The Sixth Anniversary of "709 Crackdown": A Tribute to the Women Who Resist

Chen Zijuan (陈紫娟) was born in 1984 and holds a PhD in microbiology. She graduated from Southwest University in 2007 and received her doctorate degree from the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. She underwent her postdoctoral training at the Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University from 2015 to 2019 with a research focus on the immune escape mechanisms of pathogenic microbes and their interactions with the hosts. More recently, she has been conducting research on lung cancer since 2019. To date, she has published, as the primary author, articles in international journals such as Nature Communications, Gut Microbes, and Cellular & Molecular Immunology.

On October 22, 2020, Chen’s husband, Chang Weiping (常玮平), was subjected for the second time to the coercive measure of “residential surveillance in a designated location” (effectively enforced disappearance) on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.” This catapulted her onto the path of rights defense for her husband. Since then, she has been repeatedly threatened and harassed by the Shaanxi police at home and at work. They threatened her with termination of her job if she spoke out or fielded interviews from international media; they even showed up at her home at 12:30 in the morning to pester her. In the span of eight months, she has written around 50 complaint letters in her rights defense efforts.

Chang is held in Shaanxi, a province 2,000 kilometers away from Shenzhen, where she works, and the road to the detention center is treacherous as it straddles the Qin Mountains. But Chen pressed on despite the hardship and did everything she could to advocate for her husband. In her complaints, she accused the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau in Shaanxi Province of unlawful acts against Chang, including torture and illegally obtaining evidence in the course of handling the case. In one of her two trips to Shaanxi, she stayed at the Baotai Hotel in Baoji, where Chang was first tortured. She vividly remembers what she felt the first time she saw the place: this is the crime scene—the basement of a hotel in a bustling city cloaked under a veneer of peaceful prosperity.

Chen continues to speak out, file complaints, and appeal for justice for her husband to this day.

Li Qiaochu (李翘楚) was born in 1991 in Beijing. She began her studies in the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University of China (Renmin) in 2009 and later received a master’s degree in public policy from the University of York in the United Kingdom. After graduation, she worked as a research assistant at Tsinghua University.

While at Renmin, Li learned of society’s cruel realities during her two-year participation in a research project on the “new generation of migrant workers.” Since then, she has continued to engage in, follow, and conduct research on labor, women's rights, and civil human rights defense issues in mainland China. In 2017, when Beijing authorities cleared out the city’s “low-end populations,” she worked with fellow volunteers to compile and disseminate information about the most affected communities and help expelled migrant workers find new jobs and affordable alternative housing. She was also actively involved in the #MeToo movement in China. Using social media platforms, she was a tireless advocate for justice for arrested rights defenders and their families. However, she was repeatedly harassed by domestic security and public security officers for her long-term engagement in civil society activities.

On December 31, 2019, Li was summoned and interviewed by Beijing police for 24 hours because she is the girlfriend of well-known New Citizens Movement advocate Xu Zhiyong (许志永). Xu had gone into hiding as the authorities were rounding up those connected to a private gathering of lawyers and rights advocates on December 26 in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in what came to be known was the “12.26 Citizen Case.” After her release, she published an article, “Entering the New Year in Handcuffs: An Account of Being Taken into Custody on New Year's Eve,” online to detail the course of events, calling on people to overcome their fears and support the those affected in “12.26 Citizen Case.” After Xu was apprehended by the police in Guangzhou on the night of February 15, 2020, Li was taken by Beijing police in the early hours of the next morning and was secretly held for four months. After she was freed, she tweeted about her experience of detention and expressed solidarity with the other detainees while continuing to file complaints about the food issues in the detention center where Xu was held. On February 6, 2021, Li was summoned by the Beijing domestic security unit and was taken away by police of Linyi, Shandong Province. She was subsequently criminally detained and was officially arrested on March 15, 2021. Li is being held in the (supervised) “Eastern District” of Linyi People's Hospital in Shandong and has yet to be allowed to meet with a lawyer.

Li Yuhan (李昱函) was born in 1957, in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. She qualified as a lawyer in 1990 and began practicing law in Liaoning in 1991. In 2006, Li suffered reprisal from the police in the Shenyang’s Heping District after she reported on heads of the Shenyang mafia; she was forced to leave for Beijing in 2009. She worked as a lawyer at the Beijing Dunxin Law Firm.

After lawyer Wang Yu was detained in 2015 during the 709 Crackdown on lawyers and activists, Li took on Wang’s case and repeatedly asked for meetings with her client. As a result, Li became a thorn on the side of the authorities. On October 9, 2017, when she was heading to Shenyang to handle the case, she was taken away at the railway station by the police at the Heping District branch of the Shenyang Public Security Bureau and was detained on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." She was officially arrested on November 15, 2017 on the same charge and held in the No. 1 Detention Center in Shenyang. In the detention center, she was tormented daily by female prisoners who had been instigated by the police: she was verbally abused with personal attacks; denied her medication when she was ill; made to bathe in cold water when it was sub-zero temperatures; given only one bun at mealtime when others got two; had the persimmons and cucumbers she bought urinated on, and so on. In March 2018, it was reported that Li had been on hunger strike in the detention center for several days in protest against being forced to confess and other ill-treatment. In March 2018, she was additionally charged with the offence of "fraud."

In a meeting with her lawyer in March 2021, Li said that the two charges against her were unfounded—they were tactics used by the persecution intended to break her: the charge of "picking quarrels" was based on her petitioning in Beijing several times; and the “fraud” charge stemmed from her application for local government subsidies for herself and her son—subsidies that were originally used by the authorities as a means to “stabilize” her from petitioning. The “Notice of Change of The Period of Detention” issued by the Shenyang Municipal Heping District Court shows that the case was adjourned until May 27, 2021, with the approval of a higher court. Li suffers from various illnesses, including cardiovascular disease and stomach ailments. And the forced feeding during her hunger strikes has resulted in aggravated problems with the heart, stomach, liver, meniscus in both knees, and spine. Her lawyers have sought medical parole for her but were repeatedly denied.

Li is a recipient of the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in 2020.  She has been in custody for nearly four years without trial.

Shi Minglei (施明磊) was born in 1986 and graduated from Zhengzhou University in 2007 as an e-commerce major. She has worked in e-commerce operations management for the past decade with a good income. She is passionate about her work, driven by a sense of professional accomplishment. She feels that the rapid development and innovation of the Internet keep her thinking fresh, active, and youthful.

On July 22, 2019, Shi’s husband Cheng Yuan (程渊) was taken by state security police right in front of her and their three-year-old daughter. She also had a black hood forced on her, was handcuffed, and was interrogated for nearly 20 hours. Her identification documents, mobile phone, and computer were all seized, and her bank account was frozen. She was put under residential surveillance for 180 days on the charge of “subversion of state power.” Shi was left with nothing—yet had a mortgage to pay off, bills to pay, and a child to raise. Despite her tremendous fear, she began a long and arduous struggle for justice and has filed one complaint after another against the unlawful and unjust treatment her family has been subjected to.

The authorities continued to harass and intimidate her and her social networks. Her employer was harassed and pressured, and she was made to resign. The church school that her daughter was attending was forced to close. In early 2021, Shi fled China with her daughter through a journey of untold hardships. They currently live in the United States.

Related Resources

• Human Rights in China, “Three Changsha Anti-Discrimination Advocates Face Subversion Charges, Wife is Put Under “Residential Surveillance,” HRIC Bulletin, August 9, 2019.
• Shi Minglei, “Complaint Filed by Wife of Cheng Yuan, One of Three Detained Changsha Rights Activists,” Citizens’ Square, Human Rights in China, August 3, 2019.