Portraits of Defenders | Chinese Human Rights Defenders

Xue Renyi 薛仁义

May 31, 2019 Comments Off

Xue Renyi 薛仁义 Criminal charge: “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble” Length of Punishment: N/A Court: N/A Trial Date: N/A Sentencing Date: N/A Dates of Detention/Arrest: May 1, 2018 (disappearance), July 31, 2019 (criminal detention) Place of Incarceration: Dianjiang County Detention Center (Chongqing Municipality) Background Chongqing police forcibly disappeared activist Xue Renyi (薛仁义), the founder and head of the environmental (read more…)

Tsegon Gyal 次贡杰

May 16, 2019 Comments Off

Tsegon Gyal, a prominent ethnic Tibetan writer and activist, received a prison sentence in January 2018 in apparent punishment for comments he wrote on WeChat criticizing the Chinese government for failing to genuinely promote its policy of “ethnic unity.” The verdict came down over eight months after a Qinghai court (read more…)

Dong Guangping 董广平

May 16, 2019 Comments Off

Henan activist Dong Guangping received a 3.5-year prison sentence in July 2018 in retaliation for advocating for justice for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre and for escaping persecution by fleeing to Thailand. Dong had fled to Thailand in September 2015 to escape police harassment. Authorities held Dong for (read more…)

Ge Jueping 戈觉平

March 22, 2019 Comments Off

Ge Jueping, a Jiangsu activist who had taken part in an array of advocacy campaigns, was among a group of individuals seized while demonstrating outside the Suzhou City Intermediate People’s Court on September 8, 2016. The activists were protesting what they felt was the court’s mishandling of the case of (read more…)

Jiang Yefei 姜野飞

March 13, 2019 Comments Off

Jiang Yefei, a longtime rights activist and political cartoonist, was given a 6.5-year prison sentence in July 2018, following over 30 months in pre-trial custody. Jiang had been detained in November 2015 after he was forcibly repatriated to China from Thailand. When put under formal arrest in May 2016, Jiang (read more…)

Tashi Wangchuk 扎西文色

March 7, 2019 Comments Off

Tashi Wangchuk, an ethnic Tibetan merchant and activist, washandeda 5-year prison sentence in May 2018 in retaliation for his efforts to promote the right of Tibetans to study their heritage language. He was initially seizedin January 2016, two months after an article and videocame out in the New York Times (read more…)

Sun Lin 孙林

March 7, 2019 Comments Off

Sun Lin, an independent journalist who has reported on human rights violations and the corruption of Chinese officials, was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to four years in prison on December 25, 2018, after being tried the previous February. Sun, who has often written under the (read more…)

Wang Yi 王怡

February 22, 2019 Comments Off

Chengdu authorities detained Wang Yi, an evangelical Christian pastor outspoken about religious freedom, during a raid on the Early Rain Covenant Church (秋雨圣约教会) on December 9, 2018. Police took over 100 members of the congregation into custody, including Jiang Rong (蒋蓉), Wang’s wife and co-founder of the independent church. Chengdu (read more…)

Yue Xin 岳昕

January 15, 2019 Comments Off

Yue Xin, a 2018 graduate of Peking University, has emerged as a leading voice in China’s #MeToo movement as well as a strong advocate for workers’ rights. She was disappeared on August 24, 2018, when police raided an apartment complex in Shenzhen and seized her and about 50 other students (read more…)

Zi Su (子肃)

December 11, 2018 Comments Off

Zi Su (子肃), a retired professor who formerly taught at a Chinese Communist Party School, was detained in his hometown of Chengdu, Sichuan Province in April 2017 just hours after he released an open letter arguing that President Xi Jinping was unsuitable to serve as the leader of the Chinese (read more…)

Xu Lin 徐琳

October 31, 2018 Comments Off

Xu Lin, a Guangzhou-based songwriter, freelance writer, and activist, was seized in his hometown of Zhuzhou in Hunan Province in September 2017 by officers from the Guangzhou City Public Security Bureau.

Yu Wensheng 余文生

September 8, 2018 Comments Off

Police seized lawyer Yu Wensheng (余文生) outside his Beijing home on January 19, 2018, as he was taking his son to school. Yu reportedly was forced into a police vehicle after an altercation between him and at least one officer.