By Wang Yaqiu, published: June 4, 2015   Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) In the spring of 1989, Dr. Liu Xiaobo left Columbia University where he was a visiting scholar and went back to Beijing to take part in the democracy movement.  In Tiananmen Square, he became a leader and a mentor, drafting open letters, giving speeches and leading a hunger strike. Liu Xiaobo was instrumental in preventing further bloodshed by negotiating with the troops and persuading students to evacuate the Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4th. After the crackdown, Liu was identified by the Chinese government as one of the instigators of the “turmoil” and jailed for two years. After being released in 1991, Liu published articles and gave interviews, urging the Chinese […]

By Humanitarian China and China Change, published: April 26, 2015 Humanitarian China will match your donation, as it did in the Ilham Tohti drive, and send twice as much as it receives to the family of Gao Yu.   On April 17, Beijing Municipal Third Intermediary People’s Court sentenced 71-year-old independent Chinese journalist Gao Yu (高瑜) to 7 years in prison for “leaking state secrets to foreign contacts,” provoking a domestic and international outcry and condemnation. The state secrets in question are the infamous Document No. 9 of the Chinese Communist Party that seeks to prohibit discussions in China of constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, ideas of free market economy, press freedom, historical errors of the Party, and the ills of socialism with Chinese […]

By Gao Yu, published: January 26, 2013 A speech lifts the smog over the man.   Gao Yu (高瑜) is an independent journalist and columnist based in Beijing. She used to work for China News Agency (中新社), and later was the deputy editor-in-chief of Economics Weekly (《经济学周报》, 1982-1989). She was twice imprisoned for her participation in the 1989 democratic movement. Drawing on her access to exclusive sources, she writes among other things about Beijing’s inner political circles, and her work is influential. The Chinese original is here. Soon after the New Year passed, thick smog shrouded much of the eastern and central China for days on end and struck terror into  people. “Ducking into the dark brownish smog,” a netizen penned on Weibo, “I was […]