January 15, 2021 Zhang Zhan (张展), a resident of Shanghai and a former lawyer, went to Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in February, video recorded what she saw, spoke to locals, wrote down her observations and thoughts, and posted them on social media platforms inside and outside China. She was detained in May and sentenced to four years in prison on December 28, 2020.   She did not file an appeal by Monday, January 11, 2020, the deadline for doing so. Her lawyer Zhang Keke (张科科) met her for the last time before being relieved of his duties. Zhang Zhan has started eating, but only lightly, after on hunger strike for several months. From now on, we will have to rely on her […]

Yaxue Cao, October 31, 2020 1. The Arrest The ancient city of Dali (大理), a small town in China’s southwest, boasts a history of more than 600 years. For visitors from China proper, the most eye-catching features of the Yunnan plateau may be the sapphire-blue sky and the grey tiles and elaborately carved beams of the white-walled houses. Because the four seasons here all resemble spring, the streets and storefronts are decorated with flowers and plants, the walls are covered with vines, and you can see the green mountains surrounded by clouds and mist from the street. Geographically and aesthetically, it is paradise. Indeed, in the 1990s and the first decade of the current century, many poets, writers, artists, and musicians from all over China […]

Huang Simin, October 13, 2016   “If you want to understand your own country, then you’ve  already stepped on the path to criminality.” — Ai Weiwei “Do you think there is dignity in living a good life in this country?” — Li Tingyu   Born and raised in Guangdong, Li Tingyu (李婷玉) was a student at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou where she majored in English but dropped out in senior year. She had been working with her boyfriend Lu Yuyu (卢昱宇) on the self-published media known as 非新闻 (“Non-News”) until the couple’s detention on June 16 this year. The two were charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and are currently detained in the Dali Detention Center, Yunnan.   Li Tingyu and Lu Yuyu […]