By 78 Chinese Scholars, Journalists and Lawyers, published: January 22, 2014   The National People’s Congress, Constitutional supremacy is the foundation of modern states. As the highest law of the land, it should not exist just as a text; it must be enforced in judicial practices. By the same token, for the Constitution to uphold its authority, [...] Keep reading »

By Yaxue Cao, published: January 20, 2014   Four days before Dr. Xu Zhiyong’s arrest on July 16, 2013, a Chinese businessman named Zeng Chengjie (曾成杰) was executed. He was a private entrepreneur in Hunan province who financed his business by raising money from ordinary citizens, and he was put to death for having “more debt than asse [...] Keep reading »

By Teng Biao, published: January 16, 2014     Throughout history, the death penalty has always been associated with famous people: from Socrates, Jesus, and Giordano Bruno to Joan of Arc, Madame Roland, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; from Bi Gan (比干), Yue Fei (岳飞) to Yuan Chonghuan (袁崇焕), Tan Sitong (谭嗣同), Yu Luoke (遇罗� [...] Keep reading »

By Gao Yu, published: January 4, 2014   Up until the last day of 2013, the press inside and outside China was still anticipating an announcement about Zhou Yongkang, which would surely have been the most significant event of the year in China. During Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States in February, 2012, a Washington Times columnist reve [...] Keep reading »

By Xiao Shu, published: December 22, 2013 The first trial of the New Citizens Movement — or so it is called, that of the Xinyu Three (Liu Ping, Wei Zhongping, and Li Sihua), made headlines here and around the world as it got underway December 3. The following day saw the cases of fellow New Citizens Movement members Xu Zhiyong, Zhao Changqing [...] Keep reading »

By Chang Ping, published December 17, 2013 (Chinese original published on December 6)   In the walled-in court of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling elite, big dramas proceed one after another. The Bo Xilai-Wang Lijun-Gu Kailai series was sensational enough, and the Zhou Yongkang case is going to be even more earthshaking. Rumor has it tha [...] Keep reading »

— Speech on the Opening Ceremony of Book World Prague By  Liao Yiwu, published: December 9, 2013 In the spring of 1994, not long after I had been released from prison, a friend brought me a copy of The Collected Works of Vaclav Havel through underground channels. It was the earliest Chinese translation published by Hong Kong Radical Press an [...] Keep reading »

By Wang Qinglei, published: December 9, 2013 On November 27th, 2013, I finished all of the paperwork and walked out of China Central Television’s east gate, the place where I had worked for ten years. It was the coldest day in Beijing since winter began this year. The only warmth I was able to feel was from the comment an old, retired “auntie� [...] Keep reading »

By YANG Jianli, President, Initiatives for China, former political prisoner of China (2002-2006) Published: November 9, 2013                 Last night, I was on the phone with Ms. Zhang Qing, the wife of Guo Feixiong (pen name for Yang Maodong). Guo, who was imprisoned from 2006 to 2011 for peacefully demonstrating in defense of [...] Keep reading »