China Change, July 25, 2025 (Email subscribers may have to view in browser to see the embedded YouTube link.) This documentary offers, for the first time, an authoritative overall account and analysis of the 709 Crackdown on human rights lawyers in China that began ten years ago in 2015, covering all aspects of the incident: arrests, smear campaign [...] Keep reading »

Li Heping, July 24, 2025 “The 709 crackdown was already one of the greatest injustices of our time. If I am now framed by these traffic police, I might as well smash my head against the wall and die right here.” — Li Heping, 709 lawyer Part One: A Five-hour Wrangling With Luhe Traffic Police Brigade from July 11, 2025, 11:00 p.m. to July [...] Keep reading »

July 1, 2025 Ten years ago, beginning on July 9th, the Chinese authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on human rights lawyers and rights defenders, arresting over 20 lawyers and their associates, placing them under the notorious “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” where they were subjected to physical and psychological tor [...] Keep reading »

Xu Zhiyong, translated by Andréa Worden, December 4, 2024 Note From the Editor Born in 1973, Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a legal scholar, pioneer of China’s rights defense movement, and a founder of the New Citizens Movement. On April 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of “subverting state power.” Before this, he h [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, September 30, 2024 Note: These are the remarks I made at the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America in Washington, DC on September 19, in conjunction with a screening of the documentary “The Defenders: 20 Years of Human Rights Lawyers in China”, organized by the Center for Human Rights, the Center for Law & [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, July 3, 2024, London In the course of hundreds of interrogations of the 709 lawyers, an interrogator once said that the aim of the 709 case was to create a “hot stove effect” for the lawyers across China: they should know that the stove is burning hot, and they should not try to touch it. The irony there is that the tormentors were l [...] Keep reading »

China Change, July 8, 2024 Six 709 lawyers and three 709 lawyers’ wives speak out on the 9th anniversary of the 709 Crackdown on human rights lawyers and defenders about the continuous harassment, loss of livelihood, and the significance of the fateful event that started nine years ago and is still ongoing. 709大抓捕九周年，六位律� [...] Keep reading »

29 Principles and China Change, July 1, 2024 This year, 2024, marks the 9th anniversary of the “709” crackdown on China’s human rights lawyers and rights activists that began in the summer of 2015. Since then, the Chinese authorities’ repression of these lawyers has continued nonstop, with harassment and restrictions extending to their rela [...] Keep reading »

Xu Zhiyong, translated by Joshua Rosenzweig and Leo Timm, June 27, 2024 Note From the Editor Born in 1973, Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a legal scholar, pioneer of China’s rights defense movement, and a founder of the New Citizens Movement. On April 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of “subverting state power.” Befo [...] Keep reading »