Category Archives: Headlines

Swedish activist Peter Dahlin ‘confesses’ on China TV

A detained Swedish rights activist has appeared on Chinese state television apparently confessing to breaking the law through his group’s activities.

Peter Dahlin has been held since early January amid a crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists. Continue reading

China pulls lawyers and activists into a dark zone of fear

By Editorial Board January 18 at 6:32 PM

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu talks during an interview with Reuters in Beijing in this March 1, 2014 photo. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Files

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu talks during an interview with Reuters in Beijing in 2014. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

FOR ALL the semblance of a judicial system, with lawyers, judges and prosecutors, China’s courts remain a tool of a party-state that sees itself as above the law. People can be detained for months — they simply disappear — and only later formally charged or tried. In China, detention means being sucked into the vortex of arbitrary rule. Continue reading

A Look at “Mr. Six”

Guan Hu

Guan Hu, director of “Mr. Six.” Image via Youtube user: Yitiao Video 一条视频,

Guan Hu’s newest movie resonates with the Cultural Revolution generation, but the film has one fatal flaw. Continue reading

Missing Hong Kong bookseller appears on state television, claiming he turned himself in over 11-year-old drink-driving death

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In a video interview with a bookseller missing since November, he says he was afraid of going to jail and thought he’d better run – despite being given a suspended sentence for the offence in 2004 Continue reading

Book on Chinese president pulled as fears grow for missing Hong Kong publishers

US-based writer Yu Jie says publication of Xi Jinping’s Nightmare was halted as the industry ‘wants to stay out of trouble’ after five booksellers have vanished

Yu Jie

Chinese dissident author Yu Jie. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

The author of a book which criticises Chinese president Xi Jinping has said its publication has been suspended in Hong Kong, because its publisher was fearful of the “huge consequences” of its release, following the mysterious disappearance of five of the city’s publishers in recent months. Continue reading

China: Subversion Charges Target Lawyers

Arrests Reflect Xi Jinping’s Broader Repression of Rights Activism

(New York) – The Chinese authorities’ formal arrest of at least 11 human rights lawyers, legal assistants, and activists on political subversion charges is an unprecedented and grave escalation of attacks on rights defenders in China, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities should immediately drop the charges and release the 11, as well as other lawyers and human rights advocates in custody for political reasons. Continue reading

Beijing church elder formally arrested after six months in detention

China Aid
By Rachel Ritchie

(Tianjin, China—Jan. 14, 2016) China Aid learned today that authorities in China’s northern Tianjin Municipality formally arrested a Beijing church elder and democracy activist for “subversion of state power” on Jan. 8, according to an arrest notice received by the man’s family members. Continue reading

China arrests most prominent woman rights lawyer for subversion

BEIJING | By Sui-Lee Wee

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu talks during an interview with Reuters in Beijing in this March 1, 2014 photo. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Files

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu talks during an interview with Reuters in Beijing in this March 1, 2014 photo. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Files

Chinese authorities have formally arrested China’s most prominent woman human rights lawyer, accusing her of subverting the state, her lawyer said on Wednesday, as part of a crackdown on activists who have helped people fight for their legal rights. Continue reading