Xu Zhiyong, June 18, 2022 This autobiographical essay was written shortly before his arrest in 2013. It was translated into English and first published in Xu Zhiyong’s collection of essays “To Build a Free China – A Citizen’s Journey” in 2017. We make this important essay available to online readers before Xu Zhiyong&# [...] Keep reading »

June 16, 2022 The sixth annual China Human Rights Lawyers Day will be held virtually on July 9, 2022, at 9 a.m. EST (U.S.). In 2017, human rights organizations in the U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong established July 9th as the China Human Rights Lawyers day to commemorate the mass arrests, detention, and torture of human rights lawyers in mainland Chin [...] Keep reading »

"Rights defense lawyers" emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. From their appearance, to the notorious 709 mass arrests in 2015, to today, the Chinese Communist government has subjected them to intimidation, disappearance, torture, imprisonment, and disbarment, ignoring the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers. This 68-minute document [...] Keep reading »

February 11, 2022 This wide-ranging, fascinating conversation was initially conducted on The American Bar Foundation’s Rule of Law: World Tour podcast on December 21, 2021. Professor Halliday has since expanded it to include more details of his study of China’s lawyers since 2005, how the work of Chinese lawyers is part of a bigger struggle for [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, December 7, 2021 I want to thank ChinaAid for recognizing Zhang Zhan and for allowing me to say a few words in her absence. It’s an honor, and it is also deeply sad that Zhang Zhan is dying in prison as we speak. On February 1, 2020, Zhang Zhan boarded a high-speed train from Shanghai to Chongqing. She got off part way in Wuhan, the ep [...] Keep reading »

China Change, November 21, 2021 Lin Qilei (蔺其磊) is one of the most productive human rights lawyers in China for over a decade. Like many human rights lawyers, especially since the 709 Crackdown, he has been targeted and now driven out of the profession for his work. In this 12-minute video, he recounts how the Beijing Municipal Justice Bureau [...] Keep reading »

November 15, 2021 To the directors of the Shanghai Municipal Justice Bureau and Shanghai Women’s Prison: We, as citizens, as friends of Zhang Zhan (张展), and as people who admire her sense of conscience, have been concerned about the deteriorating state of her health. We are deeply concerned to have learned that Zhang Zhan’s older brothe [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, October 31, 2021 In China, Hao Jinsong (郝劲松) is very well-known as a public interest litigator who, for the better part of seven years between 2004 and 2010, sued various authorities such as the Beijing Subway Company, the Ministry of Railways, Shaanxi provincial Forestry Department, and the Shanghai traffic police, and confronted [...] Keep reading »

Shandong Province Linyi Municipal People’s Procuratorate Indictment Lin Proc Dept One Crim Indict [2021] No. Z43 Defendant Xu Zhiyong (许志永) (previously used the name Xu Zhiyong 许志勇), male, born on March 2, 1973, citizen ID number [REDACTED], ethnic Han, post-graduate education, former lecturer at Beijing University of Posts and Teleco [...] Keep reading »