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Seeking government accountability for the massacre in accordance with the law is our legitimate right. For 33 years, we have been pursuing the three demands of “truth, compensation, and accountability” in a peaceful and rational manner, calling for a dialogue with the government through the legal...
Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, concludes her visit to China with a disappointing statement that betrays her mandate , as the world’s highest human rights authority, to “promote and protect the enjoyment and full realization, by all people, of all human rights.” Bachelet...
The cases of the 47 individuals accused of “conspiracy to commit subversion”—known as the Hong Kong 47, or NSL 47, in reference to the National Security Law under which they are charged—have languished in Hong Kong’s court system for more than a year, while most of the detainees have been denied...
In anticipation of her upcoming visit to China, HRIC joins 59 human rights NGOs around the world in calling upon Michelle Bachelet to improve her office’s approach to addressing China’s human rights abuses. Among the NGOs’ requests are: release the long-delayed OHCHR report on Xinjiang, ensure the...
HRIC joins 191 NGOs around the world to urge UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to publish the long-delayed OHCHR report on the grave human rights situation in Xinjiang.
In the lead-up to the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, a Chinese official explicitly warned athletes that, while in China, they would not be free to express themselves. Many of them did voice their concerns—before and after the Games—about human rights violations in China.
HRIC and NGOs around the world urge governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Games, slated to begin February 4, 2022, and athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses.
Fourteen years ago, the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics was critical for Chinese leaders to signal to audiences at home and abroad that China had arrived on the world stage as a powerful, respected global player. With the active participation of the international community,...
December 14 is the birthday of Wu Gejianxiong—one of the Changsha 3 imprisoned for “subversion of state power” for defending the rights of vulnerable groups. Below is a message from from his father, lawyer Wu Youshui, urging supporters to send their birthday wishes to Wu. Wu was a staff member of...
(Typical cases that demonstrate the worsening human rights situation in China)
Compiled by Human Rights in China, December 2021
Compiled by Human Rights in China, December 2021
HRIC submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Mr. Diego García-Sayán, as input into a report he will present to the Human Rights Council in its 50th session in June 2022 (HRC50).
November 24, 2021 (updated) In a joint appeal to the director of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Justice and the warden of Shanghai Women's Prison, where citizen journalist Zhang Zhan is serving a four-year sentence and in declining health, 693 individuals, including rights lawyers, clergymen, and...
“As a collective of non-governmental organisations defending human rights and freedom of the press, we urge you to exonerate and release human rights defender, journalist, and former lawyer Zhang Zhan, who is suffering from a critical health condition and may die soon if she remains in detention...
“FIDH and its member organization HRIC urge the Council and its member states to take urgent actions to address the alarming deterioration of rights and freedoms in the Hong Kong SAR, China. . . .”
“We, a group of 72 international non-governmental organizations and individuals, are writing to call on your government to drop the charge of “inciting unauthorized assembly” against Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤) and unconditionally release her. . . .”
Some of these women are lawyers and legal advocates who have chosen the difficult path of rights defense on their own. Others are family members of lawyers and legal advocates targeted by the authorities—who have been compelled to take up rights defense in order to protect their own freedom and...
Last updated: March 22, 2021 Li Qiaochu ( 李翘楚 ) , a feminist and researcher in labor issues, holds a bachelor’s degree from the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University of China and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of York in the United Kingdom. After...
On June 17, 2021, about 500 police officers raided the newsroom of Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper. They arrested five top executives, including its Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law. On the same day, the authorities froze HK$18 million ($2.3 million) of the assets of three companies linked...
In 2021, Hong Kong authorities, citing coronavirus health risks, banned, for the second year straight, the annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park where Hong Kongers had gathered every June 4 since 1990 to commemorate the victims of June Fourth crackdown on the 1989 Democracy Movement. The police...
Inspiration from Hong Kongers prosecuted and sentenced for involvement in the June 4, 2020 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park
Thirty-two years ago, hardliners in the Communist Party of China made the cold-blooded decision to crush citizens’ voices and mobilize the People’s Liberation Army against the Chinese people, killing and maiming unarmed, peaceful protestors demanding the fundamental conditions for a healthy society...
[Translation by Human Rights in China] On June 4, 1989, in a time of peace, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the leadership and command of the ruling authorities, sent tanks, armored vehicles, and soldiers with live ammunition onto the ten-mile Chang’an Avenue in Beijing. Without...
Originally published by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute . In December 2020 the European Union (EU) announced that it had concluded in principle a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with China . In so doing, the EU deliberately segregated its investment negotiations with China from its human...
At the request of Ding Zilin, a founding member of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of survivors and family members of the military crackdown on 1989 Democracy Movement, HRIC posts her letter below. Ding Zilin extends her deep appreciation for international support and humanitarian assistance for the...
Sharon Hom: “An agreement without human rights clauses or obligations in effect provides a blank check for an authoritarian regime and, frankly, leaves the companies to their own devices to address, ignore, or be complicit in human rights violations.”
In the Joint Appeal, HRIC joins 35 NGOs and labor unions around the world to express grave concerns that the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)—reached between leaders of the two governments in December 2020—“sends a signal that the European Union will push for closer cooperation...
HRIC joins 23 NGOs and individuals in urging the Biden Administration to prioritize human rights in U.S-China policy as the “scope and scale of human rights violations committed by the Chinese government inside and outside the country require a fundamental shift.” February 17, 2021 Joseph R. Biden...
Guo Feixiong ( 郭飞雄 ) , well-known Chinese human rights activist, was stopped at the Shanghai Pudong Airport on January 28 while en route to the United States to care for his ailing wife. The authorities reportedly cited “ suspicion of endangering national security " as the reason. Guo has begun a...
GUO FEIXIONG: URGENT APPEAL TO HIGHEST CHINESE LEADERS Chairman Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Chairman Li Zhanshu, Your Public Servants: I am Yang Maodong, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, and my pseudonym is Guo Feixiong. I am a free idealist and human rights worker dedicated to...
Sharon Hom: “Human rights defenders, as well as all users of social media or technology tools, are trapped between a rock and a hard place—between the manipulation for profit of “surveillance capitalism” and the economic and political constraints of party-state authoritarianism.”
On January 10, well-known Chinese rights activist Guo Feixiong issued an urgent open letter (see below) to Premier Li Keqiang and Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi, urging them to order Guangzhou authorities to return his passport so that he may come to the United States to take care of his...
  • A scene from the unofficial primaries held in July 2020, which the authorities characterize as “subversion of state power” under the National Security Law. (Photo: Studio Incendo)
Sharon Hom: “This is the moment to hold the authorities’ feet to the fire, a test, and an opportunity to give Article 4 real teeth to provide rights protections guaranteed in the international obligations of the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong SAR governments.”
HRIC’s submission describes overarching challenges to the right to education and academic freedom in Hong Kong and highlights specific concerns regarding the effective implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, art. 13).
On the December 9, at her year-end press conference at the Human Rights Council, UN High Commission for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet spoke out on the serious human rights violations in Xinjiang and expressed concerns regarding what she called the “rapidly shrinking civic and democratic space in...
  • Chang Weiping
Just six days after making this statement, Chang was taken away by police on October 22, 2020. Chang’s disappearance followed 10 months of “residential surveillance in a designated location” (RSDL)—presented by the authorities as “bail” condition of his previous detention that occurred in mid-...
  • Credit: Studio Incendo
Against the troubling rights erosion made possible by the NSL and the political abandonment by the Hong Kong SAR government of its people are: the institutional and normative safeguards inherent in Hong Kong’s judicial and legal system, and the safeguards provided by international human rights...
  • UN Human Rights Council
During the UN Human Rights Council’s 45th session that concluded yesterday in Geneva, Council member states and civil society organizations voiced urgent concerns about China’s serious and ongoing human rights abuses, centering on two sets of actions that have prompted international outcry:...
  • Wang Zang (left) and Wang Li (right)
Human Rights in China has learned that poet Wang Zang ( 王藏) and his wife Wang Li ( 王丽), of Chuxiong City, Yunnan Province, have been arrested for "inciting subversion of state power." Police authorities have referred their cases in mid-September to the procuratorate to seek indictments. According...
An open letter to: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, UN Member States. We, the undersigned organizations, join together to call for an international mechanism to address the Chinese government’s human rights violations, and urge you to...
In a joint communication to the Chinese government, seven United Nations independent human rights experts presented a legal assessment of the National Security Law for Hong Kong (NSL). They also detailed their numerous concerns that the law does not comply with the government’s international legal...
In this update, Xu Yan, wife of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, provides the latest developments in her husband’s case. On the morning of September 3, Yu’s two defense lawyers plan to meet with Yu at the Xuzhou Municipal Detention Center to discuss his upcoming trial of second instance...
Sharon Hom: “While the use of online platforms enables broader participation, greater transparency, and easier access, we also urge greater attention to potential measures for protecting civil society groups and human rights defenders against retaliation, particularly for those operating in...
From The Toronto Star : Ottawa remains silent as pressure mounts to help victims of China's crackdown in Hong Kong . . . . . “ Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China , gave a forceful defence of the need for Western countries not to give up and prematurely declare Hong Kong a lost...
On August 20, 2020, Peking University issued a “Notice on Regulating the Declaration and Approval of Participation in Online International Conferences Organized by Foreign Parties.” The Notice requires all teachers and students planning to participate in online conferences (webinars) to declare...
From Radio Free Asia (RFA) , “ 香港为何向黎智英开刀?蓬佩奥深表担忧 (Why did Hong Kong attack Jimmy Lai? Pompeo expresses deep concern) ”: Human Rights in China senior advisor, Gao Wenqian , explains why Hong Kong went after Jimmy Lai first. “First, Next Media is the only Hong Kong media company that can take a...
Sharon Hom, HRIC Executive Director: “Hong Kongers continue to exercise their rights in the closing civil society space and express resistance in creative, diverse ways. The international community must stand in solidarity with the people of Hong Kong.”
“Dear Foreign Ministers, We, a coalition of 17 organizations and independent scholars, write to express our grave concerns about Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Governments need to stand by the people of Hong Kong and respond with urgent and meaningful actions. We urge all governments….”
Many were charged with and convicted of “subversion of state power” and “inciting subversion of state power.” HRIC’s updated 709 case chart highlights the ongoing impunity of the Chinese authorities in violating the rights of rights defense professionals and activists, the right of an individual to...
In this timely essay, Chen Jiangang, one of China’s well-known rights defense lawyers, tells the story of the campaign waged by the Chinese authorities over the past decade intended to crush the rights defense legal profession.
HRIC has prepared an annotated bilingual chart of the NSL-HK to facilitate reading of the law and highlight the troubling, problematic aspects of the law, including…
“The new law is Beijing’s ultimate tool to crush dissent, shut down civic space, and erase the rule of law in the Special Administrative Region (SAR).”
Under siege at home and abroad, Xi Jinping, the helmsman of the Communist Party of China, decided he may as well go all out, wage a war against whatever may come while other countries are preoccupied, and settle the Hong Kong question once and for all…
On June 10, Zhang Hai of Wuhan submitted a complaint to the Wuhan Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in the first case filed by a Wuhan citizen against government authorities for concealing information about the new coronavirus. This concealment, he argues, led to his father’s death. Zhang…
“We urge the NPCSC to abandon plans to introduce national security legislation for Hong Kong, as what is known about the draft law so far and the experiences with respective national security laws in mainland China strongly indicate that neither the law nor its application would conform to...
Distributing democracy leaflets in Beijing landed Feng Xiaoyan in the No. 4 People’s Hospital in Linyi, Shandong, where she has been kept as a psychiatric patient and force-fed medications.
In his article, lawyer Chen Jiangang discusses what he terms as the “Four Breakthroughs” that President Xi Jinping has “achieved” during his administration: 1. Breaking with the principle of abiding by international treaty obligation, (referring to the the 1984 Joint Declaration that the Chinese...
On January 19, 2018, lawyer Yu Wensheng published a "Citizen’s Proposal to Amend the Constitution," with recommendations for deleting the "Preamble” to the Constitution and for other political reforms. He was criminally detained the following day, on suspicion of "obstructing official business" and...
Xu Zhiyong wrote in his seminal essay in 2012: “China Needs a New Citizens Movement”: “China needs a new citizens movement. This movement is a political movement in which this ancient nation bids utter farewell to authoritarianism and completes the civilized transformation to constitutional...
  • June Fourth Victoria Park 2016
For the first time in 30 years, Hong Kong authorities are banning the annual June Fourth candlelight vigil in Victoria Park. “The ban comes amid an alarming acceleration of attacks on the autonomy of Hong Kong and the undermining of the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people guaranteed under...
[English translation by Human Rights in China] “We have to ask the Chinese ruling party and the Chinese government: Which civilized Chinese law expressly confers the government the right to use state military force to kill, at will, students and civilians in peaceful demonstrations?
Gao Wenqian writes, “The pandemic has severely impacted China's politics, and seriously questioned and challenged Xi’s “almighty” status that he has so painstakingly crafted. This was unimaginable before the outbreak in Wuhan. The image of Xi as a "wise leader" no longer exists, with his true form—...
On Thursday, May 21, authorities in Beijing announced a draft Decision to formulate and enact national security legislation prohibiting four identified security threats in Hong Kong: secession, subversion of state power, terrorism, and foreign interference. The move contravenes requirement in...
HRIC has selected the Chinese-language timelines that make use of Chinese government, news, scientific, social media sources, along with English-language sources, that tell the story of the pandemic from the perspective of those affected by it inside China and for a Chinese audience.
Wang Quanzhang ( 王全璋) , a lawyer in custody since the “709” crackdown in 2015, was supposedly released from prison on April 5, 2020. But instead of being allowed to go home to Beijing, Wang was sent to Jinan ostensibly for a 14-day quarantine. But by April 23, he had still not been allowed to...
April 30, 2020 is the 10th anniversary of the revocation of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei's lawyer's licenses. In 2008, Tang Jitian and Liu Wei were among 35 lawyers who called for the direct elections of officers of the state-controlled Beijing Lawyers Association. In 2010, Tang and Liu’s lawyer...
Pressure has been clearly mounting on the Hong Kong SAR government to once again make an attempt to introduce an Article 23 law. The overwhelming election of Pan-Democratic candidates in the district council elections in November 2019, along with the sustained mobilization of diverse sectors during...
  • 15 arrested pro dem figures collage (Photo: Courtesy Hong Kong Free Press)
The arrests of 15 pro-democracy activists on Saturday, April 18 marked a sharp turning point in the protest movement that has engulfed the city for nearly a full year. Taking place amidst a global pandemic and renewed calls for enactment of Article 23 national security law, this campaign targeted...
On April 2, 2020, the Zhengzhou Lawyers Association issued a disciplinary “warning” to lawyer Liu Yingying( 刘莹莹 ) for posting on her blog an article titled, “Today, family members lined up in a long queue to pick up their relatives’ ashes at the Hankou Funeral Home.“ The warning states that Liu is...
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, thirteen Chinese citizens from Beijing, Fujian, Hunan, Shandong, and other provinces, including Li Yingzhi ( 李英之 ) , Zha Jianguo ( 查建国 ) and Lin Yubin ( 林于斌 ) urge the government to take the following actions: Conduct a public memorial service on Qing...
In her statement, Shi Minglei, the wife of Cheng Yuan, the public interest advocate facing charges of “subversion of state power,” cites serious factual inaccuracies in the article, "The Cheng Yuan I know" (谈谈我认识的程渊). She states that the article maliciously links, without evidence, the arrest of...
In this article, Lu Dachun, a long-time petitioner who previously served a two year-sentence for petitioning-related activities, points out that although the central government has emphasized the need to solve the outstanding problems of "two no worries [about food and clothing] and three...
Christian Jiang Zhanchun ( 蒋湛春) has been criminally detained in Zhenjiang City Detention Center on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble and disrupting the working order of state organs." Xu Yonghai ( 徐永海) , an elder of the Beijing Christian house church, Divine Love Group, appeals...
The Peking University professor and advocate of judicial reform in China says in this handwritten short essay, “Without press freedom, not only would the people’s livelihood be difficult, there would be no trust in government, let alone the possibility of a capable modern governance system.” 贺卫方:...

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