In yet another example of the Chinese authorities’ undermining their own stated goal to fight corruption by punishing citizens calling for disclosure of official assets, a court in Jiangxi Province today sentenced three advocates to prison terms ranging from six and a half years to three years. The...

The Yushui District People’s Court in Xinyu, Jiangxi Province convicted three asset transparency advocates and New Citizens Movement participants on June 19, 2014. Liu Ping ( 刘萍 ) and Wei Zhongping ( 魏忠平 ) were sentenced to six and a half years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles...

One June 9, lawyer Zhang Sizhi’s request to visit Gao Yu at the Beijing No.1 Detention Center was denied, but the detention center granted him a meeting, unsolicited, with another client, Pu Zhiqiang. Zhang’s notes from the meeting, circulated online, state that Pu Zhiqiang is interrogated nearly...

In this defense opinion submitted to the Yushui district court, in Xinyu city, lawyer Si Weijiang raises both procedural and substantive problems in the trial of and charges against his client, transparency advocate Liu Ping. Si argues that Liu's actions online and offline calling for asset...

To protest the recent spate of attacks on Chinese lawyers—in the forms of beating, detention, refusal to let them meet with clients, and disqualifying them from practice—a group of Chinese lawyers, including Liu Weiguo and Zhang Keke, initiated a 24-hour fast relay and called for the participation...

Today of all days, we remember the courage and commitment of hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who took to the streets to demand fundamental, universal rights. I’ll never forget turning on the television in my office and seeing a column of tanks halted by a single man armed only with his...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (Brown, Smith, Feinstein, Levin, Wolf, Pittenger, Walz, Kaptur, and Honda) today recognize the 25th anniversary of the Chinese government crackdown in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square and across China. Commission...

Today, on the 25th anniversary of the tragic events in Tienanmen Square, we remember those who lost their lives striving for democracy. I appeal to the Chinese leadership to release all those still detained in connection with the events of 4 June 1989. It is deplorable that recently there has been...

GENEVA (3 June 2014) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Tuesday expressed concern about the detention of numerous civil society activists, lawyers and journalists in China ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Allegedly dozens of individuals have...

Zan Aizong (昝爱宗) was detained and questioned for half a day on May 20, 2014, on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” During a search of his apartment, the Hangzhou police confiscated a computer, a USB drive, and other items. Zan is an outspoken writer and journalist who currently...

Lawyer Tang Jingling ( 唐荆陵) was criminally detained on May 16, 2014 on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” at Baiyun District Detention Center in Guangzhou, after police confiscated two computers and three mobile phones from his home. Tang founded the “Non-violent Citizens’...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] In the early morning of June 4, 1989, Luan Yiwei was shot in the waist at the intersection of Chang’an Avenue and Nanchizi Street. He died just a day short of his 35th birthday. His wife, Chen Mei ( 陈梅 ) , born in 1956, graduated from Beijing International...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] Guo Liying and I went to our last stop in our visits to victims’ families outside of Beijing: the home of Xiong Zhiming’s parents, in Jinxi County, Jiangxi Province. Xiong Zhiming’s father, Xiong Hui ( 熊辉 ), and his mother, Zhang Caifeng ( 张彩凤 ), had visited...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] On our list of victims there is a Dai Jinping ( 戴金平 ) , whose surviving family lives in Xiantao City, Hubei Province. Before we left Beijing, we learned from the brief introduction of Dai Jinping’s family in the registry of survivors and families of victims...

Since the end of April, members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center—honorary council member Mrs. Gao Yu, council member Mrs. Liu Di, member Hu Shigen, and others—successively “lost contact” with the outside world. The homes of human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, Beijing Film Academy professor Hao...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] Guo Liying and I continued from Zhengzhou to Wuhan, Hubei Province, on the high-speed train, to visit two families and a survivor. Our hotel in Wuhan was located not far from the home of Li Xianyuan (李显远), our first destination. We planned to visit the second...

This ad was published by 70 Hong Kong financial professionals to warn Beijing against political interference. The English version was posted on the Facebook page of “Financial Professionals for Occupy Central”: http://on.fb.me/1ptyeLu Ten Requests to the Communist Party of China from the People in...

Human Rights in China has learned that Chinese authorities are preventing Ding Zilin ( 丁子霖 ) , a key member of the Tiananmen Mothers , and her husband from returning to Beijing until after June 4, the 25th anniversary of the violent government crackdown on the 1989 Democracy Movement. According to...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] After Wu Lihong and I visited Xiao Zongyou and his wife, we decided to visit Wu Guofeng’s (吴国锋) parents, Wu Dingfu ( 吴定富 ) and his wife, who live in the suburbs of Chengdu in Xinjin County, Wujin Township. The drive from Chengdu to Xinjin County is actually...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] After visiting families of victims in Guangzhou and Nanning, we headed to Sichuan. There is only one train every day from Nanning to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. The trip, a 32-hour ride, would take us through Guangxi and Guizhou Provinces. Along the way,...

In this statement , also written for public dissemination, Ding Jiaxi's lawyer Sui Muqing (隋牧青) likens China to a system of slavery: “When people's words and deeds are constantly shackled and constrained by all kinds of unspoken rules and fears, when their words and deeds are faulted at every turn...

An international jury of ten prominent human rights organizations has selected the late Cao Shunli ( 曹 顺利 ) as one of three finalists for the 2014 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders . The award recognizes defenders who have shown deep commitment to human rights in the face of great...

Four citizen activists involved in public calls for high-ranking officials to reveal their assets in 2013 have each been found guilty of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” Two of them— Ding Jiaxi ( 丁家喜 ) and Zhao Changqing ( 赵常青 ) — were accused of planning street actions in...

A joint appeal issued by lawyers and citizens to the Standing Committees of the National People’s Congress and of the Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress, which challenges the legality of the existence of the General Bureau of Farm Reclamation of Heilongjiang. In the appeal, the lawyers and...

In his defense statement for Zhang Baocheng, lawyer Ge Yongxi argues that the procedural irregularities prove that the trial is nothing but reprisal against a human rights defender. He argues that the evidence, especially video of the peaceful assemblies for which Zhang was indicted, proves that...

On appeal of his first-instance verdict and four-year prison sentence, Xu Zhiyong requested that the second instance trial conducted in an open court, and that all witnesses who originally submitted written testimonies be allowed to testify in-person in court. This is a request, submitted by one of...

From the British Broadcasting Corporation, “ Chinese activist Xu Wanping freed amid clampdown ”: Rights group Human Rights in China , which is based in Hong Kong and New York, says Xu suffered from digestive and prostate problems and other conditions while in jail. It also claims he was denied...

Ding Jiaxi was tried on April 8-9, 2014, for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place,” in connection with his participation in citizen actions calling for disclosure of officials’ assets as a way to fight corruption since 2012. The trial concluded on April 9 without a verdict. Ding’s...

Activist Zhao Changqing's lawyer, Zhang Peihong, said in his defense arguments delivered at the Haidian District Court in Beijing that the very fact he must defend Zhao Changqing in court is a double insult to people's intelligence and the law. Zhang argued that the acts for which Zhao has been...

[Translation by Human Rights in China] On the 25th anniversary of the June Fourth Tragedy Shortly after the 24th anniversary of June Fourth last year, some of us—June Fourth victims’ family members residing in Beijing—were thinking about the same questions with sadness. In all these years, and...

In this administrative complaint submitted to the Heilongjiang Provincial High People's Court, lawyer Zhang Lei ( 张磊 ) challenges the Qixing Sub-branch of the Jiansanjiang Farm Reclamation Public Security Bureau on the appropriateness of its imposition of martial law measures and cordoning roads...

After Chinese dissident author Du Daobin was released from three years in jail in December 2010 for “inciting subversion of state power,” he has been harassed and monitored by the authorities on an on-going basis. Upon his release, a local police officer in Yingcheng, Hebei Province, required him...

Tian Daoming (田道明), 22, male, a senior at the Department of Management of the University of Science and Technology Beijing. Crushed to death by a tank in the early morning of June 4, 1989. Originally from Shishou City, Hubei Province.

The Jiansanjiang Farm Reclamation Public Security Bureau issued this statement after the March 21 detention of four lawyers — Jiang Tianyong (江天勇) , Tang Jitian (唐吉田) , Wang Cheng (王成) , and Zhang Junjie (张俊杰) —and approximately 19 citizens. The statement, posted on the Weibo account of a state-...

Lawyer Xie Yang (谢 阳) , who represents Jiang Tianyong, describes in this account that he arrived in Jiansanjiang in the morning of April 2 and went straight to the Qixing Public Security Bureau sub-branch and asked to meet with Lawyer Jiang Tianyong. The deputy branch chief of the bureau told Xie...

Women human rights defenders in China have launched an online appeal asking women lawyers to protest the thug-like treatment of fellow lawyer Wang Shengsheng (王胜生) in Jiansanjiang by posing for photos with black hoods over their heads, with hands bound, and wearing placards that read "Women lawyers...