Lü Pin, March 11, 2019 “As far as human rights activism is concerned, the outside world tends to focus on short-term incidents, such as when activism comes into direct confrontation with the state. But the outside world cannot keep long-term and sustained attention, which leads to many long-term, internal difficulties being left undiscussed.” [...] Keep reading »

Members of the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Group, March 8, 2019 Lu Tingge (卢廷阁) is a lawyer based in Shijiazhuang (石家庄), the capital of Hebei province. He is one of the newer faces in the community of human rights lawyers in China. In February he put forward a proposal to limit the legislative authorities of the Standing Committee of t [...] Keep reading »

Liao Yiwu, translated by Michael Martin Day, March 4, 2019 On December 9th, 2018, on the eve of International Human Rights Day, in my hometown of Chengdu, Sichuan, the most influential house church in China today, the Early Rain Covenant Church, was raided by the police and banned, and more than 100 believers were taken away. The chapel, semin [...] Keep reading »

Tang Jitian, January 30, 2019 On December 10, 2018, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (La Commission nationale consultative des droit [...] Keep reading »

Zheng Yefu, January 25, 2019 “Now it’s time to lay it bare: You can’t fool the Party into starting this journey, nor can you allow the calls for political reform that lack a clear final goal to numb the minds of the people.”  I. Why Hasn’t Political Reform Happened? In the late 1970s, China undertook a reform; the main elements were [...] Keep reading »

Tan Zuoren, January 13, 2019 Huang Qi’s trial opens today (January 14, Beijing time) in Mianyang Intermediary Court, Sichuan Province. – The Editors Huang Qi (黄琦), 55, is from Neijiang City in Sichuan Province (四川内江市), southwestern China. He holds a bachelor’s degree and is the founder of 64 Tianwang (六四天网) as well as th [...] Keep reading »

Zhang Xuezhong, translated by Andrea Worden, January 7, 2019 Last week, Dr. Zhang Xuezhong (张雪忠), a law professor at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, posted an article on WeChat titled “Bid Farewell to Reform and Opening Up –– On China’s Perilous Situation and Its Future Options” (《告别改革开放 –– � [...] Keep reading »

December 31, 2018 China is at a crossroads. History will remember 2018. In March, Xi Jinping amended the Constitution to everyone’s chagrin, paving the way to life in power. It’s an anachronism to go back to permanent power in the 21st century. More than that, it’s a subversion of civilization; it’s a shame for the country and for all Chine [...] Keep reading »

The China Human Rights Lawyers Group, January 1, 2019             2018, the year of Wuxu (戊戌), is slipping into history. Over the past 120 years, Wuxu has always been an eventful year. In 1898, four years after China had lost the First Sino-Japanese War, the Hundred Days’ Reform failed, a [...] Keep reading »