This mini-documentary, filmed and edited by Ai Xiaoming and re-edited and subtitled by China Change, depicts Zhang Qing’s first visit to her husband Guo Feixiong in Meizhou Prison. It is also a snapshot of the life of Zhang Qing and her two children in 2007 and 2008 in Guangzhou. Zhang Qing died on January 10, 2022, in Germantown, Maryland.

To Whom It May Concern in the Government of China: We are a group of scholars in China studies with longstanding interests in the progress of human rights and the rule of law in China. We write to express our deep concern with the current plight of Chinese citizens Yang Maodong (whose pseudonym is Guo Feixiong) and his wife Zhang Qing. Zhang Qing, who has been living in the United States, was found in January 2021 to be suffering from intestinal cancer. This cancer, now in a terminal stage, has created an urgent need for her husband Guo Feixiong to travel to the U.S. to be with her. China’s Ministry of Public Security, however, has so far prevented him from leaving China on grounds that […]

January 30, 2021 Chinese dissident Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), while trying to travel to the United States to take care of his wife Zhang Qing following her cancer surgery, was intercepted by Chinese authorities at Shanghai Pudong Airport on January 28, and denied exit on the pretext of “endangering national security.” Guo Feixiong is a free Chinese citizen, and the CCP has no reason to prevent him from going abroad to visit his family, whether from the perspective of law, human rights, or humanitarian principle. This inhumane act by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is yet another proof of the regime’s increasingly fascist stance.  Guo Feixiong has announced the beginning of an indefinite hunger strike upon the exit ban. We call upon the outside world to […]

Sui Muqing, Yaxue Cao, June 2, 2020 This is the second interview in our How I Become a Human Rights Lawyer series. Today we present our conversation with Guangzhou lawyer Sui Muqing (隋牧青), conducted on May 19, 2020.  — The Editors 1. Tiananmen, 1989 Yaxue Cao: Let’s start from Tiananmen. There are quite a few Chinese human rights lawyers, probably more that I don’t know of. At the very least, there are the ones we call the Generation of 1989 — Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强), Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜), Tang Jitian (唐吉田)… and you, of course. There’s a photo I remember very clearly, that was shared widely online, of you and several classmates singing together. Sui Muqing: I don’t know when this photo was taken. When did I […]

Lu Nan (鲁难), Wu Xiaojun (吴小军), Qin Wei (秦渭), Tian Zhongxun (田仲勋), Zhang Qianfan (张千帆), Xu Zhangrun (许章润), Xiao Shu (笑蜀), Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), Wang Xichuan (王西川), February 7, 2020 On February 6, 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang (李文亮), the 2019-nConV whistle blower, died in the midst of epidemic in Wuhan. He is also a victim of speech suppression. The people of China are heartbroken and deeply saddened.  The novel coronavirus has been able to ravish in Wuhan and across China is a result of the authorities suppressing speech and the truth. Millions and millions Chinese are enclosed and fall into fear under a state of de facto house arrest during what is supposed to be the most festive season. The society at large and the […]

Yaxue Cao, March 21, 2018 Continued from The Might of an Ant: the Story of Lawyer Li Baiguang (1 of 2) Rights Movement Spread All Over the Country By 2004, Zhao Yan and Li Baiguang were under constant threat. Fuzhou police told the village deputies that Zhao and Li were criminals, and demanded that the deputies expose the two. The Fujian municipal government also dispatched a special investigation team to the hometowns of Li and Zhao to look into their family backgrounds. A public security official in Fu’an said: “Don’t you worry that Zhao and Li are still on the lam — that’s because it’s not time for their date with the devil just yet. Just wait till that day comes: we’ll grab them, put them […]

China Change, June 30, 2016     A Recap of Guo Feixiong’s Arrest, Sentencing, and Treatment in Prison Guo Feixiong was arrested on August 13, 2013, for his role in the Southern Weekly protest at the beginning of that year, and his campaign to demand that China ratify the The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which China signed in 1998 but has never ratified. He was tried in November 2014, but it wasn’t until a year later that a sentence was announced. To deliver a harsher sentence, the court, in an unprecedented and preposterous move, added a second charge at the last minute of the trial, and Guo was sentenced to 6 years in prison for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order […]

Yaxue Cao, June 17, 2016   I was on a Voice of America Chinese Service show on Thursday and, with the host and another guest, we discussed rights movement leader Guo Feixiong’s hunger strike, rumors about a young legal worker being violated in prison, and police-operated mental hospitals. A caller from Hubei Province by the surname Deng had this to say: “As a matter of fact, China is the biggest mental asylum in the world. A normal country would not have had the Great Leap Forward. A normal country would not have had the Cultural Revolution. A normal country would not have run over students with tanks. A normal country would not have prisoners of conscience and would not lock rights defenders in mental hospitals. […]

China Change, June 15, 2016     On June 14, Beijing time, Gei Feixiong’s older sister Yang Maoping (杨茂平) went to the Yangchun Prison. Later, she wrote the following message: “Friends: my WeChat friends groups have been shut down, and my Sina Weibo account has also been blocked. My younger brother Guo Feixiong (Yang Maodong) has been on a hunger strike in the Yangchun Prison for over 30 days. Yesterday I went to the prison to deliver a letter by his wife, Zhang Qing (张青), urging him to stop fasting, and was prepared to tell him the same thing myself. But prison authorities didn’t let me see him. At about 5pm Beijing time, the office director of the prison came out and said: ‘If you […]

By Yaqiu Wang, May 23, 2016   On April 26 when Yang Maoping (杨茂平), the sister of renowned Chinese rights activist Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), visited her brother in Yangchun Prison (阳春监狱), Guangdong Province, she found that his health had seriously deteriorated: he had blood in the stool, he mouth and throat were bleeding, and he couldn’t walk properly. She demanded that the prison authorities give him a medical examination, but was rejected. Guo’s compromised health condition is the result of the immense abuses and inhumane treatment he has suffered since his arrest in August 2013, including being denied yard time for consecutive 800+ days in a fetid detention center. Guo Feixiong is a pioneer of the rights defense movement in China. He was sentenced to […]

Zhang Qing, May 19, 2016   President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang: My name is Zhang Qing. My husband Guo Feixiong (also known by his original name, Yang Maodong) has been framed by the authorities for protesting in support of the employees at Southern Weekly, for calling for freedom of speech and ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and for demanding that officials disclose their assets. Having been wrongfully convicted of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place” and “provoking a serious disturbance,” Guo Feixiong was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in Guangdong’s Yangchun Prison (广东阳春监狱). There, his health has seriously deteriorated. However, not only has he been denied treatment; in fact the domestic security police and […]

Translated from report by CHRD, published: March 8, 2016 and updated on March 9     (China Change exclusive: Guo Feixiong attending a citizen meeting in Beijing on July 28, 2012, with Dr. Xu Zhiyong, who has been serving a four-year sentence since July 2013 for leading the New Citizens Movement, in the audience. Video recorded by Xiao Guozhen, subtitle by @WLYeung  and @awfan.)   On Friday March 4 we received news that Guo Feixiong, the renowned human rights leader who was wrongfully sentenced to six years last November, had on February 22 been sent to the remote the Yangchun Prison in Guangdong (广东阳春监狱) to serve his sentence. On February 29 his older sister, Yang Maoping (杨茂平), went to see him in prison, and found that […]

By Guo Feixiong, published: January 8, 2016 On November 27, a year after the trial of Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng, the Tianhe court in Guangzhou sentenced Guo Feixiong to six years in prison by adding a last-minute charge in order to procure a lengthier sentence. On January 7, 2016, Guo Feixiong filed the following criminal complaint (in Chinese) with the  Guangzhou Municipal People’s Prosecutorate against judges involved in the sentencing.  – The Editors Guo Feixiong: A Criminal Complaint   Plaintiff: Yang Maodong (杨茂东), also known as Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), male, born on August 2, 1966 in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Han ethnicity. University educated. Currently being wrongly held in the Tianhe District detention center in Guangzhou. Defendant: Zheng Xin (郑昕), presiding judge in the Tianhe […]

– A commentary in the wake of false charges against Guo Feixiong Gao Zhisheng, November 28, 2015 Translated by Matthew Robertson; posted on December 3, 2015 Gao Zhisheng composed the following letter after hearing about the six year prison sentence handed to rights activist Guo Feixiong, and after reading Guo’s spirited defense and condemnation of the Party’s rule. As the letter made the rounds on social media, the Chinese authorities promptly cut off Gao’s cell phone service and placed him under house arrest in his late mother’s cave dwelling in Shaanxi Province. Both Gao Zhisheng and Guo Feixiong are Christians. — The Editors     I rarely suffer insomnia, but I woke up at 2 am this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. This is […]

Guo Feixiong, November 27, 2015 Translated by Louisa Chiang and Perry Link; posted on December 3, 2015 On November 27, a year after the trial of Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng, the Tianhe court in Guangzhou sentenced Guo Feixiong to six years in prison by adding a last-minute charge in order to procure a lengthier sentence. In doing so, the Chinese court announced to the world that the law means nothing when it comes to persecuting political dissenters. – The Editors   This verdict violates both justice and the law. It is nothing but vile persecution of Sun Desheng and me by powers that are opposing democracy in China. We are completely innocent. The lifeblood of the law flows beneath its surface, where, properly, it should nourish human autonomy […]

China Change, published: November 27, 2015   On August 8, 2013, Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄, real name Yang Maodong [杨茂东]) was arrested and then indicted on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The case stems from Guo’s activism around the “Southern Weekend” incident, in which he made speeches outside the newspaper’s offices, and later that year he initiated a campaign demanding that the National People’s Congress ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. On November 28 last year he and co-defendant Sun Desheng (孙德胜) were tried without a verdict. On Friday November 27, after three postponements over the course of 12 months, the Tianhe court in Guangzhou has pronounced its verdict, with Guo Feixiong sentenced to six years […]

By Guo Baosheng, published: November 17, 2015   China claims that it doesn’t have any political prisoners, but in a broad sense all of those who have been jailed or imprisoned for challenging the Chinese Communist Party on behalf of human rights or political justice ought to be considered China’s political prisoners. Before the policy of “reform and opening up” in 1979, counterrevolutionaries and other political prisoners were put under strict guard and treated worse than other criminals, and it was common in those days for them to suffer abuse or die from maltreatment. For a long time after “reform and opening up,” political prisoners began to be treated a bit better relative to other criminals. But in the past few years—especially since Xi Jinping […]

By Yaxue Cao, published: September 23, 2015   On March 31, when China’s youngest political criminal Huang Wenxun (黄文勋) heard that Xi Jinping was going to visit America, he wrote President Obama a letter. He had just turned 25, and had been held in a police lockup awaiting trial in Chibi, Hubei Province, for one year and ten months (as of this writing, it’s over two years and four months). In his letter, he told his own story and also tried to get Americans to “learn about a different China.” He seemed to truly believe his letter would make it in front of President Obama, and apologized for occupying the president’s precious time. But he reasoned: this could be counted as “a time for international […]

China Change, published: August 21, 2015 We believe that this is a deliberate effort to harm Guo Feixiong and kill him slowly.   (Subtitles provided by @WLYeung and @awfan )   Chinese democracy activist Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄, also known by his original name, Yang Maodong 杨茂东) has now been held in Guangzhou’s Tianhe Detention Center for 743 days since his detention on August 8, 2013, without once being let out for fresh air. Having protested multiple times without result, Guo’s lawyers now report that during their most recent meeting Guo’s memory, speech, and thinking all showed signs of damage. These actions by the Chinese authorities have already led to widespread anger and concern among Chinese human rights activists. We believe that this is a deliberate effort to […]

By Xiao Shu, published: January 8, 2015 A verdict awaits the pioneer of China’s rights movement after he stood trial the second time last November. Veteran commentator Xiao Shu, writing originally in the New York Times Chinese, places Guo Feixiong in the larger picture of the rights struggle in China. – The Editor   A civil rights movement has been unfolding in China. As Martin Luther King Jr. was to the American civil rights movement, essential figures have been emerging from the movement in China. Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), who was tried on November 28 for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place,” is one of them. While the American Civil Rights Movement fought for the rights of millions of African Americans, the […]

By China Change, published: November 28, 2014   Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄) and Sun Desheng (孙德胜) were tried November 28, 2014, at Tianhe Court in Guangzhou, for “allegedly gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The trial began at 9am and, after 18 hours, concluded shortly before 3 am on November 29. The court will announce the verdict another time. Radio Free Asia talked to Li Jinxing (李金星) and Zhang Lei (张磊), two of Guo Feixiong’s defense lawyers, shortly after the trial, and Chen Jinxue (陈进学), Sun Desheng’s lawyer. Li Jinxing told Min Zhang of RFA that, during the course of the entire proceeding, the court violated the rights of the defendants and the defense lawyers. The court repeatedly and rudely interrupted the […]

The Court Statement by Guo Feixiong Translated by Louisa Chiang and Perry Link, published: November 28, 2014 According to the defense lawyers, the trial of Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng was forced by the court to conclude at Beijing time 2:50 am, November 29, in Tianhe Court, Guangzhou. Despite repeated interruptions by the head judge and denial of his right to make a closing statement, Guo Feixiong defended himself forcefully and eloquently. China Change is pleased to present his court statement in full in English. – The Editor    1984, Orwell’s masterpiece about totalitarianism that could have been a blow-by-blow script for the People’s Republic of China, also happens to be the year that launched my personal journey as part of China’s movement for freedom and democracy. […]

By YANG Jianli, President, Initiatives for China, former political prisoner of China (2002-2006) Published: November 9, 2013                 Last night, I was on the phone with Ms. Zhang Qing, the wife of Guo Feixiong (pen name for Yang Maodong). Guo, who was imprisoned from 2006 to 2011 for peacefully demonstrating in defense of journalists’ rights, was arrested again on August 8 by Chinese authorities on “suspicion of gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” Since Guo’s arrest, his lawyers had been unlawfully prohibited from seeing him on eight occasions—unlawful according to China’s own legal code.  During Guo’s previous incarceration he was severely tortured, which makes the family suspect that he is being tortured now as well, or that he […]

By ChinaChange.org Last weekend, the Guangzhou-based dissident and activist Guo Fengxiong (郭飞雄, real name Yang Maodong 杨茂东) was reported missing for several days. A local source later tweeted that he was safe but on Saturday, August 17, Guo’s sister, as well as his lawyer, confirmed to the media that he had been criminally detained since August 8th for allegedly “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place,” according to the detention notice his sister received. His lawyer Sui Muqing (隋牧青) said the direct reason for Guo Feixiong’s arrest has to do with his involvement in the street demonstration in support of the Southern Weekend at the beginning of the year, but the lawyer also pointed to the recent wave of arrests of dissidents […]