In the Press - Chinese Human Rights DefendersChinese Human Rights Defenders

Thousands Protest PX Plant Outside China’s Maoming City Government

April 14, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by Radio Free Asia on April 3, 2014 Thousands of protesters converged on government buildings in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong as protests against a planned petrochemical plant entered a fifth day on Thursday, residents said. Protesters gathered outside the offices of the Maoming municipal government as (read more…)

Guangzhou Closes Baby Hatch After it ‘Reaches Limit’

April 14, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by Radio Free Asia on April 1, 2014 Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have suspended a “baby hatch” scheme after it was overwhelmed with infants left by poverty stricken parents looking to leave them anonymously in a safe place. China launched similar drop zones for (read more…)

‘I Can Take It’: Young Chinese Activist Dragged Back to Jail

June 16, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by The Wall Street Journal on June 9, 2014 Zhang Kun, a young Chinese activist profiled by The Wall Street Journal in a June 4thfront-page story, has been criminally detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” according to his lawyer. Chen Jiangang said Mr. Zhang was (read more…)

China Elected to United Nations Human Rights Council

November 19, 2013 Comments Off

Originally published by New York Times on November 14, 2013 China has won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council for three years starting in January 2014, one of 14 countries chosen to join the 47-member council on Tuesday, the United Nations said. It was selected in a “single, secret (read more…)

Five Chinese Dissident Artists Who Aren’t Ai Weiwei

June 16, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by The Huffington Post on June 10, 2014 It’s easy to think Chinese political art stops at Ai Weiwei, the embattled provocateur who is arguably the art world’s most famous living figure. In fact, a small circle of Chinese artists routinely court danger with their work, not to (read more…)

Chinese Activists Continue to Be ‘Mentally Illed’ in Spite of New Law

November 19, 2013 Comments Off

Originally published by Radio Free Asia on November 14, 2013 Six months after a new health law took effect, Chinese psychiatric institutions are continuing to commit petitioners and rights activists to hospitals for “mental illness,” a rights group said on Thursday. While some psychiatrists are refusing to admit “patients” who (read more…)

China Releases Some Activists Held Before Tiananmen Anniversary

June 16, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by The Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2014 HONG KONG—Chinese authorities released a few of the dozens of activists and critics detained in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests. But human-rights advocates say the continued detention of others (read more…)

Activists and petitioners held in China’s psychiatric hospitals

November 19, 2013 Comments Off

Originally published by AsiaNews on November 14, 2013 The authorities continue to lock up and feed drugs to those who struggle for citizens’ rights, a practice that violates China’s own laws. Under the latter in fact, only certified psychiatrists (not government officials) can have someone committed. One of the cases (read more…)

‘They can never erase history’

June 16, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by The StarPhoenix on June 4, 2014 Relatives of Chinese citizens shot dead during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre have defied unprecedented Communist Party attempts to silence them and are demanding the truth about their loved ones’ deaths ahead of Wednesday’s 25th anniversary of the uprising. More than (read more…)

China’s ‘almost certain’ election to UN Human Rights Council elicits outrage, protests

November 19, 2013 Comments Off

Originally published by Shanghaiist on November 11, 2013 China is ‘almost certain’ to be elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, when the UN General Assembly will elect 17 new member states to the 47-member council, and human rights activists at this moment are adamantly protesting to (read more…)

‘I will not be silenced. I want truth behind Tiananmen’

June 16, 2014 Comments Off

Originally published by The Telegraph on June 3, 2014 By Tom Phillips in Hong Kong Relatives of Chinese citizens gunned down during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre have defied unprecedented Communist Party attempts to silence them to demand the truth about their loved-ones’ deaths ahead of today’s 25th anniversary of the (read more…)

Formal Arrest of Advocate Is Approved by China

August 28, 2013 Comments Off

HONG KONG — The authorities in Beijing have formally arrested one of China’s best-known human rights advocates on charges of disturbing public order, his lawyer and a friend said on Friday. It was the latest escalation in a case that has prompted a protest in China and criticism from the (read more…)