By Teng Biao, published: April 3, 2014   On March 20, Chinese rights lawyers Tang Jitian (唐吉田), Jiang Tianyong (江天勇), Wang Cheng (王成) and Zhang Junjie (张俊杰) visited the city of Jiansanjiang (建三江), where the “Legal Education Base of Heilongjiang Agricultural Reclamation Administration” was located, to demand the [...] Keep reading »

By Xiao Shu, published: February 16, 2014 Despite an overwhelming international outcry, the Chinese authorities have been bearing down on the New Citizens Movement. The impending appeal of Xu Zhiyong’s trial gives us no grounds for optimism, and it is expected that the first instance sentence of four years in prison will be upheld. Other importan [...] Keep reading »

Five Legal Scholars Issue Opinion on the First Instance Verdict Convicting Xu Zhiyong of the Crime of “Gathering a Crowd to Disrupt Order in a Public Place” By Gan Peizhong (甘培忠, Peking University School of Law); Peng Bing (彭冰, Peking University School of Law); Yao Huanqing (姚欢庆,  China Renmin University School of Law); Wang Yo [...] Keep reading »

By China Change, published: February 12, 2014   On January 24, 2014, when all eyes were on the New Citizens Movement trials, in Tongzhou District, Beijing (北京通州区), police detained more than a dozen house church Christians and, two days later on January 26, 12 of them were announced to have been criminally detained. In recent days, ri [...] Keep reading »

Published: February 8, 2014   Xu Zhiyong submitted an appeal on February 3, 2014, in the Beijing Third Detention Center where he is currently detained.  His reasons for appeal are as follows: I.  The court of first instance decided that we had committed the offense of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order;” but we were simply exercising a [...] Keep reading »

By Xu Zhiyong, January 22, 2014 This is Xu Zhiyong’s closing statement on January 22, 2014, at the end of his trial. According to his lawyer, he had only been able to read “about 10 minutes of it before the presiding judge stopped him, saying it was irrelevant to the case.”   You have accused me of disrupting public order for my [...] Keep reading »

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 »

ChinaChange.org, published: January 19, 2014 Between March and September, 2013, the Chinese government arrested 17 citizens for taking part in street demonstrations calling for officials to disclose assets. Since then, four have been released “on bail pending trial,” a term the Chinese judiciary likes to use inaccurately for people the court re [...] Keep reading »