In a ruling today that has implications for Chinese citizens’ right to hold assemblies or just informal gatherings in public, a court in Guangzhou upholds the police’s punishment of Li Weiguo ( 李维国) , a Guangzhou resident, for inviting people in May 2013 to witness his delivery of applications to...

After Li submitted the applications, police raided Li's home in search of computers and phones, and on May 24, 2013, confiscated Li's USB key and placed him under a 15-day administrative detention as punishment for “inciting illegal assembly.” Li filed a complaint against Guangzhou Municipal Public...

The trial of Xu Zhiyong, New Citizens Movement activist, opened January 22 at 9:00 a.m. at the Beijing No1 Intermediate People's Court, and ended the same day. The court will announce later the date of verdict. Xu was charged with "assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place" for his role...

When I heard the news about Jiaxi being arrested, it was as if I had been struck by lightning. I learned about it on the evening of April 17, when I opened my email inbox. Suddenly, several frightening words leapt out at me: “If I lose my freedom...” The email was from Zhao Changqing, a long-time...

In this New Year’s message, the lawyers express their continued dedication to defending citizens' rights and interests, pursuing democracy and rule of law, and aspiring to the implementation of constitutional governance. To accomplish these goals, the lawyers strongly demand that the National...

Living through History “How have the core historical events you experienced shaped your outlook on life and your visions for China’s future?” That was the question we recently posed to individuals from different generations in China. What we wanted to know was the impact of history on individual...

Like layers of haze and smog, Mao Zedong's ghost continues to linger over China today. Agnes Smedley (1892-1950), [1] Mao’s Western confidante, using her feminine intuition, noticed that there was a door of Mao's that was never open to anyone. As a matter of fact, Mao had more than one door. Let us...

Born Under the Red Flag Hu Ping discussing his essay, “On the Freedom of Speech.” Peking University, November 17, 1980. Photo courtesy of Hu Ping. NextGen: Envisioning Future A third-grade class in Guangzhou, 1999 This Little Era Students in class. Beijing, February, 2011. Photo credit: ToGa...

In 1978, 35 years ago, as China began to thaw from the dark ice age of Mao’s totalitarian rule, groups of young people from the bottom rungs and cracks of a closed society came out one after another to gather together. On the “Democracy Walls” in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities, were not only...

One day in 2008, my 13-year-old daughter Lingling saw me organizing my grandfather Yan Cangshan's belongings. "Who is this?" she asked. "Was he very famous?" "He's your great-grandfather, my paternal grandfather," I responded. "He was a famous doctor of traditional medicine in Shanghai, and his...

On December 13, Liu helped Chen Jianfang file an Administrative Complaint and a Request for Administrative Compensation against the Baiyun airport police and the Baiyun border inspection officials for preventing Chen from going to Geneva on September 14, 2013 to attend a human rights training and...

From Andrew Jacobs and Chris Buckley with The New York Times , “ China Sentences Xu Zhiyong, Legal Activist, to 4 Years in Prison Other participants in the New Citizens Movement and similar protests also face prosecution, including two who stood trial in the two days after Mr. Xu’s trial. Four...

From David Wertime with Foreign Policy, “ Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out ” : Sharon Hom , executive director of overseas Chinese NGO Human Rights in China , told Foreign Policy that her organization has heard reports of Wang spending 60 days in solitary confinement. The post may have been an oblique...

In the indictment, the authorities use publicly calling for “equal education” and “disclosure of officials’ assets” as their main justification for charging Ding Jiaxi and Li Wei with “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” Translated by the people. Beijing Municipal Haidian...

The defense statement argues that, not only were there procedural violations in the trial—witnesses were not being informed and the trial proceeded without jurors— but the prosecutor’s allegations were inconsistent with the facts, and there was a serious lack of evidence to support the charge of “...

Three witnesses scheduled to testify at the trial of rights defender Zhang Lin ( 张林 ) were held by police at different guesthouses and were prevented from going to the trial, according to Zhang’s mother, Mrs. Duan RuiHua (段瑞华) . The three witnesses were Li Wenge ( 李文革 ) , Qian Jin ( 钱进 ) , and Wang...

I was born in the Yijishan Hospital (originally an American missionary hospital) in Wuhu City, Anhui Province, on September 4, 1960. My father was a high school graduate who worked as a high-level mechanic at the Wuhu Shipyard. He also once worked as a pistol-packing security officer, charged with...

In a letter that outlines the human rights abuses Anhui dissident Zhang Lin has suffered, Zhang’s two daughters urge the Chinese authorities to release their father and call on world leaders to pay attention to his and other political prisoners’ cases. Zhang will be tried on December 18 for “...

The ups and downs in life are different for everyone. God gives each person different trials. Satan also tests people in many different ways. But fortunately, when God created human beings, the spirit he breathed into them constitutes common characteristics that make a person human: conscience, a...

In 1983, I spent five weeks traveling around China with my family on our first visit to the country. In those days, less than a decade after the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution, people were still wary of speaking to foreigners. Although my young daughter and I attracted...

I’ve read about a dozen China prison memoirs over the years, and nothing has affected me the way Liao Yiwu’s prison diary has, with its detailed and graphic descriptions of prison life. I attribute the impact of this book to Liao’s skills as a poet, his writer’s nose for detail, and his willingness...

Liu Jiacai, a Hubei activist, was criminally detained on August 12, 2013 by the Yichang Municipal Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.” The charge was subsequently changed twice, ending with “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” In addition, the district...

On day two of the trial of three asset transparency advocates in Jiangxi, eyewitness accounts and Weibo posts describe a large-scale verbal and physical assault on the defendants’ lawyers and relatives outside the Yushui District People’s Court in Xinyu, Jiangxi Province. Liu Ping ( 刘萍 ) , Wei...

Xie Jingsuo , male, born on February 19, 1968, was killed at age 21, on Chang'an Boulevard, near Liubukou, in Beijing, on the morning of June 4, 1989. At the time, he was a student at the Light Industry Engineering College in Beijing. His ashes rest in Futian Public Cemetery in Beijing. Testimony...

Xiao Bo , male, born in June 1962, was a native of Longshan County, Hunan Province. He was accepted to Beijing University in 1978 and received a master's degree in 1985. He stayed on there to teach in the chemistry department. He was killed in the late hours of June 3, at Muxudi. A bullet hit him...

Qi Zhiyong , male, born on May 15, 1956, was 33 when he was wounded. He was originally a Grade Six painter in the Beijing No. Six Municipal Construction company, but now works as a self-employed street peddler. On June 4, 1989, at 1:20 a.m., he was wounded in West Rongxian Alley, in Xidan District...

Family members of Sun Hui Today’s eyewitnesses are the family members of former Beijing University student Sun Hui. Sun was born in Ningxia in 1970, the youngest of three siblings. He has an older brother and an older sister. His parents, who are employed in the mining industry, worked very hard in...

"People see life as joy and light; death as fear and darkness. But on the scales of human worth, life and death balance each other. Without understanding the heaviness of death, one's life is insubstantial." Jiang Peikun (Scholar and husband of Ding Zilin) Recounting her journey from bereaved...

Yang Yansheng , male, was born on February 27, 1959, and killed at the age of 30. He worked in the computer lab of the editorial department of China Sports News. Yang was shot at 7:00 a.m. on June 4, 1989, on Zhengyi Road while tending someone who had been wounded. The bullet, which hit his liver,...

Yang Hanlei , male, born March 24, 1970, killed at age 19; before his death, Yang was a cook at the Beijing Liufang Guest House; before dawn on June 4, he was killed in the vicinity of the Beijing Hotel, at west Nanchizi. He was shot on the left side of his body in the lower stomach and spleen area...

Jiang Jielian , male, born in Beijing on June 2, 1972, had just passed his 17th birthday when he died. He was a junior at the High School attached to People's University. Around 11:10 p.m., on June 3, 1989, he was killed behind the flower bed in front of Building 29, on the north side of Fuwai...

Wu Guofeng , male, born on July 3, 1968. Wu was not yet 21 when killed. Before his death, he was a student in the class of 1986 at the Department of Industrial Management, China People's University in Beijing. He was killed in the early morning of June 4, 1989; the location of his death is unknown...

Liu Jinhua , female, was born February 26, 1955, and died aged 34. She worked in the general administration office of the PLA. On the evening of June 3, 1989, she died behind the Yanjing Hotel from a bullet wound to the head. Her cremated ashes were first kept at the Laoshan Memorial Hall, then...

Ya Aiguo , male, was born on January 10, 1967, and died aged 22. He was unemployed. A bullet went through his skull at 10:00pm on June 3, 1989. His ashes were buried in his home town, Tianjin. Testimony of Zhang Zhenxia, mother of Ya Aiguo : On June 3, 1989, my son brought home some pork and asked...

Peng Jun , male, born in November 1959 and killed at the age of 30. Before his death he was a driver and worker in the Beijing office of the Materials Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Command Post. He was killed suddenly on June 5 near the East Gate of Chaoyang district. His...

Chen Laishun , male, born March 2, 1966, killed at age 23; before his death, he was an undergraduate student in the journalism department at the China People's University, class of 1989; before dawn on June 4, 1989, at about 2:00 a.m., he was struck by a bullet and killed on the rooftop of a low...