By Mo Zhixu, April 13, 2016 “When the Southern activists stood amidst heavy traffic and photographed themselves holding placards of protest, the feeling it gives is a little surreal….”   On April 8, 2016, after a year and half in detention, two activists arrested in 2014 for holding banners on the streets of Guangzhou in support of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement—Wang Mo (王默) and Xie Wenfei (謝文飛, real name Xie Fengxia 謝豐夏)—were sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. In addition, they will be deprived of political rights for three years. On the same day Zhang Shengyu (張聖雨, real name Zhang Rongping 張榮平), who held a placard in support of the Hong Kong students, was sentenced to four […]

By Wang Mo, published: November 22, 2015 On October 3, 2014, Chinese activists Xie Wenfei (谢文飞, a.k.a. Xie Fengxia 谢丰夏), and Wang Mo (王默, real name Zhang Shengyu 张圣雨) held banners in the streets of Guangzhou, expressing support for the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. They were arrested the same evening and indicted on May 12, 2015, for “inciting subversion of state power.” On Nov. 19, Wang Mo was tried in a Guangzhou court (Zhang had been tried separately a week earlier.) Verdicts in both trials are pending. Following is an abbreviated translation of Wang Mo’s defense. The translation remains unauthorized because permission could not be secured from the writer. – The Editors   Decades ago Chinese Communist Party, crying slogans about opposing corruption, opposing […]

By Chang Ping, published: January 18, 2015 Three months after friend and assistant Zhang Miao (張淼) was arrested, Angela Köckritz, Beijing correspondent for the German paper DIE ZEIT, wrote a detailed account to publicize the case and her own experience in the event. I admire Ms. Köckritz’s action. In similar cases, the Chinese government has used methods to impose silence on insiders, and in Zhang Miao’s case too, “her family asks that only a little be made public.” The authorities claim, explicitly or otherwise, that publicizing these cases would harm the detainees, and in a way, they are acknowledging that the Chinese judiciary can be swerved this way or that way at will depending on the public’s opinions. When families and insiders are forced to […]

By Zeng Jinyan, published: October 30, 2014 “Watching his friends, who happen to be the hope of a better China, going to prison one after another, is more than personal shame. It is the shame of our time.”   Kou Yanding was taken away by police in Beijing on October 10th for “picking quarrels and provoking disturbances.”  The day before on October 9th, Guo Yushan was criminally detained on the same charge. Two days before the arrest, Kou Yanding, otherwise known as Button, was free in Hong Kong, helping me make a breakfast of eggs in noodle soup in my kitchen. To her friends in the NGO circle, Kou Yanding is a bestselling author on such incendiary subjects as trying on parliamentary procedures in Chinese […]

By Leung Man-tao, published: October 26, 2014   While riding a minibus in Taipo to the MTR station the other day, I overheard a man sitting in front of me talking loudly about the current events in Hong Kong. It seems he had already seen through the situation as he confidently declared: “These are all the conspiracies of the pan-democratic camp and their intentions are too sinister. . . ” Because his traveling companion gave him a dubious look, the man more stridently and forcefully emphasized: “What, you haven’t heard yet? Actually, there is a good deal of evidence pointing to the fact that behind the scenes the Americans are supporting Occupy Central. Even the students are incited by the Americans and the British.” After […]

By Chang Ping, published: October 7, 2014   Our very first take on Occupy Central, the movement for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, is a radical protest in a society governed by law. Fully aware of the law and its consequences, participants willingly incur punishment for the sake of their ideals. We imagine the police making arrests with all due courtesy, the courts conducting trials ceremoniously, and those who break the law walking into their jail cells with graceful aplomb. Society as a whole, spurred by what they do, will rethink and debate the issues at hand in a rational manner, and all will end in a step forward for democracy. The next thing that popped up in everyone’s mind was the blood of the […]

By Teng Biao, published: June 5, 2014   In 1989, I was a high school student in a small county in Northeastern China. Two years later, I was admitted into Peking University. If I had been born two years earlier, I could have been the one overrun by tanks and my mother could have been one of the mothers who have shed all her tears but have been forbidden to speak the truth or to simply commemorate. Those who died on June 4th died for me, and died for each one of us the survivors. In other words, their death lives on in our life. Without realizing this, we will not be able to understand ourselves and the China we are living in today. Therefore […]