tamped down the fledgling efforts and, in the years since, those who have been accused have fought back by filing defamation lawsuits, with some success. Women’s rights advocates and legal experts say it remains difficult for victims to come forward in China, even as awareness of sexual misconduct has increased in some circles.

Prosecutors in China have wide discretion in deciding the sentences for perpetrators of sexual assault, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. In an alleged sexual assault incident this summer involving a manager at Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , authorities dropped the case and detained the man for 15 days for what they said was an act of “forcible indecency.”

“Everyone knows that they have been suppressing #MeToo, feminism and gender equality, and squeezing the rights of women and LGBT groups,” said Wang Heting, a 23-year-old transgender woman and supporter of Ms. Zhou, speaking outside the courtroom Tuesday. “They’ll never let such a symbolic case win.”

Wang Heting, a supporter of the sexual-harassment accuser, held a sign saying ‘Stand Together’ outside a Beijing courthouse on Tuesday.

Photo: Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal

Crowds of supporters also showed up at Ms. Zhou’s first hearing, which adjourned without a verdict. She has sought since 2019 to file her case under a new sexual-harassment code but was rejected by the court, which instead treated the case as a personal dispute.

In recent months, Chinese authorities have grown more wary of discussion of gender issues, with dozens of feminist and LGBT accounts deleted from the Chinese internet.

A second hearing for Ms. Zhou’s civil case was set to take place in May, but the court delayed it at the last minute, without providing an explanation.

Weibo, the platform where Ms. Zhou once shared information about her first hearing and posted news about other incidents of sexual harassment in China, suspended her account this summer for one year. Ms. Zhou provided the timing of Tuesday’s hearing to followers on her account on another service, Tencent Holdings Ltd. ’s WeChat messaging platform.

In it, Ms. Zhou said she trusted the court and signaled she was ready for any verdict, without elaborating. It couldn’t be determined whether Mr. Zhu was at Tuesday’s hearing.

News about Tuesday’s hearing spread quickly among Ms. Zhou’s supporters, although her post soon disappeared from the internet.

Some supporters who shared screenshots of Ms. Zhou’s post on Weibo saw their accounts suspended for unspecified violations of content rules.

Weibo and Tencent didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Scores of uniformed and plainclothes police officers kept a close watch on crowds who turned up near the court building, confiscating signs showing support, checking identification and attempting at times to disperse the crowds. Some supporters said authorities prevented others from showing up.

Ms. Wang, the supporter of Ms. Zhou, said police checked her identification five times on Tuesday, and protested as an officer earlier in the day elbowed her and snatched away a sheet of paper she was holding that read, in Chinese, “Stand Together.”

A young man also outside the courthouse, carrying a copy of China’s civil code and only providing his given name, Fey, said he was glad to see more victims come forward after Ms. Zhou did, and that he was there to show support for them regardless of the outcome.

“When we have support for them, they are more willing to come forward,” he said.

—Qianwei Zhang contributed to this article.

Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com and Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com