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Seven Hong Kong democracy campaigners, including former lawmakers, were sentenced on Saturday to up to 12 months in jail for their role in a protest last year against a sweeping national security law imposed by China.

The seven had pleaded guilty to charges that included organising the unauthorised assembly on July 1, 2020, when thousands of protesters took to the streets. Police, who had banned the demonstration citinbg coronavirus restrictions, fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse them.

The activists included Figo Chan, a former convenor of the now-disbanded Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF); Tsang Kin-shing and Tang Sai-lai of the League of Social Democrats; former district councillor Andy Chui; and former legislators Wu Chi-wai, Eddie Chu and Leung Kwok-hung.

Chan was jailed for 12 months, while the others were given sentences from six to ten months.

"The nature of incitement was serious," said the judge, Douglas Yau, noting that it created the risk of violence.

Beijing imposed a national security law on June 30 last year as a response to widespread anti-government protests in 2019 that roiled the city. The law, drawn up by China, sets out to punish subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

The protest took place the next day - the first full day under the new law, though civil society groups had held deminstrations on July 1 for years to champion various issues, including democratic rights.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise its wide-ranging freedoms and high degree of autonomy would be preserved. Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly denied curbing human rights and freedoms.

"We could only choose civil disobedience… a peaceful, rational and non-violent way to express our demand against the national security law," Figo Chan said in mitigation.

"In order to uphold the belief of civil disobedience, I decided to plead guilty, admitting that I violated the "evil public order law"."

At least 370 people were arrested that day for illegal assembly and other offences, with ten involving violations of the security law, according to police.

Tong Ying-kit, the first person convicted under the national security law, was sentenced in July to nine years in prison for terrorist activities and inciting secession.

He was accused of driving his motorcycle that day into riot police while carrying a flag with the now-banned protest slogan "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our times".

According to the Security Bureau, more than 150 people have been arrested under the national security law. Among them, 100 people have been formally charged.

Hong Kong's largest independent trade union disbanded on Sunday, further stoking concerns over the space for civil society groups as a national security law and the sweeping powers it gives the police stifle dissent in the global financial center.

Founded in 1990, the 145,000 member Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) voted to disband, bringing an end to the organization as authorities exert greater control on groups and unions in the business hub.

While anti-government protests in 2019 generated a new wave of labor activism in Hong Kong and triggered a 35% jump in registered trade unions, groups have been scrambling to disband since Beijing imposed the security law last year.

Fears of falling foul of the law and facing terms of up to life in jail have seen at least 29 trade unions disband since the start of this year, according to a tally by Reuters.

HKCTU vice-president Leo Tang said members of the group had received threats to their personal safety, without elaborating.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has denied that the government is carrying out a crackdown on civil society, and authorities say all law enforcement actions have been based on evidence and have nothing to do with the political beliefs of those arrested.

National security police in Hong Kong have frozen the assets of a group that organized vigils for Tiananmen massacre victims, as the city's public broadcaster was warned on Wednesday that its reporting must 'safeguard national interests.'

"This morning, the liquidator of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, Mr. Cheng Yiu-cheong, received a notice from the national security police notifying him that all of the Alliance's assets, including those of the June 4th Memorial Hall, were frozen," the Alliance said in a post on its Facebook page on Wednesday.

National security police officers took Cheng Yiu-chang to the June 4th Memorial Hall and handed him the letter of notification, the group said.

"Cheng expressed surprise and disagreement with the [move]," it said, adding that Cheng planned to go to the national security police headquarters to request the assets be unfrozen pending the dissolution of the group.

The Alliance voted to disband at an extraordinary general meeting on Sept. 25, following an investigation by Hong Kong's national security police under a law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

The Alliance stands accused of acting as the agent of a foreign power, with leaders Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan arrested on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power," and the group's assets frozen under the national security law.

At a special general meeting held at the June 4th Memorial Hall under heavy police watch in Mong Kok district, members voted 41-4 to disband after 32 years of supporting victims of the Tiananmen killings, demanding accountability, and advocating for an end to one-party rule.

The national security law ushered in an ongoing and citywide crackdown on all forms of public dissent and political opposition, with election rules changed to ensure only pro-CCP candidates can run and with the government insisting that further legislation on espionage is needed to continue the crackdown on what Beijing insists was an attempt by hostile foreign powers to foment a "color revolution" in Hong Kong.

Journalists warned

Government broadcaster RTHK on Wednesday issued a new set of guidelines to its staff, warning them that their work must always serve China's national interests, on pain of disciplinary action.

Journalists have also been warned to be careful what they say on social media, "to protect the station's integrity and reputation," RTHK reported on its English-language news page.

The rules mean that opposition or critical voices are likely to be unwelcome on RTHK programs.

“Under no circumstances should our programs provide a platform to encourage, incite, promote, glorify, endorse, or sympathize with any act or activity endangering national security or otherwise contain any contents which are contrary to the interests of national security," the station quoted the guidelines as saying.

RTHK programs must not provoke or deepen hatred, discrimination, or hostility towards the central government or the Hong Kong government, the rules say.

Staff must also avoid any contact with foreign governments or political organizations, and should take at face value Beijing's territorial claim on the democratic island of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People's Republic of China.

In an apparent reference to reporting linked to the 2019 protest movement, staff must make sure they don't sympathize with, justify or glamorize "criminal acts."

'Inciting secession'

The warnings came as a former protester stood trial under the national security law in Hong Kong's District Court, for "inciting secession."

Ma Chun-man, known by his nickname Captain America 2.0, is accused of inciting others to commit secession by shouting "Hong Kong independence is the only solution," and "Free Hong Kong, revolution now!" at protests and in shopping malls between August and November 2020.

Motorcyclist Tong Ying-kit was jailed for nine years in July for "inciting secession" and "terrorism" after he flew a flag with the "Free Hong Kong, revolution now!" slogan while riding his bike at a protest against the national security law on July 1, 2020, the day it took effect.

National security police have also charged seven other people including a 16-year-old with "conspiracy to incite the commission by other persons of the offence of subversion."

The group, aged 16-25, are members of the pro-independence group Returning Valiant, and were arrested in July on suspicion of terrorism and amid allegations of a bomb plot.

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have applied to arrest a human rights lawyer after holding him under residential surveillance for six months, his friend told RFA.

Rights lawyer Zhou Xiaoyun, who formerly worked as a senior editor at the cutting-edge Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper in Guangzhou, was initially detained by police in the northeastern province of Liaoning around six months ago on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He was held incommunicado under RSDL, residential surveillance at a designated location, but now that the six-month limit has been reached, police have applied to the state prosecutor's office for approval of his arrest, a friend of Zhou's who gave only the surname Lu said.

Police in Guangdong's Panshan county submitted the arrest application to the local procuratorate on Sept. 26, Lu said.

He said Zhou was being victimized by the Liaoning police.

"They sent the case to the Panshan county procuratorate on the 26th, to apply for his arrest," Lu said. "It's not clear which leader is in charge, but it is being handled, at least on the face of things, by the Panshan county police, and in actuality by the Panjin municipal police department."

Zhou had met with his lawyer twice during the past week, as well as receiving a visit from his sister, he said.

A veteran lawyer who gave only the surname Zhang said Zhou will remain in detention after his time in "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)" expires if the application is approved.

"This is what used to be called criminal detention, and it requires the approval of the procuratorate for a formal arrest," Zhang said. "This is a critical juncture, because if the procuratorate approves the arrest, it means at the very least that they believe Zhou committed a crime which should be investigated and which deserves a prison sentence."

"[That means they think] he should remain in detention," he said.

Repeated calls to the Panjin municipal police department and to the Panshan country procuratorate rang unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.

Re-educating the media

The CCP is in the process of "re-educating" its already tightly controlled state media, requiring hundreds of thousands of journalists to sit an exam on the political thought of general secretary Xi Jinping to qualify for a new generation of official press cards.

The process started with a 2014 requirement for journalists to study Marxism, and followed up by Xi in 2016, when he warned during visits to state media organizations that state media are part of the CCP family.

All media operating in China must safeguard the authority of the Communist Party central committee, and adhere to "the correct direction" in forming public opinion, Xi said at the time.

Meanwhile, Xu Yan, wife of jailed human rights attorney Yu Wensheng said he has yet to receive adequate medical and dental treatment in Nanjing Prison, where he is serving a four-year sentence after being convicted of "incitement to subvert state power" by a court in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Family members have long suspected that Yu has been tortured and ill-treated while in custody, as he only has limited use of his right hand, and is unable to write, brush his teeth, or harvest crops as part of prison labor.

He was named as a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award honoring human rights defenders earlier this year.

The Martin Ennals Foundation called him "one of the best-known and most intrepid human rights activists" in China, acknowledging that Yu has been subjected to arbitrary detention, a secret trial, and the removal of his license to practice law.

Hong Kong police on Monday arrested three members of the Student Politicism group on subversion charges under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), accusing its members of trying to bring down the regime.

Among the arrestees were convenor Wong Yat-chin and secretary general Chan Chi-sum, the group said in a brief statement on its Facebook page.

The Hong Kong Baptist University student union editorial board named the third arrestee as Jessica Chu, a former spokesperson for Student Politicism who is no longer a member of the group, according to a screenshot posted to Twitter by Agence France-Presse correspondent Xinqi Su.

Police confirmed they had arrested three suspects aged between 18 and 20 for carrying out "subversive acts" including warning people not to use the government's LeaveHomeSafe COVID-19 tracking app, and "inciting hatred of the government" via street booths.

Wong was shown in media footage posted by the Oriental Daily news website, being led away in handcuffs from the group's headquarters in Kwai Chung district, and being taken away in an unmarked grey people carrier.

National security police raided the premises, seizing boxes of goods intended for prison inmates, including chocolates, sanitary products, and crackers, Hong Kong-based translator KTse852 said via their Twitter account.

Senior police superintendent Steve Li told reporters that the group had been imposing its political beliefs on others, and inciting them to overthrow the governments of Hong Kong and mainland China.

Li said the group's goal in sending goods to inmates was to enlist them to aid these efforts, and accused him of exhorting followers to "practice martial arts for when the revolution comes."

"That ... is clearly resistance aimed at the Hong Kong authorities and the CCP government," Li said, accusing the group of intensifying its political activism with street booths in Mong Kok.

The national security law, which has ushered in a city-wide crackdown on peaceful protest and political opposition since it took effect on July 1, 2020, criminalizes contact with and funding from overseas politicians and foundations, public criticism of the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities, as well as opposition activism, which is deemed a bid to overthrow the existing political order.

Forty-seven former democratic lawmakers and activists are currently awaiting trial on "subversion" charges under the national security law after taking part in a democratic primary in 2020 that was designed to maximize the number of LegCo seats won by the opposition.

The targeting of Student Politicism comes after prisoner support group Wall-fare announced it would disband after secretary for security and former police chief Chris Tang accused "certain groups" of endangering national security" in prisons by writing to inmates and "soliciting followers" with gifts of chocolates, hairpins, and other items, making them "hate the government."

It was the latest in a line of civil society groups to disband following public denunciation by officials or by CCP-backed media.

Feminist journalist Sophia Huang and fellow activist Wang Jianbing are incommunicado, believed detained, ahead of Huang's planned departure to study overseas, the Chinese rights group Weiquanwang reported on Tuesday.

Huang had planned to leave China via Hong Kong on Sept. 20 for the U.K., where she planned to take a master's degree in development with a prestigious Chevening Scholarship, the Weiquanwang report said.

Wang, who is a labor and healthcare rights activist, had planned to see her off on her journey, it said.

"According to people familiar with the matter, Wang Jianbing may have been detained under investigation for incitement to subvert state power, mainly due to the daily gatherings of friends at his home," Weiquanwang said, adding that both activists had been incommunicado since Sept. 19.

Repeated calls and messages to Huang's cell phone went unanswered on Tuesday.

Sources told RFA the pair had likely been detained by police in their home district of Haizhu.

An officer who answered the phone at the Haizhu district police department in Guangzhou declined to confirm the report.

"Who? I've never heard of those people," the officer said. "If you believe they are being dealt with, then the relatives need to wait for notification."

"The case officers will only contact [the family]."

Veteran political journalist Gao Yu said Huang's detention may be short-lived, and only intended to prevent her from leaving for the U.K.

"The kind of persecution that his happening now is worse than at any other time ... even when they were going after the 'rightists' they didn't just arrest people on a whim," she said.

"It's unbelievable right now ... they regard these young journalists and non-government organizations as the enemy," she said. "The methods they are using are persecutory and despicable, and without any basis in law."

U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said "disappearances" are increasingly being used by the CCP to suppress any form of dissent or rights activism.

"They keep lowering the threshold for the kinds of people they will persecute," Teng said. "There is now no longer room for activities that may have been tolerated in the past."

Survey of harassment, assaults

Before being targeted by the authorities in 2019, Huang had been an outspoken member of the country's #MeToo movement, and had carried out a survey of sexual harassment and assault cases among Chinese women working in journalism.

Huang was present at a million-strong protest in Hong Kong on June 9, 2019 against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and was detained for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" in October 2019, before being released on bail in January 2020, a status that often involves ongoing surveillance and restrictions on a person's activities.

Her travel documents were also confiscated after her return, preventing her from beginning a law degree in Hong Kong the fall of 2019.

Huang had previously assisted in the investigation and reporting of a number of high-profile sexual harassment allegations against professors at Peking University, Wuhan University of Technology, Henan University and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

Wang started to work in rural development after graduating in 2005, before joining the Guangzhou Gongmin NGO in 2014 and director and coordinator for youth work.

In 2018, he started advocacy and legal support work on behalf of workers with occupational diseases, and was a vocal supporter of China's #MeToo movement.

A Hong Kong group that once campaigned for China's embattled human rights lawyers announced on Tuesday it would disband after being investigated by national security police under a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful opposition.

The China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG) said in a statement on its website that it had received a letter of enquiry from the Hong Kong Police dated Aug. 25, 2021.

"The CHRLCG has decided to dissolve in September 2021 and has already activated the voluntary liquidation procedure," the statement said.

"Directors of the CHRLCG are going to resign from their directorships soon."

The group is the latest in string of civil society groups to disband following investigation by national security police.

The pro-democracy Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) will vote on Oct. 3 on whether to disband after being denounced in the Beijing-backed media, a typical precursor to investigation under the national security law.

The denunciations usually focus on accusations that a given activist group or non-government organization has done something that could be in breach of the law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

Several organizations, including protest march organizers the Civil Human Rights Front, the Professional Teachers' Union, and Wall-fare, a prison support group for those in custody because of the 2019 protest movement, have disbanded following similar articles, or after being criticized by Hong Kong's leaders.

And the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance said it had recently received a letter from the Registry of Trade Unions alleging that its funds were used for "political purposes."

Three are denied bail

The CHRLCG's decision to disband came as three activists linked to the Hong Kong activist group Student Politicism were denied bail on Tuesday following their arrest on subversion charges under a draconian national security law.

West Kowloon Court principal magistrate Don So rejected bail applications from lawyers acting for group convenor Wong Yat-chin, 20, and former members Chan Chi-sum, 20 and Jessica Chu, 18.

The trio embraced each other and cried in court when they heard bail had been denied, with the case adjourned until November following a request from the prosecution.

Judge So said he didn't believe the defendants would refrain from further actions "endangering national security" if they were released, meaning that the trio will now spend the Mid-Autumn Festival in jail instead of with their families.

Wong and Chan said they would reapply every eight days, while Chu waived her right to further bail hearings.

Their supporters also hugged each other, or wiped away tears when the decision was announced, while others chanted "release political prisoners!" and "Inhumane!"

Wong said in a message posted to social media by his lawyer that his fate was perhaps the result of the times Hongkongers are now living through.

"I hope we can all live bravely and openly, so we can face this together," Wong said. "[Let's] face fear, challenge fear, and conquer fear."

He also told people to "take care of themselves" and enjoy the Mid-Autumn Festival.

According to the indictment, Wong, Chan, and Chu conspired with others in Hong Kong to "organize, plan, implement or participate in acts of force, or the threat to use force, or other illegal means to subvert state power, namely, to overthrow or undermine the current political system of the People's Republic of China ... and overthrow the central government or the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government."

Their alleged actions dated from Oct. 25, 2020 to June 16, 2021, it said.

'Subversive acts'

Police had early alleged the trio had carried out "subversive acts" including warning people not to use the government's LeaveHomeSafe COVID-19 tracking app, and "inciting hatred of the government" via street booths.

Meanwhile, the host of an English-language talk show for government broadcaster RTHK was reportedly pulled from the show following an episode focusing on the ongoing crackdown on civil society groups under the national security law.

"Backchat" co-host Hugh Chiverton confirmed to Stand News on Tuesday that he was still at the station, but hasn't been heard on air since the civil society episode, which hasn't yet been uploaded to the archive section of the RTHK website.

The episode had featured former City University politics lecturer and pro-democracy activist Joseph Cheng.

Chiverton referred all queries about the show to RTHK's communications team, who told the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) that it wouldn't comment on "internal editorial matters of individual programmes."

"RTHK reviews the programme content from time to time to ensure compliance with RTHK Charter, the Producers' Guidelines and the Communications Authority's Codes of Practice," it said in a statement posted to Twitter by HKFP.

Chiverton and Koh had earlier interviewed Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam about the national security crackdown, during which Lam warned Koh that she was "treading on dangerous lines" after the host asked her about the government's failure to communicate with protesters during the 2019 anti-extradition movement.

Hong Kong’s national security chief recently accused the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), of having political preferences and receiving foreign funding. The IFJ expresses grave concern over the official’s remarks and urges the Hong Kong authorities to respect HKJA members’ freedom of association.

Speaking with reporters on September 15, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung accused the HKJA of having biased political views and thus favouring pro-democracy news organisations such as Apple Daily and Stand News. He also claimed that the HKJA may have received funds provided by foreign political groups, without providing evidence.

Tang urged the HKJA to disclose its membership list and financial status in order to “prove its innocence” and “assuage public concerns.”

In response, HKJA Chairman Ronson Chan saidthe HKJA does not receive funding from overseas groups and has submitted its financial statements annually to the Labour Department, which oversees trade unions, according to Hong Kong’s law.

The group also said it cannot disclose the personal data of its members without their consent. “Any suggestion to make our membership and their employers public in order to ‘assuage doubts’ would appear to incite a breach of the Ordinance,” the HKJA said in a statement, referring to the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

In addition, during an interview with local newspaper Ta Kung Pao on September 14, Tang stated that the HKJA is “relying on a large number of student members.” He said the group’s executive committee has been controlled by members of specific media outlets over the years. The situation “makes people question the representativeness of the HKJA” as a journalist trade union, Tang said.

The HKJA said there is no truth to Tang’s comments; as of September 15, the HKJA has 486 members, 56 of whom are students majoring in journalism. This number translates to approximately 11 per cent. A list of HKJA executive committee members is also available on the HKJA website, it added.

Hong Kong newspapers backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) stepped up their denunciations of independent trade unions in the city on Friday, amid an ever-widening crackdown on civil society under the national security law.

The Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao newspapers on Friday reported that Hong Kong's pro-democracy Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) would be the next civil society group to disband following denunciations by CCP media.

"Our information indicates that the CTU will soon disband," the report said. "The executive committee met on Sept. 16 to pass the resolution, but it still needs to be formally approved at a general meeting on Oct. 3."

The report accused the CTU of prompting a "tsunami" of new union registrations during the 2019 protest movement, and of "promoting anti-Chinese sentiment and unrest."

"They have deviated utterly from the purpose of a trade union under the law, steal from industry, and divide society," the paper said, naming veteran labor activist Lee Cheuk-ying, who is currently serving a 14-month jail term for his role in the 2019 protest movement.

It also singled out Winnie Yu, the founder and chairwoman of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, a labor union representing Hospital Authority staff.

Political denunciations in CCP-backed media are increasingly being used to target civil society groups and NGOs in Hong Kong.

The denunciations usually focus on accusations that a given organization has done something that could be in breach of a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020.

Several groups disband

Several organizations, including protest march organizers the Civil Human Rights Front, the Professional Teachers' Union, and Wall-fare, a prison support group for those in custody because of the 2019 protest movement, have disbanded following similar articles, or after being criticized by Hong Kong's leaders.

The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance said it had recently received a letter from the Registry of Trade Unions alleging that its funds were used for "political purposes."

The group's questioning of the effectiveness of Chinese-made COVID-19 jabs and the government's LeaveHomeSafe app, and its setting up of street booths were also listed as matters requiring explanation, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

"Our alliance's legal status and the past activities we organized, including the strike to fight for reasonable rights, should be protected by international covenants and the Basic Law," it quoted acting chairman David Chan as saying.

He declined to comment when asked if the alliance has any plans to disband, RTHK reported.

Meanwhile, another labor NGO, the Asia Monitor Resource Centre, said an article published in the CCP-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper was inaccurate.

"For decades, we [have been] a civil society organization independent of any local or international organizations," it said. "We are not a subsidiary unit of any of the organizations as wrongly described in the Ta Kung Pao article."

The group said it plans to shut down its Hong Kong operations by the end of September and relocate elsewhere in the region.

"The pressure on our operation has intensified significantly," the group said in a statement on its website. "Therefore, we feel that we are left with no choice but to cease operating in Hong Kong by the end of September."

Pattern becoming clear

Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), said the pattern of denunciation leading to investigation by the authorities is becoming increasingly clear in Hong Kong.

"We have seen so many similar occurrences, in which the Ta Kung Pao or the Wen Wei Po post articles listing [alleged] crimes, sometimes photos, and even stalking some people," Chung told RFA.

"Maybe the first thing the secretary for security does when he gets to work in the morning is look at the Wen Wei Po or Ta Kung Pao to see which groups they are targeting, and make a list," he said.

"It looks as if the [pro-CCP] media are running Hong Kong now."

Set up in 1990, the CTU sprang from the work of the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HKCIC), a church-backed grassroots labor group active during the 1970s and 1980s.

A coalition of independent and politically unaffiliated union organizations, its membership consisted largely of white-collar unions organizing the civil service and professional or service employees in the public and subvented sectors, including the now-disbanded Professional Teachers' Union (PTU) and the Hong Kong Social Workers General Union.

Both former leaders Lau Chin-shek, a founding member of the Democratic Party, and Lee Cheuk-yan went on to be elected to the city's Legislative Council (LegCo).

The CTU was involved in a number of mass protest movements, including the July 1, 2003 march to oppose national security legislation, which was eventually imposed on the city by the CCP on July 1, 2020.

It was also instrumental in founding Hong Kong's Labour Party in 2005.

Hong Kong's national security police have ordered the organizers of a now-banned candlelight vigil for the victims of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre to delete all of their online posts, the group said via its Facebook page on Thursday.

The Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said it would comply with a national security police demand to remove all content from its website and social media accounts under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

"[We] received a letter from the police commissioner on Sept. 10 saying ... that implementation rules provide for the removal of specified messages from electronic platforms within seven days of receipt of notification," the Alliance said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

"[We] will remove all posts from our website, Facebook, and other specified electronic platforms by 10.00 pm tonight," it said.

The organization has been charged alongside three of its former leaders -- Lee Cheuk-yan, 64, Albert Ho, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 36 -- with "incitement to subvert state power" under the national security law.

Chow was arrested on Sept. 8 and denied bail, while Lee and Ho are already serving jail terms linked to their activism.

Four other Alliance members, Tang Ngok-kwan, 53, Simon Leung, 36, Chan To-wai, 57, and Tsui Hon-kwong, 72, have been charged with "failure to comply with a notice to provide information."

The group refused to provide detailed information on its members, activities, and funding sources to national security police, arguing that it isn't an agent of a foreign government, and therefore isn't bound by that part of the national security law.

"By arresting vigil organizers, Beijing and Hong Kong authorities are telling the world they’re not only afraid of the most peaceful protests, but also of their own brutal past," Human Rights Watch (HRW) China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement posted on the HRW website and signed by dozens of rights groups.

"They should end this political persecution and immediately drop the charges and release the vigil organizers," she said.

Call for targeted sanctions

The statement, signed by the U.S.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, the Christian rights group ChinaAid, Humanitarian China and the U.K.-based Hong Kong Watch, among others, called on concerned governments to impose "coordinated, targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes," on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, police chief Raymond Siu, secretary for security Chris Tang, and other officials linked to the operation targeting the Alliance.

"Hong Kong and mainland authorities should not be able to ban commemorations, shutter museums, and jail peaceful critics without paying a price," Citizen Power founder and veteran dissident Jianli Yang said.

"Governments appalled by the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Hong Kong should make their opposition felt," Yang said.

The takedown order came as seven pro-democracy District Council members were stripped of their seats after their oaths were judged insufficient to prove their loyalty to Hong Kong and China.

Clarisse Yeung, Leung Pak-kin, Wei Siu-lik, So Yat-hang, Chan Wing-tai, Lai Tsz-yan, and Michael Pang were stripped of their council seats on Sept. 15, five days after they pledged allegiance at a ceremony for Hong Kong Island councilors.

"As the oath administrator had questions about the validity of the oaths taken by ... seven District Council members, letters were issued to the ... members concerned on Sept. 10 to require them to provide additional information," the government said in a statement announcing the disqualifications.

"After considering the written replies ... and all relevant information, the oath administrator ... determined that the oaths taken by seven District Council members were invalid," it said.

The councilors were removed from office with immediate effect.

On 13 August 2021, the Linyi Municipal Procuratorate confirmed that the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau has sent the case against woman human rights defender Li Qiaochu for review by the prosecution. Under Chinese law, the procuratorate must make a decision on whether to prosecute the case within a month, and it may extend the deadline for another 15 days if the case is deemed “major” or “complicated”. It may also return the case back to the police for supplementary investigation.

On 27 August 2021, Li Qiaochu's lawyer was allowed to meet her. The woman human rights defender said she is suffering from severe auditory hallucinations, and is taking medication to treat the condition. However, she said there are side effects as she has gained weight and experienced amenorrhea for two months.

On 8 September 2021, the deputy chief of the Gaoxin branch of the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau informed human rights lawyer Chang Weiping's family that the police have sent the case against the human rights defender for review by the prosecution on 6 September 2021. Under Chinese law, the procuratorate must make a decision on whether to prosecute the case within a month, and it may extend the deadline for another 15 days if the case is deemed “major” or “complicated”. It may also return the case back to the police for supplementary investigation.

Upon hearing the news, Chang Weiping's family telephoned the Feng County Detention Centre, where the human rights defender is detained, and asked the centre to arrange a meeting between him and his lawyer. However, the detention centre said meetings with detainees cannot be arranged due to COVID-19.

CHRD condemns the ongoing persecution against the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement of China (“the Hong Kong Alliance”), and in particular, the arrest on Thursday of chairman Lee Cheuk-yan, vice-chairs Chow Hang-tung and Albert Ho on the charge of “inciting subversion”, which could carry a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.

The three are scheduled to appear at court in West Kowloon at 9:30am on Friday.

Their arrest stems from the Hong Kong Alliance’s decision not to cooperate with a police request made on August 25 to provide detailed information related to their interaction or material support from several foreign groups and unspecified “foreign or Taiwan political parties and other groups with a political purpose, including at their Hong Kong branches” dating back to 2014. The police charged them under Article 43(5) of the National Security Law (NSL), alleging that the Hong Kong Alliance and its members were “foreign agents”.

Committee member Tsui Hon-kwong was also arrested on Thursday, and on Wednesday, Hong Kong Alliance committee members Simon Leung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Chan To-wai were also arrested due to their non-compliance.

On Thursday, the Hong Kong police also shut down the Tiananmen Massacre Museum, which was run by the Hong Kong Alliance. Police dismantled the displays and hauled away historic photos and exhibits about the Tiananmen Massacre.

“The Hong Kong Alliance had always upheld the vision for a China that was ruled democratically, where the rule of law mattered, and where human rights were genuinely respected. The Central Government and their local allies are simply using the National Security Law to crush that democratic vision and ensure that there is no significant opposition to the increasingly dictatorial rule of Xi Jinping as head of the Chinese Communist Party”, said William Nee, CHRD’s Research and Advocacy Coordinator.

“Despite the fact that Article 39 of the NSL is clear that the law can only be applied to acts committed after it came into effect, and despite the fact that Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told the UN that the NSL would not be used retroactively, the police are now on a retroactive fishing expedition looking for anything going back to 2014. This makes a complete mockery out of Carrie Lam’s promises and shows that the procedural safeguards supposedly built into the NSL aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. The Hong Kong Alliance is courageous for refusing to comply with requests that are so blatantly against international and Hong Kong law,” Nee added.

“If the the claims that provisions under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will be respected in Hong Kong under the NSL are to be taken seriously, then the international community must take actions to ensure that all members of the Hong Kong Alliance are immediately and unconditionally released”.

Background

Every year since 1989, the Hong Kong Alliance has organized an annual Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong, to commemorate the hundreds, if not thousands, killed by the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing and other cities in 1989. The vigil was usually attended by which 100,000 to 200,000 people and served as a focal point of Hong Kong’s civil society.

In recent days, several state-run media reports made detailed allegations against the Hong Kong Alliance. And Xinhua, the official outlet of the Central Government, carried a statement by the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region that supported the Hong Kong police’s actions against what it deemed an “anti-China” organization.

Police in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi have detained a left-wing sociology researcher from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on suspicion of "subversion."

Fang Ran, a HKU doctoral student who studies labor movements, was detained by state security police in Guangxi's Nanning city on Aug. 26, 2021 on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power." according to an unconfirmed social media post.

The message, apparently from Fang's father, said he was "shocked" at his son's detention, saying Fang Ran is a loyal member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

"To my mind, Fang Ran is the kind of ambitious young person who can aid the party's cause, definitely not a criminal seeking to harm it," the post said.

Fang is currently being held incommunicado under "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)" under the guard of Nanning state security police, meaning that he will be denied visits from lawyers or family on grounds that the case involves matters of national security.

According to his profile page on the HKU sociology department website, Fang Ran is a full-time PhD student who received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Tsinghua University, and who has worked as an intern at a non-government organization and social media focusing on labor issues in China.

His research interests include labor relations, and labor organization as well as labor movements, the profile page said.

"His current research focuses on the analysis and comparison of various approaches of labor empowerment in mainland China," it said.

Classic Marxist analyses

While at Tsinghua, Fang was among the founding members of a group called the Modern Capitalism Research Association, which tended to favor classic Marxist analyses of labor issues.

Fang had also interviewed pneumoconiosis sufferers from the central province of Hunan after hundreds of former workers petitioned the authorities in Shenzhen over workplace-related diseases.

An employee who answered the phone at HKU on Sept. 1 said the university is aware of Fang's detention.

"[We are] in the process of finding out more about the situation," the employee said. "The university will provide assistance to Fang and his family when necessary."

While many commentators have noted an apparent shift towards political practises and ideological tropes that echo the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under late supreme leader Mao Zedong in recent years, it appears that CCP leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to allow actual Maoists free rein under his rule.

Leftists, including dozens of young labor activists who tried to set up an independent labor union at the Jasic Technology factory in Shenzhen in 2018, have been detained, placed under house arrest, and silenced as part of the CCP's "stability maintenance" regime.

A human rights lawyer who gave only the pseudonym Chen said any form of organized labor is intolerable to the CCP.

"Organized action is the thing they fear the most," Chen said. "Once the workers get organized, they will be much stronger, and a threat to CCP rule."

"In the 1920s, the CCP itself was involved in organizing workers and peasants against the [then ruling] Kuomintang and to fight for their rights," he said. "So they fear that someone else will use the same methods against them."

Tough on labor activism

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia agreed.

"Even if you are a student still in school or a fresh graduate, they will consider you to be anti-government if you get involved in labor movements or use your knowledge to help people," Hu said. "[It means you are] challenging the existing system."

A Hong Kong-based graduate student who gave only the pseudonym Mary said she had been checked by Chinese police when she crossed the border into mainland China to do fieldwork.

"We all know that there is a red line, but we don't know exactly where it is," Mary said. "This means that we are fearful of going to mainland China at all, whether it's for academic research or for some other reason."

"That doesn't mean we won't keep doing it, though," she said. "Of course, there will always be students or scholars who set their own red lines [in the hope of staying safe]."

Fang's detention comes after authorities in the eastern province of Shandong detained large numbers of Maoist activists around the country, ahead of the CCP centenary celebrations on July 1.

Police in Shandong's Jining city ran a nationwide operation targeting leftwingers in a bid to "maintain stability" ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary, Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) quoted sources as saying at the time.

The operation, which began on May 12, was largely carried out in secret, with no information given to detainees' families after going incommunicado.

Among them was Maoist dissident Ma Houzhi, 77, who was released from a 10-year jail term in 2019 for defying a ban on the registration of new political parties under the CCP.

The report came after the CCP canceled a conference of prominent Maoist ideologists slated for May 16, the anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested a journalist outside Prince Edward MTR station, as many in and outside the city marked the second anniversary of attacks on train passengers by riot police at the height of the 2019 protest movement.

The journalist for the news website Egg Egg Club, was arrested for "disorderly conduct in a public place" after shouting insults at police officers.

The man had been standing outside an exit from the subway station, when he was told by police officers at the scene to step back into the press area, the Hong Kong Standard newspaper reported.

Police also questioned a number of people who wanted to leave flowers and other offerings outside the exit as a mark of respect for anyone who may have died in the incident, the paper said.

Hong Kong residents have repeatedly left flowers outside the subway station to commemorate one or more people whom many believed died when riot police attacked unarmed train passengers on a train and on the subway platforms.

Authorities in Hong Kong have repeatedly hit out at 'malicious rumors' that someone died when riot police stormed the Prince Edward MTR station on Aug. 31, but the selective release of stills from surveillance footage from cameras inside the station has done little to assuage public mistrust in the official narrative.

Zhang Xiaoming, who heads China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO), has warned that people who express the belief that anyone died in the incident could be breaking a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020 as a response to a wave of mass, popular protests over the erosion of Hong Kong's promised freedoms.

Meanwhile, Hongkongers in exile spoke out more freely about the anniversary.

"Never forget how the Hong Kong police terrorized and assaulted citizens two years ago," former lawmaker Nathan Law, now in exile in the United Kingdom, said via Twitter on Tuesday.

"Full-geared special force rushed to the station and attacked passengers indiscriminately," Law said. "Many were severely injured, yet no officers are held accountable."

Rewriting history

Wong Mau-chun, who was named as mysteriously missing, believed killed, in early rumors about the attacks, and who later turned up in the U.K., said people should resist the government's attempts to make people forget about the events of Aug. 31, 2019.

Wong, also known as Jim Wong, faces eight charges including rioting, should he return to Hong Kong, and has applied for political asylum in the U.K.

"I think everyone has a duty to find out the truth and never to forget what happened," he told RFA. "[The authorities] are constantly trying to revise the details and rewrite history."

"It's now been two years ... and the biggest issue we face now is forgetfulness," Wong said.

"People in Hong Kong may think that nothing is going to happen, because there aren't any more protests now, and everyone is in jail," he said. "But a lot of people are still suffering because of what happened ... we are talking about people's lives."

Pro-democracy Cantopop star Denise Ho had a forthcoming concert canceled at the last minute by the venue on Friday, amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing.

"We regret to announce that the Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) has informed us about the abrupt cancellation of our approved booking for Denise Ho’s performance "Hocc Shouson Live 2021" at the Shouson Theatre," Ho's official Twitter account said on Wednesday.

Ho, an outspoken supporter of Hong Kong's 2019 protest movement, was to have performed there over four nights from Sept. 8-12.

A letter from the HKAC informing Ho of the decision cited a clause allowing performances to be canceled if "public order or public safety would be endangered during the course of the performance," according to a screenshot of the letter posted to Ho's Twitter account.

Ho later commented on her Facebook page: "Thanks, everyone, I'm OK, holding up. In a city where they can't even allow a concert to go ahead, I will have to sing out, and sing louder."

She said a single concert would be livestreamed on Sept. 12 instead.

The cancelation came after the Hong Kong Arts Development Council warned in March that the city's formerly vibrant arts sector would soon face far greater scrutiny under the national security law, which forbids public criticism of the city’s government or the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

It warned that artists, exhibits, or projects using its funding must comply with Hong Kong law, including the national security law, which took effect on July 1, 2020.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong Democratic Party described the decision to pull the plug on Ho's gigs as "inexplicable."

"If no further explanations are forthcoming, then it is tantamount to unreasonable censorship of a performance," Chan Po-ming said.

He said that tickets to the shows had sold out and yet the performances had been canceled with less than one week's notice.

"This violates the spirit of the contract," Chan said, calling on the HKAC to give a detailed account of its reasoning as soon as possible.

Civic groups harassed

Meanwhile, Hong Kong police wrote to two civic groups requiring them to supply details of their members, activities, and sources of funding under the national security law, according to local media reports.

"RTHK understands that the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund and the Alliance for True Democracy have been asked to provide information before a deadline," the government broadcaster reported on Wednesday.

It cited sources as saying the request was made under a court warrant in accordance to the national security law, adding that the information sought include details on donors and recipients, its crowdfunding campaign, and how the money was used by the organizations.

Police confirmed in a statement that the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund is being investigated, but gave no further details.

The move came one day after the fund -- which offers assistance and legal support to protesters arrested during the 2019 protest movement -- said it would stop accepting new funding applications, and announced plans to wind down its operations "in an orderly manner."

Hong Kong is undergoing an unprecedented emigration wave in the wake of the national security law, which has landed dozens of former lawmakers and opposition activists behind bars awaiting trial for "subversion" after they took part in a democratic primary to select the best candidates in elections to the Legislative Council (LegCo).

'Patriotic education'

The government has also used the law to mandate patriotic education in the city's schools, abolishing Liberal Studies, a critical thinking program blamed by the CCP for inspiring several waves of mass popular protest over eroding freedoms in recent years.

There are concerns over falling student enrolments as parents take their children out of schools before leaving the city for good, as well as a drain of qualified teachers.

The city's education bureau has already issued teaching certificates to more than 1,500 unqualified teachers to plug the shortfall in schools.

A former Chinese-language teacher who gave only the name Alan said he brought forward his plans to leave the city to April 2021 after the arrests of the pro-democracy politicians for subversion.

"I used to play news clips from the [now-shuttered] i-Cable China news team ... so we could discuss some of the issues affecting China's development," Alan said.

"But since last year, it has become increasingly clear that such teaching methods and materials can no longer be used," he said.

"Parents or students could say that you are biased."

Police in western China’s Sichuan province on Monday arrested a Tibetan man who had refused to take part in a propaganda meeting organized by local authorities to praise the ruling Chinese Communist Party and instruct Tibetan residents in government objectives, according to sources in Tibet.

Sherab Dorje, age 19 and a resident of Trotsik township in the Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was taken into custody near his home and led away in handcuffs, a local resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“A few police officers recently arrived in Trotsik to enforce the Communist Party’s political education campaign for young Tibetans to ensure they don’t rebel against the government’s policies,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Sherab Dorje didn’t attend the meeting, so he was arrested later near his house and put in handcuffs,” the source said, adding, “He’s still being held in custody.”

Dorje, a graduate of the Machu County Middle School in Gansu province's Kanlho (Gannan) prefecture, may also have come to the attention of police by joining with students in submitting a petition opposing county government orders to give classroom instruction only in Chinese when schools reopen at the end of this year’s summer vacation, sources said.

Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with Tibetan schools including kindergartens and elementary schools now teaching almost entirely in Chinese.

Informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns are typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers are subject to detention and arrest, sources say.

Politically sensitive discussions

Police in Trotsik also arrested a senior monk at a local monastery last month on suspicion of holding politically sensitive discussions on the popular WeChat social media platform, sources told RFA in an earlier report.

Konmey, a 45-year-old monk in charge of discipline at Ngaba’s Trotsik monastery, was taken into custody on July 20, a source in Ngaba told RFA.

“He had performed prayers on his WeChat group, but he only talked about the number of prayers he had accumulated,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He said nothing at all about political issues.”

Communications clampdowns in Tibet and Tibetan areas of western China have made it difficult to learn the details of protests, arrests, or other information considered politically sensitive by Chinese authorities, sources have told RFA.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Seven Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced Wednesday to lengthy jail sentences for taking part in an unauthorized protest in 2019.

The activists include such figures as former legislators Cyd Ho, Yeung Sum, Albert Ho and Leung Kwok-hung, known as “Long Hair,” and Raphael Wong, Figo Chan and Avery Ng of the League of Social Democrats party.

All seven men were present when District Court Judge Amanda Woodcock sentenced them for taking part in a massive demonstration in October 2019 at the height of anti-government protests triggered by a controversial extradition bill that evolved into a greater demand for greater freedoms for the financial hub.

Judge Woodcock said that while Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, guarantees freedom of assembly and demonstration, “these rights are not absolute and are subject to restrictions ruled constitutional.”

The sentences ranged from 11 to 16 months. All the defendants except for Wong are already serving jail time on other illegal assembly charges.

The 2019 demonstrations prompted Beijing to approve a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong last year under which anyone believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

Hong Kong authorities have increasingly clamped down on the city’s pro-democracy forces since the law took effect last year.

Hong Kong's national security police have written to the organizers of a now-banned candlelight vigil for the victims of the June 4, 1989 massacre in Beijing, asking them to reveal details of the group's previous contacts with overseas-based organizations.

Chow Hang-tung, vice chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said the group's members have been given two weeks to comply with the request, made under Article 43 of a national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

A video clip shared to social media showed national security police delivering a letter to Chow at her home, which she signed for.

Chow said the police letter had described the Alliance as an "agent" of foreign organizations, which she denied.

"Just by pinning this label of foreign agent on us, they can then require us to hand over all of this information," Chow told RFA on Wednesday.

"This is an extremely unfair accusation, and a completely false one," Chow said. "How can the Alliance be a foreign agent? We are an organization formed spontaneously by the people of Hong Kong."

"[They are] using this tactic to intimidate civil society groups," she said. But she denied the Alliance had already made plans to disband, saying the issue was still unresolved.

Chow was mentioned in the letter alongside former Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau and Alliance co-founders Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan, who are currently in prison on different charges.

"The national security department of the Hong Kong Police Force wrote to the Aliiance on Aug. 25, saying it was suspected of being a foreign agent," the letter, which was shared with RFA by Chow, said.

"The Alliance is hereby required under Article 43 of the National Security Law to provide detailed information about the activities of its personnel in Hong Kong since its establishment," the letter said.

Deadline for submission

It called for full records and contact details for overseas organizations to be submitted to police by Sept. 7, 2021.

"Failure to supply police with the requested information, unless you can prove that you have tried comply with the request to the best of your ability, or that you were prevented from doing so due to reasons beyond your control, will result in a fine of H.K.$100,000 and a prison sentence of six months if convicted," the letter warned.

Among the organizations listed in the request were the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, the Solidarity Center, and the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Also listed were the Canada-based Federation for a Democratic China, the U.S.-based New School for Democracy, founded by former 1989 student leader Wang Dan, and the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group.

According to a person familiar with the internal operations of the Alliance, the group has been in touch with pro-democracy activists and dissidents in mainland China for many years.

Others may be targeted

Joseph Cheng, a former politics professor at Hong Kong's City University, said other groups could also be targeted, including the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, which has spoken out for the mainland Chinese legal profession since the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a crackdown in July 2015.

"They are now targeting some of the more prominent activists, both within the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement and overseas, as well as the pro-democracy movement in mainland China," Cheng said. "The relevant departments in mainland China likely already have a lot of material on them already."

"The current sweep for documents and records is likely aimed at arresting them and bringing charges, or using the material to go after pro-democracy activists overseas," he said.

Zhang Xianling, a co-founder of the Tiananmen Mothers group representing the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, said she had nothing to fear.

"Even if they eradicate an organization [like the Alliance] or stop it from meeting, they won't necessarily be able to cover everything up," Zhang said. "The traces will still be there in the historical record."

"A lie is still a lie, even after 100 years have gone by."

Hong Kong justice secretary Teresa Cheng declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Wednesday, saying she wouldn't comment on an ongoing investigation.

A relief fund set up to pay bail for those arrested in the 2019 protest movement has announced it will shut down amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund said in a statement on its Facebook page that it would cease operations despite strong public donations.

But its banking arrangements were conducted through another group, the Alliance for True Democracy, which is the latest of several civil organizations to wind down since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020.

"We have been notified by the directors of the Alliance that they intend to wind up in the near future. This means the Fund will no longer have a bank account it can use, and therefore cannot continue to operate," it said.

"We thank the members of the public who have been giving us their unfailing support by their donations and encouragement [as well as] those who have come to us for help in their predicament and their families for the trust they placed in us," it said.Forced to halt operations

It said it would destroy all personal data linked to donors and beneficiaries.

The Fund had also provided beneficiaries with emergency financial and legal support.

The Aug. 18 announcement came after secretary for security Chris Tang declined to confirm whether or not the 612 Fund is currently under police investigation.

But he said groups that disband could still face investigation.

"Even if these organizations dissolve of their own accord, any crimes they committed won't not be written off," Tang told reporters after the Fund's announcement.

"However, the harm to society would be somewhat reduced if they disband of their own accord," he said.

Tang warned that any organization that promotes violence or has "unusual" financial transactions with foreign organizations will be pursued by police, under the national security law.

Fund trustee and former lawmaker Margaret Ng told a news conference that the Fund had stopped taking any new cases immediately following the announcement.

"The Fund has been forced to cease operations before it was able to complete its mission," Ng said. "I feel deep regret about that, but it was a miracle of historic proportions that the people of Hong Kong were able to create it and bring it this far."

"The 612 Fund is no more," she said. "There are still countless forms of private support, both large and small, but it's not the same."

More arrests expected

Ng said she hadn't heard any news of a police investigation into the Fund's membership, activities or finances so far.

"We can't be too scared or worried about that," Ng said. "All we can do is be very careful not to break the law."

"We must take care every step of the way, and have the banks check our accounts carefully," she said.

At the time of closure, the Fund still had 1,200 live cases on its books, including a 2019 protester identified only as Mr. S.

"Since the protest movement and political upheavals in Hong Kong, there has been no help from the current system," he told reporters. "Young people and people caught up in the political turmoil can only be sure of getting help from civil society groups."

He said police are continuing to investigate cases linked to the 2019 protest movement, and that it is hard to estimate how many more arrests could follow.

More than 100 opposition politicians, activists and protesters have been arrested so far on charges under the national security law, including allegations of secession, subversion and terrorist activities, with more than 10,000 arrested under pre-existing laws for their part in the protest movement.

"They are continuing to prosecute people involved in the movement, so the eventual number is still unknown," Mr. S said. "I think it's sad for the people involved in those future cases."

"They will no longer have access to such solid support from a civil society organization," he said.

However, he said a volunteer-run support hotline would continue to provide advice to those targeted in the ongoing crackdown.

Meanwhile, a Hong Kong court on Thursday ruled that public order charges of the kind frequently used to target participants in the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement can be extended to people who weren't present at the scene.

The city's Court of Appeal found that anyone who encouraged or promoted an "unlawful assembly or riot" could be held liable under the Public Order Ordinance, even if they weren't physically present, under the legal notion of "joint enterprise."

"If there is sufficient evidence to establish their liability... they are no longer innocent people exercising their freedom of expression," the court said.

"They have crossed the permissible line and become a perpetrator to an unlawful assembly or riot and should be held liable as such," judges Jeremy Poon, Andrew Macrae, and Anthea Pang found.

Hong Kong's Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which once organized annual mass rallies on July 1 marking the 1997 handover of the city to Beijing, announced it would disband at the weekend following repeated denunciations by media backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The front, which was never registered as an organization, served as a communication platform for civil society groups to promote human rights and democratic freedom in Hong Kong, according to its Facebook page.

Its job was mostly to organize large-scale, peaceful protest marches to ensure that citizens' voices were heard, it said.

"Regrettably, for more than a year now, the government has consistently rejected our applications to hold marches, using the pandemic as a pretext to suppress the rights of our members," the group said in an Aug. 15 post to its Facebook page.

"With no members participating, the secretariat has been unable to remain operational ... and we have no choice but to declare herewith that we are disbanding," it said.

CHRF convenor Figo Chan was handed an 18-month jail term in May for his role in an unauthorized gathering in 2019. The group said will donate its current assets of H.K.$1.6 million to appropriate organizations.

The announcement came after the CHRF held its AGM, and the decision among member groups was unanimous, the post said.

"We would like to thank the people of Hong Kong for walking side by side with the Front for many years," it said, citing mass rallies of one and two million people in protest over government plans to extradite alleged criminal suspects to mainland China in 2019.

It also cited marches held during the 2014 pro-democracy movement, or Umbrella movement, and marches against CCP-backed infrastructure projects in Hong Kong.

Threat of investigation

The move came after Hong Kong police chief Raymond Siu warned that the group could be investigated under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the CCP from July 1, 2020.

According to the CCP-backed Ta Kung Pao, Siu said the CHR had never registered as an organization.

Police responded to the CHRF's disbanding by saying the investigation into the group's activities would go ahead regardless.

In April 2021, police ordered the group to submit information on its members, activities, and funding sources, but the group didn't do so by the date specified.

Hu Xijin, editor of the CCP-backed Global Times newspaper, said via his WeChat account that the decision to disband was in itself likely a bid to evade investigation and destroy evidence that could be used in the investigation.

And Ip Kwok-him, who represents Hong Kong China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said the group's dissolution meant that "large-scale anti-China demonstrations to stir up troubles in Hong Kong haver become history."

But he said more specific protests might be tolerated.

“As long as the activities are not aimed at opposing China and disrupting Hong Kong, but are expressing a demand, they are protected by the Basic Law and we respect that,” Ip told government broadcaster RTHK.

The group's web page was unavailable on Monday.

Hong Kong's largest teachers' union announced it would disband on Tuesday following a growing number of attacks from pro-Beijing newspapers, among dozens of civil society groups to do so since the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a draconian national security law on the city from July 1, 2020.

The Professional Teachers' Union (HKPTU) said it would begin the process of dissolving with immediate effect, in a statement on its official website.

"After much deliberation and thorough investigation ... the Executive Committee unanimously resolved to dissolve HKPTU," union president Fung Wai-wah said in a letter to members.

"The HKPTU's 48-year history has reached the last chapter, and the last full-stop," the letter said. "This is a tragic and deplorable situation, certainly, but looking back over our long years of struggle and development, we should have no regrets."

"We sincerely plead for your understanding and acceptance of what was a no-choice, unwanted and difficult decision," Fung wrote.

"It is deplorable that radical changes to to our sociopolitical environment have left us wondering about our futures," the letter said.

The union said it would lay off 200 staff and sell off its assets, beginning immediately.

State media attack

Founded in 1973 by former teacher and lawmaker Szeto Wah, the union began protecting teachers' rights and providing services for them out of a tiny office in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon.

The move came after the PTU was described by CCP mouthpiece the People's Daily and state news agency Xinhua as "a malignant tumor" in need of eradicating from Hong Kong.

The union's attempts to deflect criticism of its international ties -- deemed "collusion with foreign powers" under the national security law -- met with further scathing responses from both outlets, accusing the PTU of engaging in anti-China and anti-Hong Kong activities.

Organizations accused of such collusion -- including the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper -- can have their assets frozen under the national security law, rendering them unable to make further payments to staff.

Ivan Choy, senior politics lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), said the demise of the PTU would have a wide impact.

"I believe this is going to have a huge impact on other civil society organizations," Choy told RFA. "If the PTU has no way to hang in there, others are going to find it harder still."

"I am concerned that this will be the start of a domino effect, and that we will see many more organizations disband after this," he said.

'Hong Kong is no more'

A teacher and veteran PTU member who gave only his surname Cheung said he had never thought he would see the end of the union.

"I never thought the PTU would just die," Cheung said. "Everyone expected the Apple Daily's demise, but not such an important group as the PTU, but if they call us a malignant tumor, what can we do?"

"Hong Kong is no more," he said.

The PTU's dissolution comes after around 250 elected, district-level politicians in Hong Kong resigned and dozens of civil society groups disbanded amid an ongoing crackdown on public criticism of the authorities.

Election hopefuls are now required to pass a multi-layered vetting process that includes winning the approval of the national security police before they can even be allowed to run for public office.

More than 120 arrests have been made so far under the law, while incumbent public office-holders will be required to swear an oath of loyalty to Hong Kong and to the CCP.

Among them were 47 former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists, who are now awaiting trial for "subversion" after they took part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020, in a bid to boost their representation in the city's Legislative Council (LegCo).

Most other former opposition politicians and activists have fled overseas.

On 23 July 2021, Dr Chen Zijuan, human rights defender Chang Weiping's wife, and their young son, accompanied by a family-appointed lawyer and several friends, travelled to the Feng County Detention Centre, where the human rights defender is detained, to seek a meeting with him and to deposit money so he could purchase food and other daily items. Feng County is in a remote mountainous area in Baoji city, Shaanxi province, more than 1900km from the southern coastal city of Shenzhen where Dr Chen Zijuan and her son live. When they arrived at the detention centre and requested to deposit money for Chang Weiping, a police officer told them Chang Weiping's account has already exceeded the maximum limit of 1000 Yuan and that a detainee is not allowed to spend more than 150 Yuan per month. When the human rights defender's lawyer contested this and asked the officer to provide the legal basis for these monetary and spending limits, the police officer was not able to answer and walked away. When the lawyer and the family asked the security guards to allow them to wait inside the detention centre's reception area, the guards said their leaders instructed them not to open the doors to visitors.

The human rights defender's lawyer and wife also went to the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Public Security's Letters and Visits Office to submit complaints against the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau's handling of the Chang Weiping's case, including its refusal to facilitate access to legal counsel, as well as to follow-up on Dr Chen Zijuan's previously lodged complaints against the Bureau submitted in April 2021. An official at the Letters and Visits Office told them that their previous complaints were already transferred to the Baoji Public Security Bureau who replied in late April. When Dr Chen Zijuan said she had never received any replies, the official told her to talk directly to the Baoji Public Security Bureau.

The lawyer and family then went to the Shaanxi Provincial Procuratorate to submit complaints against the Baoji police. After making multiple phone calls to superiors, the receptionist told them that Chang Weiping's case is "very special and sensitive" and that her superiors told her that the Procuratorate will not intervene.

On 20 July 2021, the families of human rights defenders Cheng Yuan, Liu Dazhi and Wu Gejianxiong received a phone call from a person claiming to have been released from the detention centre, who shared a cell with the human rights defenders. This person said Liu Dazhi and Wu Gejianxiong have been convicted and sentenced to two and three years imprisonment respectively, but the sentence against Cheng Yuan remains unknown. In order to verify this information, family members called one of the human rights defenders' government-assigned lawyers, who told them that the human rights defenders were sentenced in the morning of 20 July 2021 and confirmed the same sentences for Liu Dazhi and Wu Gejianxiong, but refused to disclose the sentence Cheng Yuan received or provide the text of the verdict.

On 27 July 2021, Wu Gejianxiong's father Wu Youshui, himself a practicing lawyer, travelled to Changsha in an attempt to submit his credentials to be his son's legal counsel during the appeal process. When he arrived at the Hunan Provincial Department of State Security's detention centre, officials there told him that court approval is required for him to see his son. He then went to the Changsha Intermediate People's Court to submit his credentials, but court security officers told him they have been instructed not to allow him to enter the courthouse. After Wu Youshui left his credentials at the court's documents delivery desk, he stepped outside for a cigarette, but the court security officers immediately locked the front door and he was not able to go back in.

On 28 July 2021, Wu Youshui went to the law firm which employs the two lawyers assigned by the government to represent Wu Gejianxiong, to request a copy of the verdict. However, the lawyers refused to see him.

On 5 August 2021, Ding Jiaxi's lawyer was informed that the prosecutors in Linyi city, Shandong province, have decided to indict the human rights defender. The case has been transferred to the Linyi Municipal Intermediate People's Court.

Earlier on 14 July 2021, the lawyer traveled to Linyi city and was allowed to review the case files, but was not allowed to copy or take photos of them as the case "involved state secrets". On 15 July 2021, the lawyer was allowed talk to Ding Jiaxi via a video link for more than two hours. The human rights defender said that since his last meeting with the lawyer and upon his complaints, the detention center has slightly improved its hygiene supplies and extended the yard time. The lawyer also met with the Linyi prosecutors in charge of the case and submitted a written request for dropping the prosecution on the basis that the human rights defender's actions not only were not criminal, but were actually in line with the Chinese Constitution and contributed to efforts to ensure social equality, government transparency and accountability, and the protection of vulnerable groups.

On July 29, a court in Feidong county in Anhui province in eastern China sentenced Zhou, a reporter for the Chinese-language human rights news website Weiquanwang, to three years and six months in prison on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” citing his reporting on human rights in articles and Twitter posts, according to his employer, the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia, and a person familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity. According to those reports, the court cited as evidence the fact that he was paid for his reporting, describing it as “foreign funding.”

Zhou was arrested on those same charges on March 12, 2020, by police in Hefei city in Anhui province, and has been detained since then, according to those reports and CPJ research.

“If China is truly proud of its much-criticized human rights record, as it has repeatedly claimed, it should allow journalists like Zhou Weilin to freely report the news,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator in Washington, D.C. “Chinese authorities should immediately release Zhou Weilin and stop trying to prevent journalists, domestic and foreign, from doing their jobs.”

In response to an emailed request for comment from CPJ, Weiquanwang shared an op-ed by the outlet’s commentator Deng Zixing calling for Zhou to be released “immediately and unconditionally.” “Detaining anyone in retaliation for exercising their rights is a violation of the standards of universal human rights,” Zixing wrote.

The Anhui department of justice did not reply to an email from CPJ requesting comment.

Zhou frequently tweeted about labor issues and disability rights, according to CPJ’s review of his Twitter page. According to Radio Free Asia and Weiquanwang, Zhou had previously been arrested and detained five different times between 2011 and 2013 on charges of “fabricating facts to disrupt public order” and “gathering crowds to disrupt public order.”

He was sentenced to one year and six months in prison in February 2014 for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order” for protesting and reporting on the detention of human rights activist Zhang Lin’s daughter Zhang Anni, those reports said. Zhou was released in February 2015 after serving the full sentence, according to the reports.

According to CPJ’s most recent prison census, at least 47 journalists were imprisoned in China as of December 1, 2020, including Zhou, making it the worst jailer of journalists worldwide for the second year in a row.

A well-known Hong Kong pop singer and pro-democracy proponent was arrested Monday for performing songs at a political rally three years ago.

Hong Kong’s anti-corruption commission said Anthony Wong urged attendees at the rally to vote for pro-democracy candidate Au Nok-hin.

Au, who won, was also charged for promoting the show and saying Wong would perform. He has been in jail since March on other charges.

The anti-corruption commission said that providing refreshments and entertainment at a political rally was "corrupt conduct and a serious offense."

Wong, 59, was later released on bail. There has been no comment from him.

Wong has been a popular singer since the 1980s when he was one half of the Tat Ming Pair. He later went solo.

He backed the 2019 pro-democracy protesters, as well as the 2014 so-called Umbrella Revolution against what many saw as restrictive changes by the Chinese Communist Party in the way Hong Kong held elections.

After his support, Wong was banned from performing in China, and his music was deleted from streaming services.

Wong and Au were expected to appear in court on Thursday.

The Hong Kong police force’s national security unit searched a journalist’s home on July 26 and confiscated her travel documents, mobile phone and computer following the reporter recording a person attacking a police officer with a knife in Causeway Bay on July 1. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) demand the police to explain why the reporter’s home was searched and travel documents confiscated.

The 56-year-old reporter for Secret China, a Chinese-language American media outlet, was asked to give a statement at Wan Chai police station as a witness on July 1 when the attack occurred. HKJA arranged for a lawyer to accompany the reporter to the police station and police said they would inform HKJA if they required further information from her. July 1 also marked the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain.

According to HKJA, on July 26, police did not notify the association and visited the reporter’s temporary residence to seek an additional statement. The reporter was accompanied by a friend when she gave the statement. Following the statement, police used a warrant to search the reporter’s home, confiscating her travel documents to prevent her from leaving Hong Kong and seizing equipment without a lawyer present. When HKJA became aware of this, the association arranged for a lawyer to be present on July 27, and she gave a statement “under caution” to the police.

The Hong Kong Free Press noted, “Implementation Rules for Article 43 of the national security law provides that police may only with a warrant confiscate travel documents belonging to a person under investigation over suspected violations of the security law.” A report written by the Centre for Law and Democracy supported by the IFJ highlights further broad and intrusive powers given to the national security unit under the National Security Law, limiting the right to privacy and freedom of expression.

An anti-government protester in Hong Kong was found guilty Tuesday of terrorism and secession in a landmark ruling involving the first verdict delivered under the territory’s new national security law.

Leon Tong Ying-kit, 24, had pleaded not guilty to all charges in relation to an anti-government street protest last year. Tong had been accused of driving his motorcycle into police officers while carrying a flag with the phrase, “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.”

Due to the security law charges, a three-judge panel was specially selected to preside over the case without a jury. After a mammoth 15-day trial, the panel returned with a guilty verdict.

Much of the case focused on how the slogan would be interpreted by the High Court panel. The now-banned phrase was a popular rallying call during Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-government demonstrations.

One of the judges, Esther Toh, said the defendant was aware of the meaning of the phrase the flag carried and ruled the slogan had a “natural and reasonable effect” of inciting others to commit secession, according to a report by the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Tong, a former waiter, has been refused bail since his arrest last year. He will be sentenced at a later date, but could face up to life imprisonment. His lawyers said no decision has been made as to whether they will appeal, according to local reports.

Eric Yan-ho Lai, a political and law analyst, told VOA in a phone interview that the ruling was “disappointing” because the judges had disregarded potential meanings of the slogan that were not secessionist.

“It’s a cherry-picking tactic by the judges, tried to pick one of many of the meanings to justify [the notion] Tong’s act is intimidating others for his own political agenda. It seems a very technical and formal approach to see this case,” he said.

The analyst, who is a Hong Kong Law Fellow at Georgetown University, added that international standards were not met in the case.

“Free expressions are not inciting imminent violence, should not be considered as a crime and should not be punished in Tong’s case,” he said.

Yan added that the verdict, which is seen as a departure from Hong Kong’s common law, sets a dangerous tone for future security law cases.

“If Tong received a much heavier sentence than other non-NSL [national security law] cases, say rioting or possession explosion articles … it would cause a strong impact of the common law in Hong Kong, when such acts could cause disproportionate sentencing, even to life in jail without the scrutiny of a jury trial,” he said.

July 1, 2020, marked the first full day of Hong Kong’s newly implemented national security law enacted by Beijing the night before. Thousands protested in the streets, though, opposing the law and the government. Hundreds were arrested, with at least 10 under the new security law, including Tong.

The legislation outlines four key prohibitions – secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion – and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Critics say the law has reduced Hong Kong’s unique autonomy promised when it was handed back to China from Britain in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the legislation would only target a minority of people. But nearly 13 months since the law became active, 100 people have been arrested and at least 60 charged, including media mogul Jimmy Lai and high-profile activist Joshua Wong.

On July 21, another former editor for a pro-democracy newspaper was arrested.

Apple Daily, founded in 1995 by Lai, was shut down after several of its executives were arrested for alleged violations of the security law. Hong Kong authorities then froze the company’s financial access, leaving the media outlet unable to pay its staff and vendors, forcing it to close. Western critics have depicted the media outlet’s closure as a blow to press freedom.

Last week, five members of Hong Kong’s Speech Therapists General Union were arrested for allegedly “conspiring to publish seditious materials” in connection with authoring children’s books. Authorities claim the books, which revolve around sheep, incite hatred toward the government. Two of the members have since been denied bail.

A Hong Kong-based lawyer who has represented defendants under national security law charges spoke to VOA about the arrests but requested anonymity for her protection.

“The question still is, these children’s books about sheep, [do they] bring into hatred or contempt or incite disaffection against the government of Hong Kong? Can it be treated just as criticism? How is it any different from a newspaper column?”“From a point of view as governance, the Hong Kong government wants to break up civil society groups and unions, and that is one way of targeting them,” the lawyer said.

Pro-democracy activist, Hang Tung Chow, the vice chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance political group, was recently arrested for allegedly inciting illegal assembly. Just hours before, Chow told VOA she believes the government is targeting civil society groups such as hers.

Authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan have formally arrested a prominent rights activist on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge often used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), RFA has learned.

Xie Junfeng was detained last month after allegedly leaving his place of residence in violation of bail restrictions, his ex-wife Zou Haixia told RFA.

Police had recently told her the case against him was also based on comments he had made online, however.

"The police hinted when they called [before] that the 'picking quarrels, stirring up trouble' charge wasn't just based on his daily activities, but also on some of the comments he made online," Zou told RFA on Thursday.

"According to my understanding, the authorities have been questioning a lot of petitioners since Xie Junbiao was detained, trying to find out stuff about him," she said.

Xie, who has campaigned for the rights of the most vulnerable in society, as well as being a vocal public supporter of jailed Sichuan dissident Huang Qi, is currently being held in the police-run Shuangliu District Detention Center in Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu.

His frequent interviews with foreign media organizations, including RFA, have also made him a thorn in the authorities' side, observers have said.

The authorities approved his formal arrest on July 14, and sent a formal notification to his father's home, Zou said.

"They warned me before that they were keeping track [of everything Zou did] and that the bill would be presented when the time came," she said. "They also warned me that I could be charged with the same crime for my comments online."

Second dissident prosecuted

Meanwhile, authorities in Chengdu's Pidu district have moved ahead with the prosecution of veteran dissident Chen Yunfei, who was detained by police four months ago on the same charge as Xie.

Chen is currently being held at the Pidu District Detention Center, awaiting trial for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" after he wrote an online article based on visits to Sichuan schools during the past two years.

He was detained on March 25, 2021, and formally arrested on April 30, 2021.

Chen has already served a four-year jail term on the same charge beginning in March 2015, after he organized and took part in a memorial service calling for justice for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre during the grave-sweeping festival of Qing Ming.

He was held incommunicado with no access to family or lawyers for six months, according to the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network.

He complained to his lawyer in January 2017 of having been held in restraints on two separate occasions for "refusing to properly greet officers at the detention center," the group said on its website.

Chen's close friend Zeng Rongkang said the allegations relating to Chen's research about schools in the province were simply a pretext to justify a political prosecution.

"This is all just for show, because [his actions] in no way constitute provocation in law, and no harm has come to the country," Zeng said. "This charge is being used up and down the country for pinning on people."

"I expect he will be sentenced again, but maybe not very harshly," he said.

The Chinese social media platform WeChat has deleted dozens of accounts belonging to LGBTQ+ groups at universities in recent days, social media posts have revealed.

Screenshots of notices sent to the holders of the deleted accounts said they had broken laws and regulations governing online content, amid concerns that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now targeting gay content and activism.

Many of the accounts were deleted at around the same time on Tuesday evening, Reuters quoted one of the account-holders as saying.

Some of the accounts had disappeared by Wednesday, while others carried notices that they had been suspended due to regulatory violations.

Others were renamed "Unnamed Official Account."

An online post titled "Tonight, we are all unnamed official accounts" listed some of the affected groups, which included ColorsWorld at Peking University, Purple at Tsinghua University and RUC Sex and Gender Research Group at Renmin University.

Similar groups at Shanghai's Fudan University, Wuhan University, and Nanjing University also had their accounts shut down.

The move by censors comes after the cancelation of Shanghai's decade-old Pride event in 2020. The organizers, ShanghaiPRIDE, gave no reason for the decision, but local activists said the group had likely come under political pressure from the authorities.

The organization had previously been legally permitted to run the event by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

But ShanghaiPRIDE had also been involved in ongoing civil society activities in support of the LGBTQ community in China, including running seminars for the parents of LGBTQ people.

Activists said at the time that the cancellation of Shanghai Pride likely meant all LGBTQ+ groups would be affected.

The organizers of a planned LGBTQ+ conference in the northern city of Xian were forced to cancel in 2017 after official pressure.

Crackdowns by government censors

Government censors have since carried out a number of crackdowns on LGBTQ representation on social media, in books, comics, TV, and film.

In 2020, education authorities in Jinan, provincial capital of Shandong province, called for the "strengthening of political and ideological education" for students of foreign-invested schools, at both primary and secondary level.

The guidance was to include the view of homosexuality as "corrupt behavior imported from the West [that is] inconsistent with core socialist values."

Activists said the crackdown stemmed in part from a conservative attitude to sexuality under the indefinite rule of CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, and partly from a fear that civil organizations are a threat to party rule.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, and removed from official psychiatric diagnostic manuals in 2001.

More and more highly educated urban Chinese have begun coming out in recent years, and while some find acceptance among their peers, social attitudes still strongly favor heterosexual marriage and children.

How many Chinese identify as LGBTQ+ is unknown. The country’s health and family planning ministry has estimated that there are between five and 10 million gay men in China, but activists say the actual number is far higher.

LGBTQ activists say there have been a growing number of anti-discrimination lawsuits filed by the community in China since around 2010, as well as some rare though unsuccessful bids to register same-sex marriages.

Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have detained activist and writer Pang Jian on suspicion of "splitting the country."

Pang, 30, who writes under the pen-name Gao Yang, was detained by police in Hebei's Gaobeidian city in January at his home in Pangcheng village.

His detention came after he reported on forced demolitions and evictions in rural areas around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, his father Pang Jingxian told RFA in a recent interview.

"They have been doing coronavirus testing around here lately, and he went to line up [to get tested]," Pang Jingxian said. "Somehow, I'm not sure exactly how, the police detained him while he was there."

"Then the police came and searched our home, looking through Pang Jian's stuff," he said. "They took it all away, and we didn't hear anything for a while."

Later, police sent a notice of detention and a notice of formal arrest to Pang Jingxian, and were dated Jan. 15 and Jan. 28 respectively, Pang's father said.

"After they notified me, I went to visit him a few times, but we haven't heard anything since then," he said.

According to the notice of detention, Pang Jian was criminally detained on suspicion of "inciting secession" at 11.00 a.m. on Jan. 15, 2021.

Both notices gave his place of detention as Gaobeidian Detention Center.

Documenting Catholic churches

But Pang's family have not been able to contact him there, Pang Jingxian told RFA.

"We can't get a hold of him now, and we haven't found a lawyer," he said.

Pang is also a Catholic church member, and had written about Hebei's extensive Catholic church community and unique culture, according to his U.S.-based friend Ryan Shi.

"He took photos of almost all of the Catholic churches in Hebei, as well as local customs and architectural features," Shi told RFA.

Pang had also featured in Hong Kong media talking about Hebei's underground Catholic community.

His U.S.-based friend Cai Quan said she had believed he was either detained or in an accident after his phone went offline some time in March.

"Maybe he is in some kind of illegal detention," Cai said.

An employee who answered the phone at the Gaobeidian Detention Center on July 3 said Pang is still being held there on suspicion of "inciting secession."

Asked about Pang's health and wellbeing, the employee said it was "very good," with no mental health issues.

The employee said Pang isn't allowed visits due to the coronavirus.

"They can't visit right now," the employee said. "One reason is that the case isn't yet closed, and the other is the coronavirus situation, so no visits are allowed."

One year after China imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong, police locked down Victoria Park, a former site of mass protest rallies and marches, and cordoned off downtown streets, while supporters of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hung flags along the streets and sang revolutionary songs.

Dozens of police in Causeway Bay surrounded and arrested veteran protester Alexandra Wong, a frequent participant in the 2019 protest movement, for waving a British flag, photos posted to social media showed.

A young boy was also chased by officers through the Fashion Walk mall before being dragged aboard a police vehicle, photos posted to Twitter on the 24th anniversary of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule showed.

Bystanders said he had apparently been targeted for carrying a bag that was yellow, the color used by the pro-democracy movement and two mass protest movements since 2014.

Police also arrested three activists from the group Student Politicism in Mong Kok at around 5.00 p.m. local time, on suspicion of "distributing seditious publications," according to a police statement and social media reports.

And barrister Chow Hang-tung, who heads a group that once organized an annual candlelight vigil marking the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre, was rearrested on suspicion of "inciting others to participate in an unauthorized assembly" under public order laws.

Hundreds of police took to the streets of Causeway Bay, arresting 19 people on suspicion of offenses that included "disorderly conduct," failing to heed police warnings, and "desecrating the national flag."

They also handed out 19 fixed penalties for breaches of a ban on gatherings linked to coronavirus restrictions.

Two women who were fined said they had only been in a group of two, when the maximum number allowed is four.

"We don't know how this happened. They pulled us to one side and said we had violated the gathering restriction order," a woman surnamed Ng told RFA. "There were just the two of us, nobody else."

"I don't know what the Hong Kong government is turning into."

Her friend, surnamed Lee, said she had been hit with a H.K.$5,000 fine "for no reason."

"We just came out to go shopping," she said. "I work hard as a cleaner and they just fine me H.K.$5,000 for no reason."

Protesters turn out in small groups

Despite a police ban on what had been an annual mass protest march on July 1, people turned out in small groups to chant slogans and wave flags and protest banners, police said in a statement on their Facebook page.

Later in the evening, a man allegedly stabbed a police officer in the district at around 10.00 p.m., the police said.

"The officer sustained injuries to the left side of his back and was sent to hospital for treatment, while the assailant was subdued on the spot," the statement said.

Rights groups hit out at the rapid deterioration of human rights protections since the national security law was imposed on Hong Kong by China's National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee.

Chinese and Hong Kong officials have said the law was needed to deal with an attempt by foreign powers to foment a "color revolution" in Hong Kong, a reference to the 2019 protest movement that began as mass, peaceful opposition to plans to allow extradition to mainland China.

But its sweeping provisions allowed China's feared state security police to set up a headquarters in Hong Kong, granted sweeping powers to police to search private property and require the deletion of public content, and criminalized criticism of the city government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Dozens awaiting trial

Dozens of opposition lawmakers are awaiting trial for subversion for taking part in a democratic primary, while at least seven journalists have been arrested for "colluding with a foreign power" in connection with opinion pieces in the Apple Daily newspaper, which was forced to close after its assets were frozen in a raid by national security police on June 17.

"Since the law has gone into effect, [the] authorities have used it to drastically curtail freedom of expression and other human rights far beyond what international human rights law permits," the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said in a joint statement with other rights groups.

"The Hong Kong government has accused the [Apple Daily] of publishing approximately 100 videos or articles that are suspected of violating the National Security Law while refusing to specify which videos and articles," it said.

Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is currently serving a 14-month sentence for participating in pro-democracy protests in August 2019 while awaiting trial for "colluding with a foreign power" under the national security law.

"Shutting down the city’s most popular Chinese language newspaper and detaining its staff is the most obvious and emblematic violation of the right to freedom of expression in Hong Kong today," CHRD said in the statement, that was signed by Safeguard Defenders and Humanitarian China, among other groups.

It also cited the government's assertion of editorial control over public broadcaster RTHK, where a number of prominent journalists have been fired or sanctioned for producing content critical of the authorities.

The groups also cited constraints on academic freedom at Hong Kong's universities, with events canceled, debates modified, and lecturers reported by student informants over potential violations of the law.

Targeting the opposition

Eric Lai, research fellow at the University of Georgetown law school, said it was clear that the government is using the law to target the political opposition, with the majority of arrests under the law being of opposition politicians.

He said the refusal to release national security suspects on bail had interfered with the presumption of innocence that was previously a feature of Hong Kong's common law jurisdiction.

"We can't see any sign that they are presuming innocence, because a large proportion of defendants aren't being released on bail," he said.

"They have also changed the trial system by abolishing jury trials [in national security cases]," Lai told RFA. "The point of a jury trial ... is to make the trial more fair and open, but they are taking the opposite approach."

On 30 June 2021, Hong Kong woman human rights defender and lawyer Chow Hang-tung was re- arrested after the police revoked her bail, under which she was released from an earlier arrest on 4 June 2021. On 2 July 2021, the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court denied her bail. The woman human rights defender’s arrest came on the eve of the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong’s transfer to Chinese rule and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Chow Hang-tung ( 鄒幸彤 ) is a barrister and woman human rights defender in Hong Kong. She has advocated for the protection and promotion of labour rights, as well as for the rights of persecuted human rights defenders in mainland China. She is one of the current vice-chairs of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (the Hong Kong Alliance), a grassroots advocacy group established in 1989 in Hong Kong to campaign for the release of Chinese political prisoners, democratic reforms in China, and accountability for the extrajudicial killings and other violations by the Chinese authorities during the lethal crackdown on pro- democracy protests in June 1989. As a barrister in Hong Kong, she has also provided legal assistance to peaceful activists and protesters targeted by police and judicial actions for their involvement in pro-democracy activities. Chow Hang-tung is now facing the charge of “inciting others to knowingly participate in unauthorised assemblies” in relations to events on both 4 June and 1 July 2021. The woman human rights defender is being remanded in custody until the next court hearing, which is scheduled to take place on 30 July 2021. The court will review her bail on 9 July 2021. The woman human rights defender and over two dozens activists, including those affiliated with the Hong Kong Alliance, have already been facing prosecution for participating in the peaceful candlelight vigil on 4 June 2020 marking the 1989 massacre of civilians and protesters in Beijing. Many of these activists are also being prosecuted, with some already convicted, in relation to their peaceful role in other pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020.
In a public post on Facebook earlier in the day on 30 June 2021, Chow Hang-tung suggested she was being surveilled and followed. Later that evening, police took the woman human rights defender into custody near her law office with the charge of “inciting others to participate in unauthorised assembly”. She was initially detained at the New Territories South Regional Police Headquarters and was later transferred to the Tsuen Wan Police Station. Chow Hang-tung was able to meet her lawyers on the morning of 1 July 2021. On 28 June 2021, the Hong Kong police announced its decision to ban, for the second consecutive year, a planned pro-democracy assembly due to be held on 1 July, citing COVID-19-related restrictions on public gatherings. Chow Hang-tung provided legal assistance to the organisers to appeal the ban. On 29 June 2021, the body responsible for reviewing police objections to public gatherings upheld the ban.
In the early morning of 4 June 2021, police arrested Chow Hang-tung as she left her office and accused her of “publicising and promoting unauthorised assembly”. This was in connection to the banned candlelight vigil which the Hong Kong Alliance had hoped to organise later that evening in Victoria Park, which was surrounded by a heavy police presence. She was released on bail afteraround 33 hours in detention. In the weeks following her release, Chinese government-ownedmedia outlets in Hong Kong published articles attacking Chow Hang-tung for her legal aid work and advocacy. Since the People’s Republic of China resumed control of Hong Kong on 1 July 1997, pro- democracy protests have been an annual tradition to mark the anniversary in the city. The Hong Kong Alliance organised many peaceful protests on 1 July since 1997. Since 1989, the Hong Kong Alliance also organised the annual candlelight vigil on 4 June to mark the 1989 massacre of civilians and pro-democracy protesters in China, until the Hong Kong police banned it in 2020 and 2021. Chow Hang-tung’s case is the latest indicator of a rapidly shrinking civic space and expanding government campaign of politically motivated and rights-abusing arrests and prosecution of human rights defenders and pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong. This trend has accelerated since the unilateral impositon of a draconian “national security law” a year ago. According to human rights monitors, as of 9 June 2021, at least 10,340 individuals have been arrested, 2,676 prosecuted, and 1,504 are on trial for protest-related offences. According to Hong Kong police figures compiled by reporters, at least 113 individuals have been arrested for alleged violations of Hong Kong’s national security law, and 61 of them have been formally charged, as of 23 June 2021.

Chinese police detained prominent rights lawyer Xie Yanyi at the weekend, as he was investigating the sudden death of disabled petitioner Guo Hongwei in a prison in the northeastern province of Jilin.

Xie was carrying out research at the home of Guo's parents in Jilin's Siping city on Saturday when dozens of police burst in and detained him, he told RFA on Monday.

"Dozens of policemen broke into the apartment and grabbed me, taking me away to Ping'an police station," Xie said. "Then they confiscated my luggage, bag and phone, rifling through my things at will."

Xie told them they didn't have a warrant, and no legal basis for conducting a search, but they took away a large number of documents linked to Guo's trial, appeal, and subsequent complaints filed by his family, who regard his death as suspicious.

"They took away the case materials linked to Guo Hongwei's cases illegally; they just stole them, all of the files, all of the evidence," he said. "They also tried to lie to me, saying they hadn't done this."

Xie was forcibly escorted aboard a high-speed train and brought back to Beijing, where he is based, he said.

He said he was investigating Guo's family's concerns about their son's death because there was a lack of transparency on the part of the authorities.

"[One possibility is that] Guo Hongwei suffered some kind of direct harm [leading to his death]," Xie said. "Another is that he was refused necessary medical treatment for something."

"And then there is a third possibility, that he died unexpectedly due to some kind of medical condition," he said. "None of these can be ruled out."

Xie called on the authorities to share the full details surrounding Guo's death.

"It's the responsibility of every citizen to demand the truth, otherwise what happened to Guo Hongwei could happen to any of us," he said.

Cover-up suspected

Guo's father Guo Yinqi said the repeated refusal of the authorities to release any information about his son's death suggests they are covering something up.

"Why did they kidnap the lawyer and confiscate all of our evidence?" Guo Yinqi said. "Guo Hongwei's body is still in the funeral home, in cold storage."

Guo died on April 9 after surgery after undergoing two operations for cerebral hemorrhage on April 4 and 5.

His death came as he was serving a 13-year jail term in Jilin's Gongzhuling Prison, where he was transferred after his family complained that he was being tortured at Songyuan Prison.

The family was prevented from taking photos of his body when they went to identify it, and doubts remain around the refusal of prison authorities to order medical parole for Guo despite his systolic blood pressure readings of around 260 consistently during the last two years of his life.

While there was no indication of external, physical attacks on Guo's body, the family has called for a full investigation into his death to establish responsibility, including the release of medical imaging from the time of the surgery and surveillance camera footage.

The family has said Guo was tortured and held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell with no light or toilet facility during much of his time at Songyuan Ningjiang Prison in Jilin.

In May 2020, prison guard Lu Jiaxun locked him in a cell filled with peracetic acid, causing him choke, they said, yet the guard only received a small deduction from his bonus as punishment.

Guo Yinqi filed a complaint to the Jilin provincial prison administration bureau at the time of that incident, but has yet to receive a response.

Guo was transferred to Gongzhuling Prison on Nov. 26, 2020 where he was held incommunicado, with authorities citing pandemic restrictions as the reason for the ban on visits. However, phone calls weren't permitted either.

When he was finally admitted to the Jilin Guowen Hospital in early April, police told one of the surgeons operating on him that the previously healthy Guo had been in a similar condition for more than two months. He was already in a coma at the time of admission.

Authorities in China have detained the anonymous author of the Program-Think politics blog, who evaded government surveillance for around 12 years, subjecting him to brutal interrogations in a bid to gain a "confession," RFA has learned.

"Program-Think's family is asking for help," a comment posted to his blog dated May 24 said.

"Last week, he went on a business trip to a big city in East China, and lost contact with us the next day," the comment said. "There were no unusual messages before he lost contact."

"It has been almost a week now. At first, I was not sure if something happened, or if there was an accident, I didn't call the police," the comment said.

"Last night, the police gave us an official response [to our missing persons report], saying that they were processing his case, but ... without giving any information on the progress of their investigation," it said.

Twitter account @GFWfrog cited a source inside the state security police on June 14 as saying that Program-Think was detained by Shanghai police in early May, and that his last post on May 9 had been a scheduled posting.

"He is currently undergoing brutal interrogations to ensure a conviction," the account tweeted, adding that the case would be "a gift to the CCP on its centenary."

A person familiar with the matter who gave only his surname, Xu, told RFA that the anonymous blogger was now in police custody.

"Recently, through my own credible sources, I learned that they have detained Program-Think, and are putting him through harsh interrogation," Xu said.

"I can't accept the persecution of a person of such conscience and outstanding ability ... so I have to make this information public despite the risks," he said.

Exposing hidden wealth

Xu said Program-Think was likely detained for exposing the hidden wealth of high-ranking members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and his political theorizing and anti-brainwashing campaigns, conducted via his blog on the overseas-based Blogger.com platform.

Xu said he had himself been transformed from an uncritical supporter of the CCP to a person with doubts, and then to someone who longs for freedom and democracy, after reading Program-Think's blog.

The blogger had continued an in-depth analysis of CCP leaders' wealth following the publication of the Panama Papers in 2016, Xu said.

"I think Program-Think had a bigger impact than anyone on the Chinese internet," Xu said. "Particularly his posts laying out very complete evidence to refute [government] propaganda."

"He would convert Little Pinks [CCP supporters]. He is a hero, and totally irreplaceable," Xu said.

A legendary figure

Zhou Fengsuo, of the U.S.-based NGO Humanitarian China, agreed.

"Program-Think is a legendary figure; an anonymous Chinese rebel," Zhou told RFA. "He had advanced anti-censorship technology."

"A lot of people learned how to circumvent the Great Firewall [of government censorship] through his blog," he said. "He posed a huge threat to the CCP's totalitarian rule."

"I am very worried about him, as we haven't heard from him in a very long time, and it is very likely that he has been detained," Zhou said.

Repeated attempts to contact Program-Think's family members were unsuccessful.

Program-Think was nominated for best Chinese blog in the 2013 Deutsche Welle International Best of Blogs awards, or BOBs.

The author told the station at the time that he had never set out to write political content to begin with, but just wanted to share his years of experience in programming.

But the blog gradually become popular with people wanting ways to get around government censorship, and later branched out into information security tips and political analysis, the station reported at the time of the blog's nomination.

Hong Kong’s media freedom faced another setback Thursday morning when over 500 police officers raided the city’s last pro-democracy newspaper for the second time in a year and made arrests under the national security law.

Five Apple Daily executives were arrested over alleged foreign collusion, including editor-in-chief Ryan Law, chief executive Cheung Kim-hung, chief operating officer Royston Chow, associate publisher Chan Pui-man and Apple Daily Digital platform director Cheung Chi-wai.

Company assets were also frozen, reportedly around $HK18m ($2.3 million). Next Digital Limited, the parent company of Apple Daily, suspended trading. Some journalists at the paper told VOA they worked from home.

Hong Kong’s national security unit says it has evidence that over 30 Apple Daily articles “played a crucial part” in calling for sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland China.

Next Media Union, which represents Apple Daily journalists, condemned the arrests.

“By merely suggesting some past news articles have breached [the national security law], they can treat editorial staff as criminals, journalistic work as crimes and [the] newsroom as a crime scene," the union statement said. "This is a blatant violation of freedom of press in the name of national security.”

But Eunice Yung, a barrister and pro-Beijing politician, disagreed, telling VOA those arrested were using Apple Daily’s platform as a “mouthpiece” to damage Hong Kong and China.

“It’s nothing about the freedom of press. For anyone, no matter [if it's] a person in charge of an organization or even the press, are ... under the umbrella of the national security law," she said. "There is no exemption for anyone in Hong Kong.”

Yung said there’s a difference between being critical of the law and breaking it.

“I think if you are asking foreign countries to sanction officials, this is another story,” Yung added.

Following anti-government protests in 2019, Beijing sought stability for Hong Kong, partially via a national security law that prohibits acts deemed as subversion, secession or foreign collusion.

Since its passage, the broadly worded law, which international rights groups have described as a tool for suppression, has been used to arrest and jail dozens of activists and outspoken critics, including Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai.

At a press conference, Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee said those arrested were using journalism as a tool to endanger national security.

“The suspects have been arrested on strong evidence that they’re conspiring to endanger national security. The action is taken against criminals,” he said, warning the public and media to cut ties with the Apple Daily executives.

Mark Simon, a former Next Digital executive who is now the representative for its major shareholder, responded to Lee’s comments.

“No society is free when a man like that [Secretary Lee] is in power,” Simon told VOA, adding he was “in awe” of Apple Daily journalists who remained working while the police raid was taking place.

Hong Kong journalism lecturer Sharron Fast was cited in local reports as saying Lee’s comments were “ominous.”

Apple Daily founder Lai, 73, a pro-democracy advocate and media tycoon, is serving multiple jail sentences following his role in anti-government protests in 2019 and is awaiting trial in a separate case that carries a life sentence.

Last August, dozens of blue-shirted police officers raided the news publisher as Lai was arrested at his home under the national security law on charges of foreign collusion. Some reports have said the charges relate to Lai’s requests for sanctions against Hong Kong and China.

Footage of Thursday's raid showed dozens of officers at the Next Digital office in the Tseung Kwan O district seizing journalists’ materials. The Hong Kong government said a warrant was issued allowing this to happen.

Former Democratic Party leader Emily Lau said it’s a blow to press freedom if media outlets can be raided this way, exposing journalists' sources in the process.

"If it can happen to Apple Daily, it can happen to other news organizations," Lau, a former journalist, told VOA. "This is a very, very worrying thing and is a big blow to press freedom and freedom of expression.”

Authorities added that some published reports dated to 2019, before the security law came into effect. Chinese officials previously said the law wasn’t to be applied retroactively.

“Up to now, it’s very unclear” whether past acts would be taken into account, Lau said. But Holden Chow, a pro-Beijing lawmaker, told VOA that previous acts could be cited in court as “evidence,” and that this practice could apply to other ordinary criminal offenses.

Apple Daily was defiant Thursday, vowing in a letter to readers published on its website that it was “standing firm.”

“In an era where the regime can draw arbitrary red lines, the staff of Apple Daily will remain in their positions and report the truth for Hong Kong people in a legal, reasonable and fair manner,” the letter read.

The paper also announced it was printing 500,000 copies of Friday’s edition.

One senior Apple Daily journalist identified only as “Lee” to protect his identity told VOA earlier this month that there was a feeling of inevitability that the publisher would eventually be forced to close. He said Law, the now-detained editor-in-chief, had told the staff to keep working if this kind of situation arose.

Speaking Thursday, Lee said one of his bosses informed their team to work from home and to log out of all email accounts.

Describing the atmosphere among employees, Lee said the raid made him feel “angry” but didn’t deter their day.

“Perhaps [when] all of us had experienced the last raid in August last year, we somewhat got used to arbitrary actions taken by the Hong Kong police and [we] work as usual now,” he told VOA.

Police in Hong Kong on Friday arrested the head of a rights group that organized candlelight vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre for three decades, for "publicizing" the now-banned event.

Chow Hang-tung, who heads the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, was one of two people arrested for calling on others to join a banned vigil for the victims of the 1989 crackdown, when People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops mowed down mostly unarmed civilians with machine guns and tanks, ending weeks of peaceful protest on Tiananmen Square.

A 20-year-old food delivery worker was also arrested.

The pair were accused of publicizing the vigil, which has been banned by the authorities for two years running, on social media, detective senior superintendent Terry Law told reporters, but declined to give specific details.

Chow's arrest came after she told RFA she personally planned to go to Victoria Park on Friday and light a candle to remember those who died in 1989.

"I think lighting candles in Victoria Park shows that we haven't given up," she added.

While Victoria Park remained empty of mourners and protesters, police gathered instead in large numbers on the park's soccer pitches on Friday, throwing several layers of security around the area.

Local media said up to 7,000 officers were being deployed in case anyone tried to defy the ban.

Some people left flowers and candles at the feet of the Goddess of Democracy statue on the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) campus, while artists laid white mourning flowers in a road in the Causeway Bay shopping district to mark the 32nd anniversary of the massacre.

Police have warned that anyone dressed in black, or anyone seen chanting slogans or lighting candles could be seen as breaking the ban.

Support for allies grows

Former pollster Robert Chung said the numbers of police were "overwhelming and unnecessary."

"It is more likely to spark a backlash and push people away from any sense of patriotism," Chung said.

Chung Kim-wah of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) said Chow's arrest suggested the authorities are beginning to act in a more arbitrary manner.

CUHK student activist Yuen Tak-chi said he would mark the massacre anniversary this year despite boycotting it in previous years because he believed Hong Kong's political struggles to be distinct from those of mainland China.

But he said that, since the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020, the city's concerns are now closely aligned with the mainland Chinese democracy movement.

"We used to despise the June 4th vigil at Victoria Park. We thought it was pointless," Yuen said. "How could [the official verdict on the 1989 protests] ever be overturned?"

"But this form of resistance we despised in the past has now become a red line under the national security law," Yuen said.

He said the sacrifices made by mainland Chinese rights lawyers, some of whom lost their licenses for speaking out on behalf of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained and later jailed in Shenzhen, had made many in Hong Kong realize that they are all on the same side in the struggle against authoritarian government.

"To mourn the victims of June 4 is to show support and respect for our allies, [China's] human rights lawyers," he said.

A Chinese human rights activist was reportedly lured from his home and detained by police on Friday, in a sign of a more severe environment for political dissidents in the run-up to the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party.

Wang Aizhong received a phone call on Friday from someone who claimed his car had been damaged, Chinese human rights blog Weiquanwang reported. When he left home to check on the vehicle, police took him away.

Up to nine police officers then presented a warrant to Wang’s wife and searched his home. They confiscated 29 books, two computers and a cell phone. Wang’s wife was later summoned to the local police station, where she was questioned about her husband’s contacts and remarks. Police reportedly warned her against speaking out.

A few weeks ago, public security officers prevented Wang from attending a dinner on May 5 with a group of entrepreneurs in Guangdong province. Police broke up the meal gathering and interrogated the attendees until the early hours of the following morning.

Wang is known for his involvement in the “Southern Street Movement,” a democracy reform movement originating in Guangdong. In May 2014, he was subjected to four weeks of administrative detention in the provincial capital city of Guangzhou on suspicion of “disorderly behavior.”

The activist has more than 39,000 followers on Twitter, which is officially banned in China, where the authorities frequently monitor dissidents’ accounts.

Authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan are holding prominent rights activist Huang Xiaomin under criminal detention for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Huang was detained on May 29 by police in his hometown, the provincial capital Chengdu, his friends said.

"I heard from a friend he called using the police phone that he had been detained, and that this time he was looking at a sentence of more than three years in prison," a friend of Huang's who gave only a surname Li told RFA on Wednesday.

"What he did for them to detain him isn't clear yet," Li said. "We don't understand it."

Li said Huang had been writing about vulnerable groups of people fighting for their rights on Mala -- an online forum on Sichuan-related matters.

Huang is a former teacher at a bingtuan CCP party school near Kashgar, in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

He took part in the student-led pro-democracy movement that ended in the massacre of unarmed civilians by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on June 4, 1989.

In 2019, the Jinniu District People's Court in Chengdu handed down a two-and-a-half year jail term Huang for supporting a call for direct elections to choose the leader of the CCP.

Huang pleaded guilty to "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charged based on interviews given by Huang to foreign media organizations including RFA, in which he allegedly "attacked the government."

He was earlier sentenced in 2010 by Sichuan's Leshan County People's Court to two years and six months in jail for "gathering a crowd to disrupt social order" for taking part in a street protest outside a court in February 2009.

Another friend of Huang's, Feng Gang, said his most recent detention was likely linked to his advocacy work for disadvantaged groups in Chengdu.

"He helped local human rights defenders and posted details of their cases online, especially to overseas websites, including Twitter and Facebook," Feng told RFA. "He also exposed local corruption and ... criticised the political and legal system."

He received a visit from local police after he gave an interview to RFA in November 2020 about CCP leader Xi Jinping's claim to have eliminated poverty in China.

"Huang has been a thorn in the sides of the local police in Chengdu," Feng said. "He has been detained around the 32nd anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, and ahead of the CCP centenary [on July 1], as part of the local stability maintenance plan."

Huang is also a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Association and one of the conveners of the Sichuan Pan-Blue Alliance, which is politically aligned with Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

A popular blogger in China was sentenced to eight months in prison on Monday for "defaming martyrs" after he suggested that the number of Chinese soldiers killed during last year's border clash with India was higher than the official count.

In February, well over six months after the clashes, the Chinese military said four of its soldiers were killed in a skirmish with Indian troops in the disputed Galwan Valley.

Qiu Ziming posted on China's Twitter-like social media platform Weibo saying that the actual death toll on the Chinese side might have been higher.

He also said that the commanding officer survived "because he was the highest-ranking officer there" — a remark that outraged Chinese officials.

Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed with iron rods, sticks, and stones last June in what was the deadliest clash between China and India in more than four decades.

New Delhi said Chinese troops had intruded into its side of the territory, triggering tensions. China had denied the transgression and accused Indian troops of provocative behavior. Timeline of Qiu's case

Qiu was arrested on February 20, a day after his Weibo post. He was subsequently charged under a new provision of China's criminal law that bans the "defamation of martyrs and heroes."

The 38-year old was also ordered to publicly apologize through national media outlets within 10 days.

"I feel extremely ashamed of myself, and I'm very sorry," he was quoted as saying by the state-run newspaper The Global Times.

A court in the eastern city of Nanjing on Monday ruled that Qiu had "infringed on the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs ... and confessed to his crimes." China's new provision

Qiu is the first person to be jailed under the new provision which came into effect in March.

In 2018, China's national legislature passed a law making "defamation of martyrs and heroes" a civil offense.

This was made a criminal offense in February and police have since arrested at least six bloggers for allegedly defaming the dead soldiers in online comments of Qiu's post.

The crackdown highlights the political sensitivity of the border clash in China.

Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly democracy activist as she made a solo demonstration over China's deadly Tiananmen crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial hub.

Alexandra Wong, 65, was detained on Sunday on suspicion of taking part in an unlawful assembly as she walked towards Beijing's Liaison Office in Hong Kong.

Wong -- known locally as "Grandma Wong" -- was a regular fixture of the huge democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019.

She could often be seen waving a Union Jack flag, a symbol of her dissatisfaction with Beijing's rule since the city was handed to China by former colonial power Britain in 1997.

Protest is now all but outlawed in Hong Kong.

Authorities have used both the threat of the coronavirus and security concerns to ban demonstrations.

A vigil planned for this Friday -- the 32nd anniversary of Beijing's 1989 crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square -- has been denied permission for the second year in a row.

Authorities have cited the coronavirus, although Hong Kong is currently celebrating no local transmission cases of unknown origin for the last month.

Activists had also sought permission for a small Tiananmen-themed march on Sunday to the Liaison Office, which represents the central government in the city, but it was also denied permission.

Wong turned up anyway that afternoon holding as sign that read "32, June 4, Tiananmen's lament" and a yellow umbrella -- the latter a symbol of Hong Kong's democracy movement.

The South China Morning Post said the pensioner started chanting slogans in a park before heading towards the Liaison Office by herself, while being followed and filmed by police.

She was stopped twice.

"I'm only by myself, just an old lady here. Why stop me?" the Post quoted Wong as telling officers.

Soon afterwards she was arrested.

Police confirmed a 65-year-old woman surnamed Wong had been arrested for "knowingly participating in an unauthorized assembly and attempting to incite others to join an unauthorized assembly."

Hong Kong's democracy movement has been crushed by a broad crackdown on dissent over the last year, including the imposition of a sweeping security law that criminalizes much dissent.

In the middle of the 2019 protests Wong disappeared for more than a year.

She resurfaced saying she had been detained by mainland authorities during a trip to Shenzhen, a neighboring city where she lived at the time.

On 2 June 2021, border control authorities at the Fuzhou airport prevented Beijing-based human rights lawyer Tang Jitian from boarding a flight to Japan to see his ill daughter. The authorities told the human rights defender that the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has imposed an exit ban on him because his travel abroad “may endanger national security”. Tang Jitian (唐吉田) is a Chinese human rights lawyer who has taken on human rights casesacross a range of areas, including land rights, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association. As a result of his persistent activism, his license to practise law was revoked in 2010. The human rights defender continued his human rights work since his disbarment and has been subjected to beatings, torture, surveillance, travel restrictions, and arbitrary detentions on multiple occasions. In November 2017, he tried to enter Hong Kong from Shenzhen to seek medical treatment, but the mainland border control authorities told him he was not allowed to leave because he “may endanger national security”. Tang Jitian’s 25-year-old daughter, who has been studying in Japan, fell ill in April 2021 with tuberculosis and has since been hospitalised in an intensive care unit. She is said to be in serious condition due to multiple complications triggered by tuberculosis.After his daughter was hospitalised, Tang Jitian obtained a visa to travel to Japan and contacted public security officers in Beijing to seek the lifting of his exit ban. However, the officers he contacted said they were discussing the matter with their superiors and failed to give him a definitive answer despite repeated follow-up. On 1 June 2021, the human rights defender flew from Beijing to Fuzhou. On the morning of 2 June 2021, he checked in his luggage and obtained his boarding pass at the Fuzhou airport for his flight to Japan, but was stopped and turned back at the border control area. The border control officers told the human rights defender that he was prohibited from leaving the country on the basis of article 12(5) of the Exit and Entry Administration Law, which grants the authorities the power to impose exit bans on Chinese citizens if they “endanger national security”. The officers did not provide any legal documents or any detailed explanation as to why and how his departure would endanger national security. They also initially refused to disclose the officials who ordered the exit ban. After Tang Jitian insisted on knowing who issued the order, the officers said it was the Beijing Public Security Bureau, but refused to disclose the names of the officials who made the decision.Chinese authorities have a history of imposing arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement,including both domestic and international travel bans, as well as forced temporary relocation during politically sensitive periods, in order to target human rights defenders. These restrictions based on such ill-defined concepts as “endangering national security” are inconsistent with the Chinese Constitution, which prohibits unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens’ freedom of the person,and are also incompatible with international human rights standards protecting the right to freedom of movement.

On 21 May 2021, the Linyi Municipal Procuratorate informed Ding Jiaxi's legal counsel that it has sent his case back to the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau for a second round of supplementary investigation. Under the Criminal Procedure Law, only two rounds of supplementary investigation are permitted. Once the supplementary investigation has concluded and the case is sent back to the Procuratorate, the Procuratorate must then decide whether or not to prosecute within a month. The Procuratorate may extend this deadline by another 15 days if a case is deemed "major or complicated" or if the sentence might exceed one year of imprisonment.

Earlier on 19 May 2021, Ding Jiaxi was allowed another video call with his legal counsel. Ding Jiaxi told his lawyer that detainees are permitted to partake in outdoor activities for less than 30 minutes a day and that their masks are changed only once every three weeks. Due to the low quality of dental hygiene provided by the detention centre, the condition of the human rights defender's teeth is deteriorating. Ding Jiaxi also said his eyesight has deteriorated, and he has still not been given any paper or pen to write with by authorities.

On 8 May 2021, immigration officers at the Shanghai Pudong Airport stopped human rights lawyer Lu Siwei from boarding his flight to the United States, where he is due to participate in a fellowship programme. The officers informed the human rights defender that an exit ban had been imposed against him on "national security" grounds.

Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 additional months in prison for taking part in an unauthorized assembly last year to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The 24-year-old Wong is already serving a 13-and-a-half-month sentence for organizing an unauthorized protest in 2019. He was sentenced Thursday along with fellow activists Lester Shum, Jannelle Leung and Tiffany Yeun, who received sentences of between four and six months.

Wong was also among 47 activists charged under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law for taking part in unofficial primary elections last July to pick candidates to run in legislative elections. They were then postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

China has banned any public observance of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, when Chinese military tanks and troops raided Tiananmen Square to break up weeks of student-led protests. But Hong Kong traditionally held large vigils to mark the event under its Basic Law, which granted the city certain freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including the right to assembly.

Last year's event was banned for the first time, with police citing the pandemic and security fears following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of 2019.

Hong Kong authorities have increasingly clamped down on the city’s pro-democracy forces since Beijing imposed the new national security law last June in response to the 2019 demonstrations.

Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

It has been confirmed that the Linyi Municipal Procuratorate in Shandong province approved the formal arrest of woman human rights defender Li Qiaochu on 14 March 2021 for "inciting subversion of State power". She is currently detained at the Linyi Municipal Detention Centre. Her partner and fellow human rights defender Xu Zhiyong is also facing the same charge, and his case is also being overseen by the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau.

The Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau denied two requests made in February and March by Li Qiaochu's lawyer to visit the woman human rights defender, and also rejected the lawyer's bail applications.

In defence of her partner Xu Zhiyong's rights, Li Qiaochu previously challenged the actions of the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau by filing an administrative review in August 2020, initiating an administrative lawsuit in October 2020, and filing a formal complaint against Li Dengquan, the head of the Linyi Public Security Bureau in early February 2021, days before she was taken into custody.

In light of these complaints made by Li Qiaochu against the Linyi police prior to her detention, her lawyer argued that the Linyi police have a conflict of interest in the case that could undermine their ability to fairly handle the investigations. Subsequently, the lawyer submitted a formal request on 14 April 2021, for Li Dengquan and all other police officers at the Linyi Public Security Bureau to recuse themselves from this case, in line with articles 29 and 31 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Article 29 requires adjudicators, procurators and investigators to recuse themselves from a case if they have, among other factors, "an interest in the case" or have "another relationship with a party in the case that might affect the just handling of the case." The lawyer also contested the legitimacy of the Linyi police's jurisdiction and authority to investigate Li Qiaochu, who is a resident of Beijing and was still under provisional release pending investigation by the Beijing public security bureau at the time of her detention in February 2021.

On 19 April 2021, the Linyi Municipal Procuratorate rejected the lawyer's request for recusal on the basis that the reasons provided do not meet the conditions for recusal as stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Law. The procuratorate did not provide further, more detailed legal reasoning for the decision. On 23 April 2021, the woman human rights defender's lawyer requested the Linyi procuratorate to review its decision on the recusal request.

In October 2020, woman human rights defender Liu Yanli was transferred to the Hankou Prison in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province to serve her four-year sentence, since which the prison authorities have not allowed her family to visit her. Liu Yanli's requests to phone her family have also been denied since the transfer.

In March 2021, a prison security official delivered a letter to Liu Yanli's family from her. In the letter, the woman human rights defender wrote that following the transfers to the prison, she had spent a month in quarantine, after which she spent a further month undergoing vocational training. Subsequently, she became a labourer at a prison factory and has been assigned to work as a porter. She wrote that she is exhausted from the physical exertion, and that her hair has gone grey. Her family are concerned for her physical and psychological health and well being.

On the morning of 7 April 2021, the lawyer retained by Liu Yanli's family met her at the Hankou Prison. The prison guards restricted them from speaking about anything other than her appeal, prohibiting them from discussing the prison conditions. In the afternoon, the Jingmen Municipal Intermediate Court held a hearing to review Liu Yanli's second appeal of her conviction. The defender's older sister, older brother and the family lawyer attended, but the court did not allow Liu Yanli to be present. No other observers were allowed to attend the hearing, which lasted 1.5 hours. The court is yet to announce its decision in the case.

During the weekend of 23 April 2021, a judge informed the family of human rights defenders Cai Wei and Chen Mei that their trial, originally scheduled to start on 26 April 2021, had been postponed a second time until after the Labour Day holiday in May. The court did not provide a new date.

On 21 January 2021, lawyers assigned by the authorities to represent human rights defenders Cai Wei and Chen Mei informed their families that the Beijing Chaoyang District Court has postponed the deadline for holding a trial to 29 April 2021, citing the pandemic as a reason. The previous deadline for holding the trial of the two human rights defenders was 29 January 2021.

The families of the human rights defenders have questioned the validity of the pandemic as a reason for postponement. According to the official website of the Beijing judiciary, at least eight public trials are scheduled to take place at the Chaoyang District Court between 25 January and 2 February 2021, and many more public trials in other courts in Beijing between 22 January and 22 February 2021.

On 22 September 2020, a lawyer assigned by the Chinese Government to represent human rights defender Chen Mei informed Chen's mother that he and fellow human rights defender Cai Wei have been indicted and their case has been sent for trial to the Chaoyang District Court in Beijing.

Since their detention in April 2020, Chen Mei and Cai Wei have not been allowed access to the legal counsel chosen by their families. Instead, the Government claimed that both defenders have "voluntarily" sought and received legal representation through the State legal aid programme.

Chen Mei's family have submitted a complaint to the Chaoyang District Judicial Bureau against the law firm to which Chen Mei's two Government-assigned lawyers belong, contending that they have violated laws and regulations governing the conduct of lawyers by representing clients who do not need legal aid and whose families have expressly rejected their representation.

Beijing has shut down several feminist social media platforms, a sign that China is renewing its crackdown on what it considers radical women’s groups.

About 10 feminist forums were closed on Douban, China’s popular social networking platform that allows group discussions of books, music, movies and social topics such as feminism.

Douban said the now-banned forums promoted “extreme” and “radical” political views and ideology.

The blocked forums embrace the concept of 6B4T, an online movement that originated in South Korea. The concept “is driven by the idea of women becoming more empowered by shunning activities seen as centered upon or designed to benefit men,” according to Jane Li, a China tech reporter on Quartz.

The Douban ban earlier this month sparked heated debate among netizens in China, soon after the government released preliminary figures suggesting 2020 was, like 2019, a year with a declining birthrate.

On Weibo, the Chinese social media platform akin to Twitter, one post said, “Well done! The intention of these forums is to tear up Chinese society through extreme feminism.” Another said, “6B4T is not radical. It’s nothing more than a claim that women do not have to enter into a heterosexual relationship.”

The “6B” refers to not having sex with men; not having romantic relationships; not marrying; not having children; not buying products that show a prejudice against, aversion to or dislike of women; and offering to stand by other single women, according to Li. The “4T” stands for “ditching rigid beauty standards [literally 'taking off corsets']; rejecting the obsession with Japanese manga and anime (known as otaku culture) for their hypersexual depictions of women; breaking away from religion; and not partaking in fan culture around male or female celebrities.”

In Korean, each of the items begins with either “bi,” which means no or not, and “tal,” which means to escape from something.

The South Korean movement "advocates that women separate themselves from the influence of male-centered political culture, and then form a full range of female culture and female power," according to the website WhatsonWeibo.

In the past, China has allowed more online discussion of gender than other political topics. Yet, Lu Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist in New York, told VOA Mandarin that with the current crackdown, there are virtually no social media platforms that are friendly to feminist groups in China.

“These online platforms are aware of the government’s preference, so they tend to restrict feminist movements,” she told VOA.

This is not the first targeting of women’s groups. Online feminists attracted Beijing’s attention on March 7, the day before International Women’s Day, when five feminist activists were arrested for demonstrating against sexual harassment on public transit.

At the time, Feng Yuan, a women’s rights activist, told TheGuardian.com: “What the activists want is exactly what state policy on women says: that women should be equal.”

Chinese netizens criticized the arrests, which drew international attention from the likes of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The women, who became known as the Feminist Five, were released after more than a month in detention.

The current crackdown came about because increasing numbers of women are embracing feminist ideas, according to Zhang, a student from prestigious Peking University, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of attracting official attention.

“I think China has always been a patriarchal society. So, there can be a feminist movement, but it needs to be within that framework of patriarchal society,” she said.

Lu Pin, the New York feminist, agreed, saying the feminist movement has spotlighted a structural problem in Chinese society that causes inequalities between men and women, and those who benefit from the current system are offended by that explanation.

Shuttering online feminist discussions meshes with Beijing’s interests, she said.

“Of course, the government does not want criticism on the structure of its society,” she told VOA. “So, from this standpoint of view, the government will inevitably stand against the feminist movement. They want women to maintain their traditional family roles because that benefits the stability of the CCP rule.”

The crackdown comes just two months after China’s Ministry of Public Security released preliminary population numbers revealing that the number of new birth registrations in 2020 was 10.035 million, compared with 11.8 million in 2019, a year that had the lowest recorded birthrate since 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded.

With a rapidly growing elderly population and a cohort of young couples who cannot afford the luxury of children, China is facing a demographic crisis with economic overtones.

The government has long undercut efforts by activists to create safe space for women and raise issues of gender discrimination and domestic violence.

Despite these pressures working against gender equality, Chinese American author and activist Leta Hong Fincher said a popular broad-based feminist movement poses the greatest challenge to China’s governing regime today.

In her new book Betraying Big Brother, The Feminist Awakening in China, she said the Feminist Five gave life to a grassroots mobilization not seen since the 1989 pro-democracy movement that culminated with the deadly quashing of protests in Tiananmen Square.

Shen Hsiu-hua, an associate professor of sociology at National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan, told VOA Mandarin that popular movements are Beijing’s greatest fear.

“Being able to mobilize people is a taboo for the Chinese Communist Party. In China, only the government can mobilize people, so any cause that results in gathering is seen as a threat to its ruling,” she said. “That’s why the government wants to nip it in the bud.”

Authorities at a second Hong Kong university have cut ties with the student union, saying that it had become a “platform for political propaganda” following its involvement in recent protest movements.

“The Hong Kong University Students’ Union (HKUSU) has become increasingly politicized in recent years, utilizing the University campus as a platform for its political propaganda,” the University of Hong Kong said in a statement on Friday.

“It has repeatedly made inflammatory and potentially unlawful public statements and unfounded allegations against the University,” it said.

“The university strongly condemns HKUSU’s radical acts and remarks,” the statement said.

It said the university would stop collecting membership fees on behalf of HKUSU and would “enforce its management rights” over the facilities currently used by the union.

“The University may also take further actions, if necessary,” it said, citing the need to protect “national security.”

A draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party from July 1, 2020, has targeted dozens of pro-democracy politicians and activists for “subversion” after they organized a primary election in a bid to win more seats in the city’s legislature.

The law bans words and deeds deemed subversive or secessionist, or any activities linked to overseas groups, as “collusion with foreign powers,” including public criticism of the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party.

Students oppose appointments

The HKU announcement comes after the union strongly opposed the appointment of two mainland Chinese scholars as vice presidents, saying that they would help to assert Chinese Communist Party control over the city’s oldest university.

Max Shen, who has previously been listed as a member of a Chinese Communist Party committee at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, and his former Tsinghua colleague Gong Peng started their jobs as vice presidents of research and academic development respectively from January 2021.

The severing of ties with the union comes after an article in the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, denounced HKUSU for smearing the government’s attempts to win public support for the national security law.

It called for “strong medicine to remove the malignant tumor in the ivory tower.”

Labour Party chairman and former HKUSU president Steven Kwok said the university’s action against the union appeared to have been triggered by the People’s Daily article.

“I think their actions were instigated by [authorities in] mainland China,” Kwok told Radio Free Asia. “It’s all part of the current political situation and carrying out Beijing’s wishes.”

The Chinese University of Hong Kong severed ties with its student union Syzygia on Feb. 26, banning the union from using university facilities or staff and accusing it of failing to clarify “potentially unlawful statements and false allegations.”

‘Getting rid of anything risky’

Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said universities have been tripping over themselves to demonstrate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party since the national security law took effect.

“They are minimizing their risk by getting rid of anything risky,” Lau said. “This is an active form of adaptation to the politicization process being instigated by mainland China.”

He said the recent moves by the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong show the ever-widening damage to freedom of speech and academic freedom in Hong Kong.

“The university management are the ones damaging HKU’s rankings and reputation, not the students,” Lau said, referring to the University of Hong Kong.

Former student activist Joshua Wong — currently serving a prison sentence on public order charges linked to the 2019 protest movement — pleaded guilty in a Hong Kong court on Friday to “taking part in an illegal assembly” in connection with a vigil commemorating the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Victoria Park last year.

Wong, together with pro-democracy district councilors Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, and Jannelle Leung, pleaded guilty to the charges, with sentencing expected on May 6.

Wong, Shum, and Yuen also face “subversion” charges under the national security law after they took part in the democratic primary for the canceled Legislative Council election in 2020. All three were returned to custody following the hearing.

Several longtime pro-democracy advocates on Friday learned their fate for organizing one of Hong Kong's largest-ever street protests during the height of anti-government demonstrations.

Nine pro-democracy activists, including media mogul Jimmy Lai, 73, and former lawmakers Lee Cheuk-yan, 64, Leung Kwok-hung, 65, Cyd Ho, 66, and Au Nok-hin, 33, were jailed after being found guilty this month of involvement in an August 2019 march that attracted hundreds of thousands of protesters.

District Judge Amanda Woodcock of Hong Kong's West Kowloon Magistrates Court also suspended sentencing for four other activists because of their age and accomplishments, according to The Associated Press.

Lai, who was additionally charged under the national security law on Friday for the second time and now faces six charges total, received 14 months in jail, as did activist Lee Cheuk-yan, after they had both pleaded guilty of organizing and participating in the rally on August 19, 2019, and of participating in another illegal assembly less than two weeks later.

Not surprised

Former Legislative Council lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan had expected Friday's outcome. When speaking with VOA in March about Beijing's electoral reforms for Hong Kong, he admitted that he, with four outstanding trials for illegal assembly looming over him, was likely to face jail.

"I think is important not to lose hope and always to do something to 'light a candle in darkness' so people can see the hope and see a lot of people doing different things in the society that show we are holding on to our values," he said. "It is important we hold on.

"If I go to the jail, I think it will be a good time to reflect on my life experience," he told VOA in an audio call.

Ho and Au received eight and 10 months behind bars, respectively, while Leung received the stiffest sentence, 18 months. Au and Leung were already in custody in relation to other cases.

The four remaining activists — "father of democracy" Martin Lee, 82, Margaret Ng, 73, Albert Ho, 69, and Leung Yiu-chung, 67 — received suspended sentences.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau, who was at the court for the sentencing, told VOA that it was a "very, very bad day for Hong Kong."

"So many people who have fought for democracy and human rights and rule of law for so many years have been given such heavy jail sentences for engaging in peaceful and nonviolent protests," she said. "It's very, very sad. But we know everybody, including judges and the government, are under a lot of pressure from Beijing, and they really want to teach Hong Kong people a lesson."

Lau said the length of sentences didn't come as a surprise, as they were notably longer than they had been for activists charged with illegal assembly.

"We know times have changed," said Lau. "Beijing is breathing down on us very heavily, and everybody feels the pressure."

Under the "one country, two systems" agreement signed by Britain and China in 1997 after the city was transferred back to Chinese rule, Beijing promised that Hong Kong would retain a "high degree of autonomy" until 2047.

A controversial extradition bill sparked Hong Kong's monthslong anti-government protests in 2019 that often turned violent. In response, Beijing implemented the national security law for Hong Kong, prohibiting secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

Dozens jailed

Since the security legislation came into force, dozens of activists have been jailed while others are awaiting trial or have fled the city. To limit the election of pro-democracy opposition, China's national legislature recently approved a major electoral overhaul for Hong Kong's political system, expanding the number of pro-Beijing voices on Hong Kong's Legislative Council.

Veteran political analyst Joseph Cheng believes the crackdown is meant to "eliminate" the pro-democracy movement.

"These arrests and court cases plus the changes, the so-called 'perfection of the electoral laws,' actually means there is no room for the operation for a pro-democracy movement, meaning there is no tolerance in Hong Kong," he said.

Cheng admitted the scrutiny could spell the end for the veteran activists, but there are now hopes for a younger generation to take the lead.

"You may say the older generation of activists, they probably will no longer be active given their age and given the tremendously difficult situation in the two, three years ahead," Cheng told VOA. "In this way, it is the end of their participation among the first generation like Martin Lee, Lee Cheuk-yan and so on. We certainly pin our hopes on the younger generation."

But for Hong Kong's younger activists, the risks are greater than ever. Yat-Chin Wong, 19, organizer of pro-democracy political group StudentPoliticism, told VOA that "now even just a few words [and you] may be arrested."

"The current red line is erratic, and there is no good way to avoid risks," he said.

Wong, who spent his childhood in China before moving to Hong Kong while in primary school, told VOA in January that national security officers had warned him about his activism in the city, while mainland Chinese authorities had questioned his relatives in Sichuan province.

The family of jailed rights activist Guo Hongwei, who died on April 9 after surgery while serving a 13-year jail term in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, say there are many unanswered questions around his illness and death.

"We are not convinced," Guo's father Guo Yinqi told RFA on Tuesday. "He mustn't be cremated until the cause of death is known."

"There needs to be due process and [the cause of death] must be identified."

Guo Yinqi said the family had wanted to take pictures of Guo Hongwei's body when they went to identify it.

"We wanted to take pictures of him ... after his death, but a number of prison guards were there, and they wouldn't let us," he said.

Guo Yinqi said the family had doubts around the refusal of prison authorities to order medical parole for Guo despite his systolic blood pressure readings of around 260 consistently during the last two years.

"He was persecuted [to death]," Guo Yinqi said. "Not allowing a critically ill patient with systolic blood pressure of 260 out on medical parole is the same as killing them."

Guo Yinqi said Guo Hongwei had been transferred to Gongzhuling Prison after the family reported that he was being tortured at Songyuan Prison near Jilin's Siwei city.

"We weren't allowed to see him after the transfer to Gongzhuling Prison, and we couldn't have phone calls with him either," Guo Yinqi said. "And after being transferred to Gongzhuling Prison, he will not be allowed to meet. , And phone calls are not allowed. We wanted to take pictures when we were in the funeral after death. Several prison guards were there and were not allowed to take pictures."

Guo Hongwei died on April 9 after undergoing two operations for cerebral hemorrhage on April 4 and 5.

Guo Yinqi said that, while there was no indication of external, physical attacks on his son's body, the family wanted a full investigation into his death to establish responsibility.

"We have suspicions, because the issue that killed him was in his brain, and they won't release his [remains] to us, nor the scans [of his brain]," he said.

"They say this has to be dealt with in a 'unified' manner, and so it can't be handed over the family," Guo Yinqi said.

Autopsy demand Rights lawyer Xie Yanyi said he plans to assist the family in demanding an autopsy and inquest into Guo Hongwei's death.

"Further investigation is needed, as well as the issue of the autopsy, and gaining access to video surveillance footage and medical records," Xie told RFA.

"Prisons have obligations to cooperate under the Criminal Procedure Law and the Prisons Law," he said. "Guo Hongwei should have been granted medical parole for his own protection once his health had deteriorated to that point."

The family has said Guo was torture and held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell with no light or toilet facility during much of his time at Songyuan Ningjiang Prison in Jilin.

In May 2020, prison guard Lu Jiaxun locked him in a cell filled with peracetic acid, causing him choke, they said, yet the guard only received a small deduction from his bonus as punishment.

Guo Yinqi filed a complaint to the Jilin provincial prison administration bureau at the time of that incident, but has yet to receive a response.

Guo was transferred to Gongzhuling Prison on Nov. 26, where he was held incommunicado, with authorities citing pandemic restrictions as the reason for the ban on visits. However, phone calls weren't permitted either.

When he was finally admitted to the Jilin Guowen Hospital in early April, police told one of the surgeons operating on him that he had been in a similar condition for more than two months. He was already in a coma at the time of admission, they told RFA.

Guo Hongwei's mother Xiao Yunling said Guo had once been a strong and well-built man of 1.73 meters who had never been troubled by illness.

Whatever treatment was meted out to him in prison left him unable to walk and with life-threatening hypertension.

"Rest easy, son. Mom will avenge you," Xiao said. "Why did they frame my son? I won't be able to rest another day until I find out."

"Why did he have a cerebral hemorrhage? This happened all of a sudden in April," she said. "Why was he so skinny? Why didn't they give my son more food?"

Botched surgery Fellow rights activist Wang Jing said hospitals often botch operations on political prisoners, using them as teaching cases for inexperienced surgeons.

"I was almost killed during my medical appraisal and outpatient consultation. I was admitted to hospital, and four people on that ward died one after the other," Wang said.

One of them was a detained member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, Wang said. "One was a Falun Gong practitioner who had a fracture in his arm, and he lost the use of his arm entirely after the operation."

"The government hates political prisoners," Wang said. "It's much easier for them to take their lives through medical malpractice; we are just like meat on a chopping board."

Guo lost his job at the Songdianhe Power Plant and was jailed for five years after he reported Xu Wengui, an official at the local state prosecutor's office, for embezzling state funds.

He served a five-year jail term, and continued his human rights activism and petitioning activities on his release.

He was already unable to walk by the time of his second jail term, begun in 2016, for "extortion" and "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," after he pursued rights cases and petitions, and expressed public support for the 2014 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

His mother has served a six-year jail term, while his sister Guo Hongying is still serving a five-and-a-half year jail term, both on similar charges that include "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

"Three members of our family have been sent to jail for trying to protect state assets," Guo Yinqi said. "Marriages have broken up and the family has been destroyed."

"The prosecution services and law enforcement in Jilin province are all in it together; they all protect each other, and they ganged up on our family," he said. "Lawyers are too afraid to take our case because they could lose their livelihoods."

Guo Hongwei's defense attorney Huang Hanzhong told RFA that the family had instead been held up as a disgrace by CCP-controlled media, for allegedly "extorting" money from local government.

"This case was a total fabrication, a travesty of justice," Huang said. "This so-called 300,000 yuan they were supposed to have extorted, and all they got out of it was a severely hypertensive patient who couldn't even walk."

"How is he supposed to have extorted money from more than 5,000 police officers? It's a joke."

Gangkye Drubpa Kyab, a writer and former political prisoner also called Gangme Thak, was arrested in Sertha on March 23, Jigme said, adding, “Kyab had not committed any crime, and the Chinese government has not shown any valid reason for his arrest.”

Political activist Gangbu Yudrum was taken into custody on March 22, with no reason given for his arrest, Jigme said.

Yudrum had previously served a three-year prison term beginning in 2008 for his role in a protest in which he raised the banned Tibetan national flag and called for the return to Tibet of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

He was arrested again in 2012 and released in 2014, receiving a warm welcome from people in his village, who hailed him as a “Tibetan fighter for the truth.” Upon his release, he wrote and distributed copies of a letter to local Tibetans urging them to work to free Tibet from Beijing’s rule.

Two of the six recently detained Tibetans have not yet been identified, and the whereabouts of all six are still unknown, Jigme said.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Chinese police in Sichuan’s Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture have arrested six Tibetans considered prominent in their communities in recent weeks, with the reasons for their arrests unknown, a Tibetan living in exile said Wednesday.

Writer and environmental activist Sey Nam was taken into custody on April 2 in Kardze’s (in Chinese, Ganzi’s) Serthar (Seda) county, Golok Jigme, a former political prisoner now living in Switzerland, told RFA’s Tibetan Service, citing local contacts.

“Due to tightened restrictions on communications in the area, my source doesn’t know the reason for his arrest,” Jigme said.

Also arrested on April 2, Tibetan activist and former political prisoner Tsering Dolma had been detained at least twice before in 2008 and 2012 after she took part in protests against Chinese policies and rule in Tibetan areas.

“I think this was the third or fourth time she was arrested,” Jigme said.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Bao Choy Yuk Ling, a freelance producer with Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), was convicted on April 22 of “making false statements” to obtain government data for her investigative report. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemns Hong Kong authorities’ use of legal action to target members of the press.

Choy was charged with two counts of “knowingly making a false statement” to obtain car license plate records from the government’s database. The 37-year-old was fined HKD $6,000 (USD $773) on April 22 for the offenses to which she pleaded not guilty.

The data was used for an episode of RTHK’s documentary programme, Hong Kong Conncetion, that exposes the Hong Kong police’s delayed response to a mob attack on pro-democracy protesters and civilians in Yuen Long, Hong Kong on July 21, 2019.

The prosecution of Choy has shocked Hong Kong media, as it had been a common practice for journalists to obtain government data when reporting.

The court, however, determined on April 22 that Choy had used the data for her report instead of the “traffic and transport related purposes” justification that Choy provided to authorities for permission to access the data and was therefore punishable.

The Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) and seven other media groups and trade unions have issued a joint statement to express their indignation. The statement also warned that legal attack on freedom of the press sends a chilling effect in Hong Kong’s media.

On 16 April 2021, detained human rights lawyer Chang Weiping's family received a written notice from the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau to say that the human rights defender was formally arrested on 7 April 2021 on the charge of "subversion of State power". Prior to the formal arrest, Chang Weiping was detained under "residential surveillance in a designated location" (RSDL) for the lesser charge of "inciting subversion of State power". Under China's Criminal Law, those convicted of "subverting State power" may face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, the Baoji public security authorities must complete their investigation within two months and then make a decision whether to recommend prosecution or drop the case. With the approval of a higher-level procuratorate, this investigative period is extendable by up to five months if certain broadly defined conditions are met, such as if the case is deemed to be "particularly serious and complicated".

A court in the central Chinese province of Henan has handed down a 14-month jail term to performance artist and online influencer Chen Shaotian after he posted a number of critical comments about life under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Twitter.

Chen was sentenced to one year and two months' imprisonment by the Fugou County People's Court in Henan, which found him guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target critics of the regime.

Chen's sentence, which was issued on March 25, was based on more than 50 posts he made to Twitter that were deemed to be "hype about major sensitive events in China" and "political attacks."

One video still visible on Twitter shows him astride a moped, speeding down a road wearing a face-mask blazoned with the words "evil" and "understand," and yelling: "Understand this! Our evil government is far worse than any virus, for f*ck's sake!"

Chen's tweets had "attacked China's political system, insulted employees of the state, caused serious damage to China's national image and endangered its national interests," as well as "creating serious disorder in a public place," the court judgment said.

Dissident activist Ji Feng said Chen isn't a dissident in the strict sense, as he doesn't advocate any political or philosophical alternative to CCP rule.

"He lacks a systematic politics, and he has no deeply held position," Ji said. "It's all about dissatisfaction with the current reality."

He said Chen's jailing would likely have a chilling effect on people who feel the same way.

"There are many, many people like him, and eventually, they will probably be too scared to speak out any more," he said.

Hebei-based lawyer Pan Shaomin said Chen had become an online celebrity precisely because his posts exuded a general and profound sense of dissatisfaction.

"The social topics he cares about were very popular with the general public," Ji said. "He cursed the way things are in a funny way, and made people laugh and feel happier."

"That was how he became a celebrity, but that phenomenon is going to cause fear in certain quarters," he said.

Chen, originally a long-haul truck-driver, first started cursing out the government after travel bans and rural roadblocks at the start of the pandemic left him unable to do his job.

He was banned from social media platforms including WeChat and Douyin after his videos on the death of whistleblowing Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang went viral.

"What [Chen] was doing was anathema to the authorities, who shut down his China-based social media accounts," Pan said.

In December 2020, authorities in the Beijing district of Haidian jailed Li Guibao, who was known online as Fat Pig Full Circle Lao Li, to one year's imprisonment for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" after he criticized the authorities handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Li was detained two days after posting a 7,000-word article on April 9, 2020, in which he mostly talked about government's handling of the pandemic.

He was tried on Dec. 3, 2020 and sentenced on Dec. 24, 2020.

Seven of Hong Kong’s prominent pro-democracy activists were found guilty Thursday of organizing and participating in an unlawful assembly during the 2019 anti-government demonstrations.

The activists include media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Day, and 82-year-old barrister Martin Lee, one of the founders of the opposition Democratic Party. Also convicted Thursday were lawyer Albert Ho, barrister Margaret Ng, labor rights activist Lee Cheuk-yan and former legislators Cyd Ho and Leung Kwok-hung.

Two other defendants had already pleaded guilty. The seven face up to five years in prison.

The seven were arrested last year for taking part in a protest on Aug. 18, 2019, that drew more than 1 million people, one of the largest that engulfed Hong Kong that year which involved violent clashes between protesters and police. The protests were triggered by a controversial extradition bill that evolved into a greater demand for greater freedoms for the financial hub, which had been granted an unusual amount of freedom when Britain handed over control in 1997.

The demonstrations spurred Beijing to impose a series of measures aimed at quashing Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, including a new national security under which anyone suspected of carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison.

China’s national legislature approved a set of changes to Hong Kong’s electoral process to ensure only pro-Beijing loyalists can serve in the city’s legislature.

The Chinese government must immediately release labor organizer, delivery worker, Chen Guojiang (陈国江), who was detained on February 25 in Beijing. Chen, a popular social media activist, had frequently posted about the precarious working conditions of frontline delivery workers in Chinese cities and had recently called for delivery workers to boycott companies that allegedly withheld some bonus money for workers who could not meet high demand targets during the Chinese New Year period.

A few other workers are said to be detained as well, but no detailed information is available at this point.

Chen Guojiang, also known as “Xiong Yan” and “Chen Tianhe”, is a former restaurant owner who became a motorbike delivery worker in 2019 after his restaurant business went under. Chen was appalled at the working conditions in the sector, and he became one of the founders of a WeChat group called “Alliance for Delivery Workers on Motorbikes in the Land of Lawlessness” (外送江湖骑士联盟) *, which was dedicated to connecting, organizing, and providing rights defense to delivery workers. Chen frequently spoke out on Weibo about the precarious labor conditions of delivery workers and made videos, in an effort to garner support from the general public.

Some supporters in China attribute Chen’s detention to the fact that his WeChat group has attracted over 10,000 followers, and he had become a de facto union-like leader for China’s roughly 7-10 million delivery workers, who played an essential role in providing essential services, especially during the COVID-19 lockdowns. According to Radio Free Asia, members from Chen’s WeChat group had planned to stage a strike in solidarity with Chen on March 8, but police took preemptive actions that the plan did not come to fruition.

Chen is believed to be detained at the Beijing City Chaoyang Detention Center. Chen’s father, Chen Wanhua, put out an open letter expressing concerns for his son, saying he still had no information about the police’s accusation against his son and he had not yet received a detention notice, which should be sent to family members within 24 hours of detention according to the Criminal Procedure Law. Chen’s sister, however, called the Chaoyang detention center, and the police claimed that they had mailed out the detention notice. Chen’s father, as a farmer making only 600 RMB per month, also hoped to raise 50,000 RMB for lawyers’ fees.

In recent years, China’s “platform economy”, including food delivery services, has taken on new importance to both the Chinese public and the Communist Party leadership. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many restaurants were closed and cities were on lockdown, food delivery orders surged, and delivery workers became indispensable to the basic functioning of Chinese society. Delivery workers have been widely lauded on social media for their heroism in performing tasks that epitomized the “essential worker.” This week, the Chinese President Xi Jinping underlined the importance of the platform economy, including the need for the government to “…fill shortcomings, strengthen weaknesses, create an innovative environment, solve outstanding contradictions and problems, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the platform economy”. Media outlets have also run in depth articles exploring the extraordinary pressures on delivery workers.

Despite this newfound social and political attention, China’s gig workers have few labor rights protections, and workplace problems are common, with at least seven strikes or protests by delivery workers since January 2020, according to China Labour Bulletin’s Strike Map. Workers have frequently complained of problems including long hours, uncertain pay scale, employer surveillance, and arbitrary deduction of wages or dismissals.

CHRD urges the Chinese government to immediately and unconditionally release Chen Guojiang. Pending his release, Chen should be allowed to see a lawyer of his choice and should be allowed contact with family members. The Chinese government should also ensure protection of freedom of association, expression, communicate, and the right to organize to protect their labor rights. The Chinese government should also immediately sign and ratify the International Labour Organization fundamental conventions: Convention 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention) and Convention 98 (Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention).

On 8 March 2021, the Linyi Municipal Procuratorate in Shandong province informed Ding Jiaxi's lawyer that it has sent the human rights defender's case back to the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau for supplementary investigation. Under the Criminal Procedure Law, the public security bureau must complete supplementary investigation within a month, and only two rounds of supplementary investigation are permitted.

On March 8, following 10 days detention because of his tweet on Twitter, Luo Zhiming sent a text message to a close friend expressing concerns that he might become “missing” again. Returning home from his recent 10-day detention, Mr. Luo found that Chinese Communist Party agents had confiscated his computer, cell phone, and other possessions. As Mr. Luo, a construction worker, followed topics such as human rights, democracy, and freedom of religion and belief, he actively posted on Twitter and Facebook. Bazhong City State Security Branch officers had arrested Mr. Liu, an immigrant worker originally from Sichuan, for tweeting and commenting on posts that oppose the CCP's dogma. After CCP authorities released Mr. Luo from detention, State security officers in Tongjiang County had also tightened surveillance on him.One insider disclosed that CCP authorities may have held Mr. Luo under criminal detention while he abruptly became missing. Local state security officers regarded Mr. Luo’s speaking up during the "Two Sessions" as provoking the authorities. Consequently, they may have needed to make him a typical case or make an example out of him in Bazhong.

Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Yu, one of 14 women from around the world honored by the U.S. as an International Woman of Courage (IWOC), did not appear for the on-line award ceremony Monday and has been out of touch for two days, raising concerns, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"She has represented cases involving abused children, ethnic minorities, women, and religious adherents, and her work has brought government pressure on her through today," Blinken said at IWOC award ceremony.

"We have not been in regular communication over the past two days. We’re concerned because we know that she wanted to attend today’s ceremony. We’ll be following up and, if necessary, speaking out on her case," he added.

An activist close to Wang said she had tweeted plans to leave the southern city of Guangzhou on Saturday, but was held up for a COVID-19 check. Around noon on Sunday, however, she and her husband, Bao Longjun, were apprehended and taken away by police from Tianjin. Their whereabout is not known yet.

The friend confirmed that Wang knew about the State Department ceremony and wanted to attend.

The State Department had earlier noted on its website that Wang had been "one of the country’s most prominent human rights lawyers until her arrest and imprisonment following China’s nationwide persecution of lawyers and rights advocates during the [July 2015] crackdown" on human rights lawyers that saw hundreds rounded up and many later jailed or stripped of their licenses to practice.

"She had taken on multiple politically sensitive cases, representing activists, scholars, Falun Gong practitioners, farmers, and petitioners in cases involving a wide array of issues, including women’s and children’s rights, and the rights to religion, freedom of expression, assembly, and association," it said.

"She is now under an exit ban and has been harassed, threatened, searched, and physically assaulted by police since she began to take on rights abuse cases in 2011."

Despite ongoing harassment from the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Wang has continued to use her Twitter account to speak out on behalf of fellow attorneys and rights activists targeted by the authorities for their rights advocacy.

In late February, she retweeted a post from Xu Yan, wife of jailed rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, saying that her husband has yet to receive treatment for loss of function in his right hand and for the loss of teeth while in jail.

"The court ... did not consider the four complaints [about Yu's treatment in jail] and went right ahead and ruled to uphold the original judgement," Xu wrote in the tweet.

"The Jiangsu Higher People's Court wouldn't allow the defense attorney to review the case files."

'Exceptional courage, leadership'

The IWOC award recognizes women from around the world who have demonstrated "exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment," often at great personal cost.

"These women made an extraordinary choice: to persist. To demand justice," First Lady Jill Biden told the awards ceremony, which was livestreamed on YouTube on Monday.

"To believe that, despite the obstacles and fear that they faced, that there is a future worth fighting for," Biden said.

Wang and her legal activist husband Bao Longjun were detained in a massive nationwide crackdown on rights lawyers and activists in July 2015.

Their son Bao Zhuoxuan, also known by his nickname Bao Mengmeng, was just 16 when his passport was confiscated in the wake of his parents' arrest on the night of July 9, 2015 at the start of a nationwide police operation targeting the legal profession that became know as the "709 crackdown."

He had planned to complete his high school education overseas.

The teenager later tried to escape across the border from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan into northern Myanmar with a couple of fellow activists posing as tourists, but was caught and the activists who tried to help him detained.

He eventually arrived in Australia to complete his studies in January 2018.

A rights activist in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has called off her bid to stand in local elections for the next village chief after intimidation from the authorities, she told RFA.

Tian Ruidi, who has been active in helping residents of Shangdong village near Guangdong's Huizhou city defend their land rights, said she is now staying away from home amid a slew of threats and repeated interrogations by local police.

Her husband Tian Xinhua told RFA: "The village secretary asked her to withdraw from the election."

"People came from the police station and the city government, and told people not to vote for my wife," he said. "My wife refused [to withdraw], and now she is in hiding."

Local rights activist Chen Tian confirmed Tian's story.

"A lady whose surname is Tian is now being threatened by [government-backed thugs]," Chen said. "The local police station wants to arrest her, and she has gone into hiding."

"The local government sent large numbers of workers to the village to go from house to house, telling people that they shouldn't vote for her."

Tian has spoken out about the pressure being put on her online, posting a video clip of a Feb. 19 village committee meeting during which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) village secretary asked her to withdraw her candidacy.

"Secretary Zhang Xinhua asked me to withdraw from the village leader election qualification round," she said in that video. "This is an illegal act that undermines the election system and subverts the system of governance."

"He is illegally depriving citizens of their right to run for election," she said.

Tian's candidacy could potentially have toppled incumbent Tian Xinwu from the top job in the village of 300 residents, where 200 have the right to vote in local elections.

She has previously worked to expose local corruption linked to government compensation for land lost to development that was sent to the village, but never passed on to those eligible for it.

Voting went ahead on Tuesday, but another resident of Tianwu said villagers were unable to witness the ballot papers being counted on Wednesday.

"The general public wasn't allowed to get anywhere near the big screens in the hall," he said. "The police were blocking the doors and wouldn't let us through, although we had been allowed through on polling day."

Tianwu is the site of a long-running dispute between local officials and residents over rental income nearby Hualong quarry, which had been paid out to the registered lease-holders of the land used for the business.

Repeated calls to local CCP secretary Zhang Xinhua and incumbent village chief Tian Xinwu rang unanswered on Wednesday.

Chinese authorities must stop harassing formerly imprisoned journalist Lu Yuyu, founder of Not News, and allow him to live where he wishes and travel freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Chinese national security officers in Guangzhou city broke into Lu’s apartment today and forced him to leave the city, Lu told CPJ via a messaging app. Lu told CPJ that approximately eight officers in plainclothes and uniforms forced their way into his apartment and refused to show him their identifications. The officers asked Lu to deactivate his account on Twitter. “They said if I don’t shut up on Twitter, they would have to keep harassing me,” Lu said. When Lu told the officers that he had deleted most of the sensitive tweets, one officer said, “’It’s because you have clout. If you cancel your Twitter account, no one will harass you again,’” Lu told CPJ.

“It’s time for Chinese authorities to stop harassing journalist Lu Yuyu and let him get on with his life,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Lu has committed no crime and his continued abuse by Chinese authorities only exposes their lawless and arbitrary behavior.”

Lu was sentenced to four years in prison in 2017, after documenting demonstrations against land grabs, wage disputes, pollution, and alleged government corruption across the country on his blog Not News with another journalist, Li Tingyu. He suffered beatings in prison and has been repeatedly harassed since he was freed last year, as CPJ has reported.

Since Lu’s release from prison in June 2020, police have been tracking him wherever he goes and forcing him to relocate, as well as warning him to stop circumventing the country’s internet firewall, according to an interview he gave The Wall Street Journal in November. While Chinese diplomats often use the social media platform to carry out propaganda campaigns and defend Chinese Communist Party policies, Twitter is blocked in the country. Some Chinese citizens use virtual private networks (VPNs) to access it. In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 50 people have been jailed for their posts on the platform.

Nearly every main voice of dissent in Hong Kong is now in jail or exile, after Hong Kong police charged 47 pro-democracy campaigners and politicians with conspiracy to commit subversion. All face life in prison if convicted.

The group comprises most of the 55 people arrested last month, over primary polls held last year, in a dawn raid that marked the single biggest operation conducted under the controversial and draconian national security law.

On Sunday, the police force said all but eight had been charged with a single count, and would be detained ahead of court mentions on Monday morning.

The European Union’s office in Hong Kong said the charges made clear that “legitimate political pluralism will no longer be tolerated in Hong Kong”, and called for the immediate release of the detainees. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused authorities of using the national security law to silence critics, called for all charges to be dropped.

Those arrested include young campaigners, activists, and local councillors, as well as established politicians such as Claudia Mo, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick and Ray Chan. The activist and former politician Joshua Wong is already in jail, serving 13 months on protest-related charges.

The mass charge had been feared since the individuals were told on Friday to report to police a month earlier than previously instructed. Many began making preparations on the expectation they would be charged and denied bail, including spending time with family, arranging care for their pets, and buying comfortable clothes for prison.

Local media reported the Democratic party legislators James To and Roy Kwong, and the American lawyer John Clancey, were among the eight not charged on Sunday. Clancey told reporters his bail was extended to 4 May, and said Hong Kong was increasingly like living in a detention centre, “with the freedoms and rights of people being constrained more and more”. Speaking outside the police station before going inside, Jimmy Sham, a key organiser of the 2019 protests, said they would remain strong and continue fighting. “Democracy is never a gift from heaven. It must be earned by many with strong will,” he said. “We can tell the whole world, under the most painful system, Hon

Many of those charged left messages to their supporters on social media.

The charge is the first for Claudia Mo, 64, a former journalist and outspoken pro-democracy legislator who resigned with colleagues in protest last year. “I maybe physically feeble, but I’m mentally sturdy,” she wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

“No worries. We all love Hong Kong yah.”

Chu said he was grateful to the people of Hong Kong for the opportunity to contribute, and was “deeply honoured” to be charged over their common ideals.

The former legislator Kwok Ka-ki said: “Prisons can isolate us, but they cannot stop us from connecting with each other and taking care of each other; chains can lock our bodies but can’t hold our minds and souls!

“Stay calm and carry on. This too shall pass! Remember: it is not hope to hold on, it is persistence to have hope!”

The charges stem from unofficial primaries held last year by the pan-democrat camp in an attempt to find the strongest candidates to run in Hong Kong’s election and win a majority in the legislative council. The mass protest movement of 2019 and the brutal crackdown by authorities had driven greater support towards the pro-democracy side of politics, and in district council elections in late 2019 they won the vast majority of seats. More than 600,000 Hongkongers turned out to vote in the polls.

But at the time of the arrests, the Hong Kong security secretary, John Lee, told local media those arrested had aimed to “paralyse” the city’s government with their plan to win the election and block legislation. He referred to an earlier published editorial by the organiser of the primaries, the legal scholar Benny Tai, as evidence of a premeditated and “vicious” plan to “sink Hong Kong into an abyss”.

In an earlier social media post on Sunday, Tai wrote: “My chance of bail won’t be too great.”

The election was ultimately postponed for a year, ostensibly because of the pandemic. Since that time, the Beijing and Hong Kong governments have introduced numerous new impediments to opposition candidates winning, or even running in the elections. Last week, they announced rules requiring all politicians and candidates pledge an oath of loyalty to the rule of the Chinese Communist party and swear not to act against the government, or face disqualification.

Officials said the new laws would ensure that only “patriots” could govern Hong Kong, with one spelling out that patriotism meant loyalty to the Communist party.

The laws are the latest efforts by authorities to wipe out dissent in Hong Kong, using the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing last June, with the blessing of the Hong Kong government. At least 99 people have been arrested under the law so far, which is broadly defined to outlaw acts of subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism.

A court in Hong Kong on Tuesday denied an application for bail from jailed democracy activists Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam pending their appeal against their sentence on charges related to "illegal assembly" during a mass siege of police headquarters on June 21, 2019.

Chow, who looked thinner and paler than in previous court appearances, wiped away tears in court as High Court judge Andrew Chan said he would be referring the case to the Court of Appeal, effectively denying the application for bail.

Some supporters shouted out encouragement to Chow, while Lam made the five-finger gesture of the 2019 pro-democracy movement representing five demands made by protesters, including fully democratic elections, an amnesty for jailed protesters, and accountability for police violence.

The hearing was also attended by outspoken Cardinal Joseph Zen. Police officers cordoned off the area around the court entrance with traffic barriers, and journalists weren't allowed to get close enough to take photos.

Lawyers for Lam and Chow later said the pair will both serve out their sentences, with Lam due to be released in April and Chow in June.

Chow, 24, was sentenced to seven months' imprisonment in Dec. 2 after pleading guilty to charges relating to "illegal assembly."

She was taken after sentencing to the medium-security Lo Wu Correctional Institution near the border with mainland China, but was later transferred to the Tai Lam Women's Correctional Institution, a Category A facility.

Category A prisoners, of whom there are only a few hundred in a city of seven million, are often people who have been convicted of murder or drug trafficking.

Fellow activist and former 2014 student leader Joshua Wong, who co-founded the now-disbanded political party Demosisto with Chow, is also believed to have been placed in Category A.

Fellow activists Joshua Wong, 24, and Lam, 26, were jailed for 13-and-a-half-months and seven months respectively by the West Kowloon District Court on Dec. 2, 2020.

All three defendants pleaded guilty to charges of "inciting others to take part in an illegal assembly" and "taking part in an illegal assembly," and their sentences were reduced in recognition of the guilty plea.

Oaths of allegiance

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong authorities are gearing up to require sitting members of the District Council to take an oath of allegiance to Hong Kong.

Secretary for mainland and constitutional affairs Eric Tsang said politicians whose oaths were deemed "insincere" would be stripped of their seats on the council.

Pro-democracy candidates swept to a landslide victory in the last District Council elections in November 2019, which came after several months of mass protest over Hong Kong's vanishing freedoms.

"The law will fulfill the constitutional responsibility of the government," Tsang said.

"You cannot say that you are patriotic but you do not love the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party or you do not respect it - this does not make sense," Tsang added. "Patriotism is holistic love."

The move came a day after a top ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in charge of Hong Kong said that only patriots should be allowed to hold public office.

Under the draft legislation, any district councilor who fails the loyalty test will be sent to court for formal disqualification, and banned from taking part in elections for five years.

Mass disqualifications

Political commentators have warned that the authorities are gearing up for the mass disqualification of opposition politicians from the council, who currently hold nearly 90 percent of seats.

Tsang said four district councilors -- Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, Fergus Leung, and Tat Cheng -- have already been earmarked for disqualification.

“The returning officers at the time have already concluded that the four do not genuinely uphold the Basic Law. So theoretically speaking, they won’t be qualified to stay on as district councillors," Tsang told reporters in comments reported by government broadcaster RTHK.

A recent poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) found that several different measures of freedom in Hong Kong were at their lowest level since the handover.

Academic freedom, freedom of association, and freedom of movement all dropped to their lowest ebb in a survey carried out in early February 2021, while press freedom and freedom of speech also returned low scores.

HKPORI deputy chief executive Chung Kim-wah said the freedom of movement figure reflects people's concerns over growing entry and exit controls at Hong Kong's borders, particularly after China said it would no longer recognize the British National Overseas (BNO) passport.

"First they were talking about countermeasures and non-recognition, and then we had the announcement that the BNO wouldn't be accepted as a travel document any more," Chung told RFA. "There were also rumors that there would be restrictions on people trying to leave."

"Our survey conducted at the beginning of this month reflects people's feelings on the BNO [issue]," he said.

Following the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong, the U.K. launched an immigration scheme for BNO passport-holders that offers a potential pathway to work, study, and eventual citizenship to around five million of Hong Kong's seven million residents, drawing Beijing's ire.

Crackdown on dissent, opposition

The CCP imposed the draconian National Security Law for Hong Kong on the city from July 1, 2020, ushering in a crackdown on peaceful dissent and political opposition.

The law was described as "one of the greatest threats to human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover" by legal experts at Georgetown University's Asian Law Center.

The report found that the authorities "have made vigorous use of the [law] over the past seven months, with over 100 arrests by the newly-created national security department in the Hong Kong police force."

"The vast majority of initial ... arrests would not be considered national security cases in other liberal constitutional jurisdictions," the report said.

It said there are "serious concerns" that the law is being used to suppress the basic political rights of Hong Kong residents.

"Prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights to free expression, association, or assembly ... violate Hong Kong and Beijing’s commitments under international human rights law," it said.

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have hauled in a rights activist for questioning after he started a signature campaign in support of mass popular protests against the military coup in Myanmar.

State security police in Guangdong's Huizhou city summoned activist Xiao Yuhui for repeated interrogations starting Feb. 18 and continuing into this week, RFA has learned.

The summons came after Xiao posted to a number of groups on the social media app WeChat condemning the Myanmar military coup.

"Xiao Yuhui was summoned to the police station ... he was there about half an hour [that time]," a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named told RFA.

"He's back home now, but the state security police have him in their sights, and they call him in at random," the person said.

Xiao, who was interrogated by police from the Luoxi district police station in Guangzhou, Hengli district police station in Dongguan, and Huizhou municipal police department, is now being pressured to remain in or near his home.

While in Huizhou city, some 30 kilometers away from his home in Hengli district, on Monday night, Xiao received repeated phone calls from officers at his local Yuantongqiao police station asking him to report to them.

Xiao made the trip home, eventually arriving in the early hours of Tuesday, where he was forced to write the guarantee before being released.

Dissident Wang Aizhong, who is based in Guangdong's provincial capital, Guangzhou, said she had heard similar news of Xiao.

"It was about supporting the people of Myanmar [against the coup]," Wang said. "I didn't see it personally."

Targeted before

She said Xiao has been targeted by state security police before.

"He was detained and held under criminal detention for several months at one point, so he's no stranger to being asked to 'drink tea'," she said, in a slang reference to being summoned by state security police.

Xiao, who was called back in by police on Tuesday morning, declined to comment when contacted by RFA following his release.

"Sorry, it's not convenient right now," he said, using a phrase often used by activists to indicate pressure from the authorities.

Rights activists said a number of WeChat users across China, including Qingyuan, Shenzhen, Jieyang, and other Guangdong cities, have been treated similarly since Feb. 18, for adding their names to Xiao's signature campaign.

A friend of Xiao's who asked to remain anonymous said the authorities had responded very quickly to Xiao's posts.

"He posted to the group calling for solidarity with Myanmar and the protests against the military coup," the friend said. "He got the call [from police] ... within hours [of posting]."

Xiao's earlier detention was linked to his online support for the Hong Kong protest movement.

He was detained by Guangdong police alongside an unnamed woman after he retweeted a WeChat on May 27, 2020 referring to an online letter-writing campaign by Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper the Apple Daily, in opposition to the national security law.

The draconian law was imposed on the city on July 1, 2020, and outlaws sedition, subversion, foreign interference, and activities supporting independence for Hong Kong.

It is currently being enforced by a newly established state security branch of the Hong Kong police, alongside a branch of China's feared state security police.

The woman was subsequently released on bail pending trial, but Xiao was held under criminal detention at the Huicheng district police station in Huizhou.

A veteran activist, Xiao has also previously helped vulnerable groups to defend their rights, as well as families targeted by family planning officials under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s "one-child" policy.

Chinese authorities should account for the death of a Tibetan tour guide serving a 21-year sentence for reporting protests in his native region seven years ago, Human Rights Watch said today.

Kunchok Jinpa, 51, died in a hospital in Lhasa in the Tibetan Autonomous Region on February 6, 2021, less than three months after being transferred there from prison without his family's knowledge. Local sources said he had suffered a brain hemorrhage and was paralyzed.

“Kunchok Jinpa’s death is yet another grim case of a wrongfully imprisoned Tibetan dying from mistreatment,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Chinese authorities responsible for arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the death of people in their custody should be held accountable.”

There had been no news of Kunchok Jinpa’s whereabouts since his detention in 2013. New information indicates that the authorities detained Kunchok Jinpa on November 8, 2013, providing his family no information on his whereabouts, and later convicted him of leaking state secrets for passing information to foreign media about local environmental and other protests in his region. His 21-year sentence is unparalleled for such an offense, and no information about his trial or conviction had been publicly available outside China until now.

The authorities moved him from a prison – believed to be the regional prison at Nyetang [Ch.: Nidang], near Lhasa – to a hospital in that city in November 2020. His family learned on January 29 that he was to undergo emergency treatment. Several then went to give blood at the hospital, but were unable to see him. He died in the hospital on February 6.

Kunchok Jinpa was a resident of Village No. 5 in Chaktse (Ch: Qiaze) township in Driru, a county in Nagchu prefecture (now municipality), about 300 kilometers north of Lhasa, the regional capital. He was one among reportedly hundreds of Tibetans from Driru detained after a series of peaceful protests in October 2013 against official demands that villagers fly Chinese flags from every house.

He is believed to have provided information via social media or directly to Tibetan media outside China about a protest in May 2013 against planned mining on a sacred mountain, Naklha Dzamba, together with the names of those detained for involvement in the protest.

People from his area, now in exile, reported that in his final communication on his WeChat micro-blogging account in April 2013, he wrote: “I am now at the bank of a river. There are many people behind me watching me, and I am sure to be arrested. Even if they arrest me, I am not afraid, even if they kill me, I have no regrets. But from now on, I will not be able to give reports. If there is no word from me, that means I have been arrested.”

United Nations standards adopted by the UN General Assembly set out that all death-in-custody cases should be subjected to “prompt, impartial and effective investigations into the circumstances and causes” of the death.

As the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions has noted, since there is a presumption of state responsibility due to the custodial setting, and the government’s obligation to ensure and respect the right to life, the government has to affirmatively provide evidence to rebut the presumption of state responsibility. Absent proof that it is not responsible, the government has an obligation to provide reparations to the family of the deceased.

The Chinese government also has rules dealing with deaths in custody. These require the police to “immediately conduct” an investigation into the cause of death by viewing and preserving the surveillance video of the detention cell, and questioning fellow detainees, doctors, and guards, among other measures.

Kunchok Jinpa, whose father’s name is Sonam Wangden and mother’s name is Pelha, had become a monk as a child at the Gom Gonsar monastery (Choekor Jampaling) in Driru. In October 1989, he traveled via Nepal to India, where he studied for about 18 months at the Changchubling monastery in Dehra Dun, the seat in exile of the Drikung Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.

From April 1991 until his graduation in 1996, he studied as a layman at a school run by the Tibetan exile community at Suja in Himachal Pradesh. He undertook further studies at the elite Higher Tibetan Studies Institute in Varanasi, and became proficient in English and Hindi, as well as Chinese and Tibetan.

He returned to Tibet in about 1998 and took up work as a tour guide. According to a close associate, he was well regarded in his community for his stress on the importance of economic development and education. He made several return visits to India, including a final visit in 2012, when he attended the Kalachakra ceremony given by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, in Bodh Gaya.

During the crackdown by security forces on the 2013 protests in Driru, there were reports of firing on unarmed protesters, mass arrests, dozens sentenced on political charges of up to 18 years, and several deaths in custody. Human Rights Watch recently received information that more than 1,325 local people were detained at that time, of whom about 670 were eventually sentenced and imprisoned, although this cannot be confirmed.

Since Kunchok Jinpa’s arrest and imprisonment, little information about the situation in Driru has been available outside China. On February 4, the exile newspaper Tibet Express, based in India, reported for the first time that another Tibetan from Driru, Namdak, about 34, from Meri village in the Tsala area, had been sentenced to 13 years in around July 2013 for assisting Tibetans trying to travel to India. Chinese authorities have not allowed Namdak any visitors for the past two years, reportedly because he is suffering from a contagious disease, and his present condition is not known.

The newspaper also said that up to seven other Tibetans were given 13-year prison sentences in related cases at that time, but their names, ages, and the charges against them remain unknown.

In August 2020, Lhamo, a mother of three from the same locality, died from injuries inflicted in custody there. She had been detained along with her cousin Tenzin Tharpa, apparently accused of sending money to relatives in India.

A collective statement from UN human rights experts in June underlined the need for an independent investigation of the range of human rights violations by the Chinese government. They expressed grave concern over China’s failures to respect human rights and abide by its international obligations, and recommended the establishment of an impartial and independent UN mechanism to monitor and report on abuses “in view of the urgency of the situations” in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

“For decades Chinese officials have gotten away with detaining people without basis and mistreating them, including to near death,” Richardson said. “Those officials cannot be relied on to investigate these violations, so there is an urgent need for an independent, international investigation by UN human rights experts.”

Police from the eastern Chinese province of Shandong have detained a prominent women's rights activist in Beijing, detaining her thousands of miles away from her home, after she accepted a prize on behalf of jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong.

Li Qiaochu was taken away by police from Shandong's Linyi county after they requested a meeting with her in Beijing's Haidian district, according to a post to her Twitter account on Feb. 5.

The call came after Li accepted the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write award on behalf of her partner, the jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong, and hours after she had tweeted her reaction to learning that Xu had been tortured in prison.

Li is currently being held in the police-run Linyi Detention Center, the writers' group PEN America said in a statement on its website, adding that she was detained on suspicion of "subversion of state power."

"This is an appalling escalation in the attempt to silence and punish Li Qiaochu for continuing to speak out about Xu’s case and about her own treatment at the hands of state security services," the group's CEO Suzanne Nossel said.

"It may also represent an attempt to increase the pressure on Xu himself by targeting his loved ones."

Nossel described Li as a "woman of tremendous courage and conviction."

"She is being treated like a criminal for refusing to relent as her partner is detained and abused ... we call for her immediate release, and we insist the police stop pursuing these spurious charges," she said.

In December, police forced Li into house arrest and threatened to detain her if she kept speaking out about Xu’s case, according to PEN America.

Li was detained in February 2020 and released on bail on June 19, 2020 after being detained incommunicado under "residential surveillance at a designated location.

Amnesty International said at the time that she was herself at risk of torture.

Help for women, workers

Li worked to find accommodation for thousands of migrant workers forcibly evicted from their homes by authorities in Beijing during a bitterly cold winter in 2017.

She also played an active role in China's #MeToo movement, collating and publishing reports online of sexual harassment and abuse.

After the pandemic struck, Li joined a volunteer team that handed out free masks to sanitation workers in Beijing, and helped pregnant women in quarantine areas to find doctors.

She also worked to support victims of domestic violence, which saw a nationwide spike after hundreds of millions of people were placed under draconian quarantine lockdowns in central China.

Li was summoned by police and held for questioning for 24 hours on Dec. 31 as part of a nationwide operation targeting a group of activists who met in the southeastern port city of Xiamen on Dec. 13.

Xu Zhiyong, who founded the New Citizens' Movement, is also being held by state security police on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" after he called on President Xi Jinping to resign.

Xu, who had already served jail time for his spearheading of the New Citizens' Movement anti-corruption campaign, penned an open letter to Xi while in hiding following an earlier meeting in Xiamen, calling on him to step down.

Authorities in Beijing have demolished the studio of artist Wang Peng in a move he says is likely linked to a planned exhibit featuring the late Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang, who tried to warn the world about the coronavirus pandemic.

A demolition team arrived outside Wang's studio in Beijing's Pinggu district on Friday morning, escorted by police officers, disturbing the family.

"They have demolished my house during a pandemic," he told RFA. "The district mayor said the demolition order came from higher up, from Beijing [municipal government]."

"I was about to pray ... when these police officers suddenly burst in like gangsters and started shoving me around, and they stopped my wife, son, and friends from shooting video," he said.

Wang said he thought the order was likely linked to his plans to hold an exhibit about Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who died of COVID-19 after been warned off speaking out about the extent of the initial outbreak in his city.

"The state security police said I was an 'unstable factor,' so they are doing various things to target me," he said. "The background to this is Li Wenliang."

Wang said the state security police had found out about the planned exhibit, and called to warn him not to proceed.

"They said I would be bringing China into disrepute," Wang said. "Now they have demolished [my studio], because they said it was an illegal structure."

"The political situation is getting to the point of madness," he said.

The demolition came after Wang received a demolition notice on Jan. 23 from the the Xinggu sub-district of Pinggu district government.

It informed him that he would receive no compensation, and would have to have the debris left behind by the demolition gang removed at his own expense.

Repeated calls to the Xingguo subdistrict offices and the Pinggu district government rang unanswered during office hours on Friday.

Political retaliation

Beijing-based rights activist Ni Yulan, who has been hounded from several rented homes by the authorities for helping evictees lodge complaints with the government, said the demolition of Wang's studio was a form of political retaliation for his activism.

She said Wang had already angered the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with earlier artworks hitting out at its family planning policies.

"The forced demolition was directly related to the concerns he raised about family planning," Ni said.

"Otherwise, why didn't they say anything when he built the place; why did they take so long to look into it?"

Wang's recent work has included installations and a book referencing the violence employed by government family planning officials to stay within birth quotas.

He built the studio with two million yuan of his savings on land leased from the local village committee in 2008. The lease runs until 2028.

In 2014, Beijing state security police evicted Wang and his family from their home in Beijing's Songzhuang Artists' Village.

Li Wenliang was among a group of eight doctors who first sounded the alarm on Dec. 30 about the emergence of a mystery virus in Wuhan that seemed similar to SARS.

The authorities detained and questioned eight of the doctors on Jan. 3, including Li Wenliang, who later died of the virus, accusing them of "rumor-mongering."

One year after Li's death authorities in the central province of Hubei are keeping his family under tight surveillance and restrictions.

A Chinese businesswoman was sentenced to three years’ jail on Tuesday, according to her supporters, after she spoke out in defence of dissident law professor Xu Zhangrun , who has openly criticised the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping . Geng Xiaonan , 46, and her husband Qin Zhen, as well as employees of her private publishing company, stood trial at the Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing after the couple were detained in September and investigated for “illegal business operations”.

There was a heavy police presence outside the court and supporters said they were barred from entering. Friends including Xu and activists Ji Feng and Yan Zhengxue were stopped by the authorities from leaving their homes to attend the hearing.

The trial was broadcast live by the Haidian court but footage was taken down from its website after it was viewed more than 80,000 times and it did not release a statement on the case.

After asking the court to disregard her legal defence, Geng pleaded guilty to charges including conducting illegal business activities, according to a video of the trial that was captured and posted online.

In pleading guilty, Geng asked the court for leniency in the cases of her husband and staff, saying they had been “forced to carry out orders from their boss”. She also contradicted her legal defence and claimed to have been “the sole proprietor and decision maker” of the publishing company since 2001.

“I would really appreciate it if the court would be lenient on them and target all of the sentencing burden on me alone,” Geng said.

She also asked the court to consider giving her a lighter sentence on humanitarian grounds since she is the only child of, and supports, her disabled war veteran father who lives alone.

Qin, Geng’s husband, was sentenced to 2½ years in prison, suspended for three years.

A number of Geng’s supporters, including prominent liberal intellectual Guo Yuhua, went to the Haidian court but were blocked from entering. Witnesses said more than a dozen police vehicles were parked outside the court, and Geng’s lawyers had been warned not to speak to the media. Dissident Ji said he had been told by state security personnel on Monday evening to stay at home the next day. “Two officers came to my house in the morning and stopped me from leaving. The same thing happened to Xu Zhangrun ,” Ji said by phone.

He said Geng had been indicted over illegal business activities involving 200,000 copies of mostly cookery books for which the full publishing rights had not been obtained.

“‘Illegal business activities’ is just an alternative charge to ‘inciting state subversion’ when it comes to entrepreneurs who are critical of China’s political ecology,” Ji said. “The purpose is to intimidate, silence and cut off all social networks they have with political dissidents in a bid to isolate them.”

Geng, who is also an art curator and film producer, was detained, along with her husband, two months after she had spoken out in support of Xu. He had been detained by police for “patronising prostitutes” during a trip which Geng organised for a group of academics including Xu to the southwestern city of Chengdu last year.

Xu, who has since been released but cannot leave Beijing, denies the charges and has hired lawyers to clear his name. After he was detained, Xu was sacked by Tsinghua University in Beijing where he had taught law for 20 years. The university also accused Xu of publishing articles since mid-2018 that “seriously violated” its code of conduct. Xu, 57, has written a series of articles criticising the authorities in recent years, taking aim at Communist Party leaders over the decision to remove the two-term limit on the presidency – allowing Xi to remain as president after 2023 – and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yesterday, national security officers of the Hong Kong Police Force arrested Wan on four charges of “doing an act with a seditious intention,” a criminal offense under the territory’s colonial-era sedition law, according to news reports.

Wan, who broadcasts under the name “Giggs,” hosts a show on the internet radio channel D100 that reports and comments on political issues in mainland China and Hong Kong, including on the arrest of Apple Daily newspaper founder Jimmy Lai. D100 is an independent station that has about 510,000 followers on its YouTube channel and about 59,000 followers on its Facebook page.

If convicted of sedition, Wan could face a fine of up to $5,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$644) and up to two years in jail for a first offense, and up to three years in jail for subsequent offenses, according to Hong Kong’s Crimes Ordinance.

“Hong Kong authorities’ use of sedition charges against radio host Wan Yiu-sing amounts to a government assault on press freedom and freedom of speech,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Wan should be freed with all charges dropped, and the government should halt its ridiculous efforts to block political criticism by journalists.”

The charges stem from comments Wan made on four shows between August and October 2020, which police allege had an intent to incite hatred or contempt towards the People’s Republic of China and the Hong Kong government, and to instigate Hong Kongers to illegally seek changes to the city’s lawful orders, according to news reports.

The Hong Kong Police Force did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Wan felt unwell in police custody last night and has been hospitalized, according to reports. He was originally scheduled to attend a court hearing today, but it has been adjourned to February 11, according to those reports.

Journalists in Hong Kong have faced increasing repression and harassment since the passage of the new national security law on July 1, 2020, as CPJ has documented. On December 11, Hong Kong authorities charged Lai with foreign collusion under that law.

Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) terminated journalist Nabela Qoser’s three-year civil service contract, citing an ongoing investigation into her reporting as justification. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), condemn the political interference in RTHK and calls for the journalist to be fully reinstated.

The 35-year-old program officer for RTHK regularly aimed hard-hitting questions to Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and other government officials in the live-streamed press conferences during the months-long pro-democracy protests in 2019. Her work, particularly, also drew the ire of pro-government supporters.

RTHK later launched an investigation into Qoser’s conduct after receiving complaints but cleared her of any wrongdoing. However, the public broadcaster reopened a probe into Qoser’s case in September 2020, and her probation period as a civil servant was extended by 120 days until the end of January 2021.

On January 21, Qoser was informed by RTHK that her civil service contract was being terminated, and she was offered a three-month short-term contract instead. Qoser has already completed her three-year probationary services.

On January 28, more than 60 RTHK employees protested outside the public broadcaster’s headquarters against the unfair treatment of their colleague. Qoser later accepted the short-term contract.

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have struck off a human rights lawyer after he tried to represent one of the 12 Hong Kong protesters detained by the China Coast Guard as they tried to flee to the democratic island of Taiwan.

Ren Quanniu received a notice from the Henan provincial bureau of judicial affairs on Tuesday informing him that his license to practice had been revoked on the grounds that he "used a cult to undermine the law" in November 2018.

The letter said Ren had "seriously damaged the image of the legal profession" after he defended a member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been designated an "evil cult" by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Ren said he didn't believe the reason stated in the letter was the main factor behind the decision, however.

"One factor was my involvement in the Hong Kong 12 case, which was much deeper [than in the other case]," he told RFA on Tuesday. "The other was [my defense of citizen journalist] Zhang Zhan."

"I gave a lot of media interviews about those two cases, so I think they are more likely to have been the main reasons," Ren said.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have already suspended the license of fellow rights attorney Lu Siwei, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

'Inappropriate remarks'

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

None of the attorneys hired by the families of the 12 detainees was allowed to see their clients, who had lawyers appointed for them by the local government instead.

Ren also defended Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in December 2020 for posting reports from Wuhan during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the city.

She was found guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on the basis that she had published "false information" about the pandemic on social media sites.

Ren had given media interviews detailing her physical condition as she engaged in a hunger strike in protest at her treatment.

No regrets

Ren, who is now effectively barred from working as a lawyer in China, said he has no regrets, however.

"I think that rights lawyers in mainland China should stand with the people of Hong Kong, even if it means that they wind up losing their licenses," Ren said. "Hong Kong people have always been at the forefront of Chinese people's hopes for their own society."

"So many paid a heavy price and were arrested, and the [authorities'] persecution [of activists] has been pretty serious," he said. "I had no hesitation [in taking the case] and felt we should do our best to help them."

Hong Kong rights lawyer Albert Ho, who heads the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, said the suspension of Lu and Ren's licenses are the latest in a long litany of actions taken by the CCP against human rights lawyers in China, starting with a nationwide police operation in July 2015.

"If lawyers have no protection for their own rights, then how can they defend their clients' rights?" Ho said. "How does one defend disadvantaged groups who have no legal knowledge at all?"

"Things are moving towards a state of lawlessness [in China], slowly inching back towards the Cultural Revolution," he said, in a reference to an era of political violence and social turmoil from 1966 to 1976 under late supreme leader Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four.

On January 16, 10 minutes prior to boarding a high-speed train (D2655) to visit the parents of Lawyer Chang Weiping (their client), two human rights lawyers Chen Keyun and Xie Yang disappeared. Recently, Lawyer Chang's parents had demonstrated against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials' secretive imprisonment and torture of their son.

At 11:15 am, January 16 (Beijing time), human rights lawyer Xie Yang texted his location to Chen Guiqiu, his wife: Xi’an North Station. At approximately 10 pm, when Ms. Chen phoned both Lawyer Xie and Lawyer Chen, the calls did not go through. She also phoned Mr. Xiang Xianhong a security agent in charge of Lawyer Chang’s case but he did not answer her call. Around 11 pm, Ms. Chen phoned three other security agents in Changsha, Hunan Province (Mr. Li Kewei, Mr. Li Yang, and Mr. Peng Jinsong). Although the phone calls got through to these lawyers in charge of Lawyer Xie Yang’s case, none of them answered.

Ms. Chen did not receive any information about Lawyer Xie until 6 am January 17. At that time, she learned that Lawyer Xie and Lawyer Chen Keyun had been missing for more than 22 hours.

ChinaAid strongly urges Shaanxi police: “Conform to China’s rule of law and the United Nation’s articles concerning human rights. Stop blatantly infringing on the personal rights of Lawyer Xie Yang and Lawyer Chen Keyun.

Hunan rights lawyer Xie Yang, who recently tried to visit Baoji to support Chang's family, told RFA: "We found out from Chang Weiping's wife that his parents are now under close surveillance, and that the authorities have installed CCTV cameras at the door [of their home]."

Xie said he boarded a high-speed train to Baoji along with fellow lawyer Chen Keyun, but was intercepted by state security police at the provincial capital, Xi'an, where he needed to change trains.

"No sooner had I gotten off the train than I ran into a bunch of people," Xie told RFA in a recent interview. "They claimed it was to do with the pandemic, because my health code didn't scan properly, and that I should cooperate with their investigation."

"But those people didn't look like pandemic prevention types to me; they were state security police from [the provincial capital of] Xi'an," he said. "I told them that they knew perfectly well who I was, and that I knew perfectly well who they were."

The police forced Xie and Chen to leave the high-speed rail station, confiscated their phones and ID cards, and took them to a hotel, where they were held in separate rooms.

They were told they wouldn't be allowed to continue to Baoji, and stability maintenance personnel, or "interceptors," from their hometowns of Changsha and Guangzhou were summoned to escort them back home again.

On returning to Changsha, Xie was placed under house arrest.

"They don't want this information to reach the outside world," Xie said. "There have been rumors going around that [Chang Weiping's parents] have now been detained, but ... nobody can get anywhere near [their home]."

"They are so worried that we will expose the truth," he said. "Maybe they are also worried that we might encourage more supporters to gather."

Rights groups and activists at home and abroad Friday denounced China for barring a prominent Chinese democracy and rights activist from leaving for the United States to care for his cancer-stricken wife.

They called the action “inhuman” and said China is a “fascist” state because the activist, Guo Feixiong, is a free man and the communist government has no right to restrict his travel.

Guo launched a hunger strike Thursday to protest after he was stopped at the Shanghai airport.

“I now begin my hunger strike indefinitely at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The customs have officially barred me from leaving the country on suspicion of endangering national security. I urge all the Chinese people and governments around the world to help me,” Guo wrote in a short message to VOA Thursday night, saying that he was being seized by two police officers at customs.

A brutal action

“What a brutal action by the state police and the customs,” he added.

Guo, 54, has since been unreachable, with his whereabouts unknown.

The public security bureau in Shanghai said Friday that it is unable to handle VOA’s inquiry as it is uncertain which unit made the arrest.

Prior to his departure from Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong province, Guo told VOA he is determined to join his wife, who is in the U.S. and about to begin months of chemotherapy after her cancerous colon tumors were removed during surgery earlier this month.

“I will only stop my hunger strike the minute I’m allowed to board the plane. My life will apparently hang in the hands of the state police if you’re unable to reach me at my cellphone [later]… The [police’s] move is extremely inhuman, and they have to be held legally and morally responsible for my hunger strike,” Guo told VOA a day before his planned flights Thursday.

According to Guo, local police in Guangzhou had warned him on Tuesday about attempting to travel to the U.S. They said that his travel plan was vetoed at the last minute by their higher-ups in the Ministry of Public Security, even though Guo has legally obtained all necessary travel permits from local authorities, including proof of a negative COVID-19 test. The ministry also threatened to send police to intercept him if he made it to the airport in Shanghai on Thursday, he added.

Some kind of agreement

The local police, in addition, demanded that Guo fly to his birthplace in Hubei province and talk with public security officers there to reach “some kind of agreement” – a request Guo said he flatly rejected.

It is widely speculated among Chinese rights lawyers and activists, many of whom are not free to speak, that Chinese authorities want to hold Guo hostage and keep him quiet.

“The police have absolutely no rights to deprive Guo of his freedom to travel. This is outrageous. What harm can dissidents, who travel overseas, do to endanger the regime?” a rights activist surnamed Lee told VOA on condition of anonymity.

Guo, whose real name is Yang Maodong, has been an active rights defender and political dissident since 2005. He had served a total of 11 years in prison on charges such as “picking quarrels and provoking” and “assembling a crowd to disturb order at public places.”

He was last freed from jail in late 2019 after having served a six-year sentence for his participation in a protest against the Guangzhou government’s censorship of a local liberal-leaning publication – the Southern Weekly.

However, Guo remains an outspoken dissident, who has called on Chinese President Xi Jinping to launch political reforms, abide by the country’s constitution and ensure press freedom, while urging the Chinese government to deepen its cooperation with the U.S.

To avoid China’s alleged political persecution, Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, and their two children fled to the U.S. in 2009 and have been granted political asylum there.

A group of more than 100 dissidents, led by former Tiananmen Square movement leader Wang Dan, signed a petition in support of Guo.

They said, in a press statement, that “given Guo is a free man, China has no rights to keep him from visiting his family overseas whether it is from the legal, human rights or humanitarian perspectives. China’s inhuman move has proved again that its regime is increasingly fascist.”

“We called on western governments to help Guo facilitate his trip through diplomatic avenues,” the statement read.

In particular, Wu’er Kaixi, another Tiananmen student leader who also signed the petition, called on U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration to extend a helping hand to Guo.

Calls on U.S. to take action

“President Biden has and [Secretary of State] Mr. [Antony] Blinken has also strongly reiterated their stance against China, based on values, … We want to see action following [their] very well-said statement. And we want to see action to help Guo Feixiong and that action will ratify those statements,” Wu’er told VOA.

The former Tiananmen activist, who now lives in Taipei, said that many in Taiwan are also “outraged” about China’s disapproval of Guo’s travel – a move he said “was against the minds and hearts of all mankind.”

Several other rights groups, including the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concerned Group, the U.S.-based Human Rights Lawyers of China and the Taipei-based New School for Democracy, all denounced China’s restriction on Guo’s ability to travel freely.

The restriction “is inhuman and it is also a reprisal to legal activists in China,” Du Song of the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a written reply to VOA, urging China to quickly reverse its decision.

In a press statement, the U.S.-based rights group expressed concern over Guo’s health.

“We’re deeply concerned about his health and life after he has staged another indefinite hunger strike. Guo was once on hunger strike in 2014 for a long time, which had taken a toll on his physical condition… We urge all relevant bodies [in China] to reconsider and soon greenlight his trip to take care of his wife in the U.S.” its statement read.

Authorities in the eastern province of Shandong are preparing to revoke the license of a rights lawyer who was hired to defend fellow rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues a nationwide clampdown on the legal profession.

Xi Xiangdong, who had been hired to represent Wang after his detention as part of a crackdown on the profession starting in July 2015, was notified by the Shandong provincial department of justice on Thursday that it will likely revoke his license to practise.

Wang told RFA that the authorities were likely retaliating after Xi spoke out against the mistreatment of his client Chi Shengang, an entrepreneur accused of involvement in organized crime.

"Lawyers like Xi Xiangdong tend to stick to the law when it comes to how lawyers should act, so they are likely anger some people, and suffer retaliation for that," Wang said.

He said the authorities are likely taking issue with Xi's attempts to do his job properly.

"If lawyers [like Xi] try to argue their case in court using reason, they see it as a failure to obey the judge," Wang said. "This gives them the excuse they need to retaliate against the lawyer."

According to the authorities, Xi had repeatedly ignored directions from the judge in the case, repeatedly interrupted judges and prosecutors and interfered with court proceedings.

Repeated calls to Xi's phone rang unanswered on Thursday.

"Everything [in the Chinese justice system] works to the detriment of detainees and defendants," Wang said. "Lawyers are forced to toe the line politically, and they have nowhere to turn for help, and can only rely on public opinion."

"In some cases, this means that they will disclose details of cases," he said.

'The courage to expose and criticize'

Henan-based rights lawyer Ren Quanniu, who also faces the loss of his license to practice, said he supported Xi's actions, because he was speaking out in his client's interest.

"Real lawyers have the courage to expose and criticize [the authorities]," Ren said. "You can't say they should remain silent if their clients are being treated illegally, or are in some kind of danger."

He said he fears the authorities will continue to revoke lawyers' licenses as a way of forcing them into compliance.

"Inside sources say that [the CCP] wants to deal with any lawyers who dare to speak out in public," Ren said. "[Xi] won't be the last to be warned, punished or lose his license ... we may be seeing a new purge."

Xi has the right to file an application for a disciplinary hearing, although such a hearing is unlikely to make much difference to the final outcome, according to rights lawyers.

Xi was initially hired by Wang Quanzhang's wife Li Wenzu to represent her husband following his disappearance in July 2015.

But he was later forced to drop the case after the ministry of justice threatened him with arrest.

Earlier this month, authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan suspended the license of rights attorney Lu Siwei at a disciplinary hearing, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Ren, who was hired to represent one of the Hong Kong 12 but denied access to his client along with the rest of the attorneys hired by the families, will have his disciplinary hearing on Friday.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Wednesday suspended the license of rights attorney Lu Siwei at a disciplinary hearing, citing his public comments on the case of the 12 Hong Kong activists detained at sea in August 2020.

Judicial authorities in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu moved on Jan. 4 to strike Lu off, alleging that he made "inappropriate remarks" in public about the case, thereby "breaking Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Faced with the loss of his license to practice law, Lu opted for a full hearing. He was dragged into the building by police officers on Wednesday as he showed up at the Sichuan provincial department of justice in Chengdu.

"Lawyer Lu Siwei was escorted to the justice department directly from his home in his wife's car," a lawyer at the scene, who asked to remain anonymous, told RFA on Wednesday.

"He wasn't allowed contact with anyone else, and was taken straight inside the building. His two lawyers were intercepted -- one of them got to go inside after a struggle," the lawyer said.

Xie Yanyi, who represented Lu at the hearing, dismissed the evidence brought by officials against Lu at the hearing.

"The allegations made by the investigators during the hearing over Lu Siwei's so-called violations of law and discipline were entirely fictitious; they didn't hold water," Xie told RFA.

He said the hearing had ended with the suspension of Lu's license.

"The Sichuan department of justice made no attempt to investigate the allegations, and just issued a notice of suspension of [Lu's] license without bothering to verify the details," Xie said. "It should at least have conducted a preliminary investigation."

'Illegal persecution'

He said the conduct of the hearing was tantamount to persecution.

"Everyone inside the room were insiders; this was basically a behind-closed-doors hearing," he said. "The whole process was illegal right from the start."

"Rushing to an administrative punishment in such a way ... is essentially illegal persecution," Xie said.

Consular staff sent by foreign diplomatic missions, including those of Canada, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, were also denied entry to the hearing, which was then held behind closed doors.

The lawyer said there was a strong police presence outside the building, with checkpoints at either end of the street.

"The Department of Justice has set up police checkpoints at both ends of the road," the lawyer said. "I also saw a large police vehicle outside and seven or eight smaller ones."

"There are actually not as many police officers in uniform as plainclothes ... [the plainclothes officers] are guarding the place very tightly by following people and coming forward [when they approach the building]."

Fellow rights attorney Ren Quanniu, who also faces the loss of his lawyer's license for defending another of the Hong Kong 12, Xu Yan, wife of rights attorney Yu Wensheng, were taken away by police, the lawyer said.

"There was a standoff between them and the intercepting police officers," the lawyer said. "Some people who had gotten involved in a more intense altercation were taken straight to the local police station."

"Initially, the police denied them water, but they are saying that they have now been given lunch," the lawyer said.

Large-scale purge of lawyers since 2015

Lu and Ren both received notification around New Year that their licenses were being reviewed by their local judicial affairs bureaus because they had "posted inappropriate remarks" online.

Lu, who was never allowed to visit his client Quinn Moon in Yantian Detention Center in Shenzhen, despite being hired by her family, was particularly vocal in the months following the initial detention of the 12 protesters aged 16 to 33 by the China Coast Guard on Aug. 23, repeatedly commenting about his attempts to gain access to his client, to no avail.

In a Dec. 31 notice sent to Ren, who was hired by the family of Wong Wai-yin but similarly prevented from carrying out his instructions, judicial authorities in the central province of Henan, said his license was also under review for "violating Chinese law and professional guidelines for lawyers."

Ren's hearing will be held on Jan. 19.

On Dec. 31, 2020, a court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong handed down jail terms of up to three years to 10 of the 12 Hong Kong protesters detained on Aug. 23 as they tried to flee a national security crackdown in the city, on charges linked to "illegally crossing a border."

The Yantian District People's Court in Guangdong's Shenzhen city sentenced Ren's client Tang Kai-yin to three years' imprisonment for "organizing others to cross a border illegally," while fellow activist Quinn Moon -- Lu's client -- was jailed for two years on the same charge.

Fellow defendants Cheng Tsz-ho, Cheung Chun-fu, Li Tsz-yin, Andy Li, Wong Wai-yin, Kok Tsz-Lun, Jim Man-him, and Cheung Ming-jyu were each jailed for seven months each for "illegally crossing a border" and fined 10,000 yuan each.

The remaining two detainees -- Liu Tsz-man and Hoang Lam-fuk -- were sent back to Hong Kong after the authorities said they wouldn't pursue charges against them, as they were under 18 at the time of their detention.

All 12 detainees were consistently denied access to defense attorneys hired by their families and allocated government-approved attorneys to represent them at a trial that was effectively held behind closed doors.

Since beginning a nationwide crackdown in July 2015, authorities in provinces and cities across China have conducted large-scale purges of lawyers deemed not to be toeing the party line, with hundreds losing their licenses in Hunan alone in September 2020.

On January 4, Attorney Ren Quanniu received a notice from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, employed by Henan’s department of justice, informing him that the government had revoked his license to practice law in China. Lawyer Ren believes this ruling relates to the cases of “12 Hong Kongers,” and imprisoned “Shanghai Lawyer Zhang Zhan."

On Jan. 7, the Pizhou Municipal People's Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu jailed journalist Li Xinde for five years after finding him guilty of "illegal business activity."

Li’s son Li Chao was handed a one-year jail term at the same time.

'A very dangerous business'

Li was first detained by police in October 2019 and placed in "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)," not long after he published a claim that a court in Tianjin had wrongfully convicted a businessman.

Li, an investigative reporter, founded and ran the China Public Watchdog Network, which had a focus on exposing corrupt officials.

Beijing-based rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan commented via Twitter: "To speak out on behalf of those suffering injustice in today's society, and to monitor the agencies wielding state power, is a very dangerous business."

Zhang Yu, who heads the writers' group Independent Chinese PEN, said charges of "illegal business activity" are often brought against peaceful critics of the CCP.

"The main charge used to suppress freedom of speech in China is incitement to subvert state power, but they have to show in what part of their speech or writing they did that," Zhang told RFA.

"They may use illegal business activity if what they said was particularly sensitive, or if they can't really find evidence to support [subversion] charges in what they said or wrote," Zhang said. "It has nothing to do with [the defendant] actually having conducted illegal business activity."

Former Chinese journalist and renowned critic of internet censorship Zhang Jialong was sentenced to 18 months in prison on January 8 for his remarks on social media that were allegedly aimed at "spreading false information and provoking trouble". The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the assault on freedom of speech and calls on Chinese authorities to overturn the verdict and release Zhang immediately.

The 32-year-old former journalist with Caijing, a Beijing-based magazine, and Tencent was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a broadly defined charge often levelled by the authorities against those who are critical of the Chinese government.

Zhang was jailed for 18 months, his wife Shao Yuan said after being notified by Zhang’s lawyer on January 8.

Zhang was arrested at his residence in Guiyang, Guizho Province on August 12, 2019 and has been held in police custody ever since. The authorities later accused him of spreading false information defaming the Chinese Communist Party on Twitter.

His Twitter posts related to human rights issues and internet freedoms in China.

Zhang has been detained since August and is therefore expected to be released on February 12. Nevertheless, Zhang reportedly vowed to appeal against the ruling.

Zhang has been targeted by the Chinese authorities for several years. In February 2014, hemade headlines after asking the then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to help “tear down this great firewall that blocks the Internet” during their meeting in Beijing.

He later published an op-ed in the global magazine Foreign Policy, calling on the U.S. government to deny visas to those involved in building and maintaining the Chinese great firewall of censorship. He was subsequently fired from Tencent.

On 26 December 2020, one of Yu Wensheng's defence lawyers received the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People's Court's appeal decision upholding the original verdict and sentence against the human rights defender. The appeal decision was reached before the defence lawyers had the opportunity to submit their defence statement to the court and before they were able to make copies of and review all the case files.

The appeal decision was dated 13 December 2020, but when Xu Yan, Yu Wensheng's wife, phoned the Court on 16 December, a court official told her that the Court had yet to reach a decision.

It is not yet clear when, or if, Yu Wensheng, who is currently detained at the Xuzhou Detention Centre, will be transferred to a prison. Detention centre officials have rejected Xu Yan's requests to visit him, on the pretext of COVID-19 regulations. Xu Yan has requested the authorities to; allow family visitation as soon as possible, transfer him back to Beijing where she and their child live, and guarantee him access to adequate treatment for medical conditions affecting his right hand and his teeth.

The Hong Kong police served four media organisations with court warrants requiring the handing in of internal documents related to July's primary elections on January 6. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA), expressed concern about the chilling effect that such acts will have on the press and called on Hong Kong authorities to stop harassing journalists and media organisations.

On January 6, the Hong Kong police’s national security department turned up at the offices of online news outlets StandNews and InMedia, as well as media group Next Digital and its subsidiary newspaper Apple Daily with court orders. The media organisations were reportedly asked to hand in information about the pro-democracy camp’s primary elections held in July 2020 within seven days.

The police did not search the newsrooms.

Steve Li Kwai-Wah, a senior superintendent at the National Security Division, said during a press conference on January 6 that the authorities were not seeking to obtain journalistic materials. According to Li, the police were asking the media outlets to provide assistance in the investigation.

Both Apple Daily and StandNews said they would be seeking legal advice on the matter. Editor-in-chief of StandNews Chung Pui-kuen also said he was asked not to disclose details about the court order.

This came hours after the Hong Kong authorities arrested 53 pro-democracy leaders for their involvement in the primaries last year, including former lawmakers, district councillors, activists, and scholars. The authorities said the unofficial vote to choose opposition candidates for the city’s now postponed Legislative Council elections was part of a plan to “overthrow” the government.Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam, a journalist-turned-politician who used to work with StandNews and the BBC, was one of the detainees.

According to Ho’s Facebook admin, the police searched Ho’s residence and took away business cards and electronic devices she had used when working for the BBC. Ho was released on bail late on January 7.

On 14 December 2020, Chang Weiping's parents held a protest in front of the Gaoxin branch of the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau, seeking his release and raising concerns about the risk of torture in detention. After the protest, both parents were summoned for interrogation several times. A CCTV camera was installed outside their home in Fengxiang county to monitor their movement and any visitors. Their mobile phones have since been confiscated and they are under de facto incommunicado house arrest.

One of Chang Weiping's brothers-in-law and his father-in-law also had their mobile phones confiscated. Chang Weiping's older sister was prohibited from visiting her father. Chen Zijuan, Chang Weiping's wife, has not been able to contact her father-in-law for over two weeks.

On 6 January 2021, Chen Zijuan submitted a complaint to the Baoji Municipal Procuratorate against local public security officials who visited her in Shenzhen eight times between 22 October 2020, the day Chang Weiping was detained, and 23 December 2020. The officials warned her not to conduct public advocacy for her husband. They also pressured her to delete her social media posts on Weibo about her husband's situation. The officials said she would lose her job if she defied their demands.

The two human rights lawyers who were initially hired to assist Chang Weiping had to withdraw from the case due to intense pressure from the authorities. Two new lawyers who took over the case said they could not give any media interviews due to official pressure. The new lawyers' first attempt to meet Chang Weiping was not successful. In a statement issued on 16 December 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders said the withdrawal of Chang Weiping's first lawyers was "telling of the gravity and scale of the situation faced by human rights defenders and lawyers in China.”

The Hong Kong government should not file charges against the 53 pro-democracy politicians arbitrarily arrested on January 6, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. All were arrested for “subversion” under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law (NSL), which the Chinese government imposed on June 30, 2020.

The 53 men and women arrested span the spectrum of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. They include veteran politicians and activists, such as Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung and Claudio Mo, and newcomers who joined the movement during the 2019 protests. The latter include Jeffrey Andrews, a social worker serving the city’s ethnic minority community, and Lee Chi Yung, a disability rights advocate. Many represent a broad cross-section of grassroots society long excluded from the city’s governance.

“Hong Kong authorities’ claims that discussing candidates and advocating for government action is somehow subversive is ludicrous,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s increasingly clear that Beijing’s commitment to Hong Kong’s ‘high degree of autonomy’ isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

Hong Kong police said that a public opinion poll conducted in July 2020 regarding pro-democracy candidates for an upcoming Legislative Council (LegCo) election constituted “subversion.” They said those arrested violated article 22 of the National Security Law, which states that anyone who “organizes, plans, commits or participates” in “seriously interfering, disrupting or undermining” the performance of the Hong Kong or central government bodies are subject to a penalty of up to life in prison for “principal offenders.” Among the 53 arrested, police said, six were organizers.

The legal definitions of “subversion” and other NSL crimes are overly broad and vague, and can include the peaceful exercise of human rights, enshrined in Hong Kong’s de facto constitution, the Basic Law. These rights are also protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is incorporated into Hong Kong’s legal framework via the Basic Law and expressed in the Bill of Rights Ordinance.

All but one of those arrested are being released on bail. Charges have yet to be brought against the 53, though they have to surrender their passports as a condition of bail. The prosecution said that Wu Chi-wai, former chairman of the Democratic Party, has kept one of his passports even though he was ordered to surrender his travel documents as part of bail conditions in an earlier case. Wu remains detained.

In addition, the police have frozen HK$1.6 million (US$206,000) in connection with the poll and delivered court warrants to four news organizations that require them to hand over information to the police for investigation. Hong Kong police should release Wu immediately, lift all bail conditions, and return everyone’s travel documents, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the Chinese government imposed the National Security Law in June, the authorities have intimidated and arbitrarily arrested pro-democracy activists, and encouraged people to report on one another to remove pro-democracy figures from key sectors of society, including education, the media, and civil service.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government have also accelerated their assault on the previously semi-democratic LegCo. Since 2016, they have disqualified pro-democracy activists from running for seats or unseated them after they were elected. Following the passage of the National Security Law, the Hong Kong government delayed the September 2020 LegCo elections for a year. Beijing then expelled four pro-democracy members of the legislature, leading other pro-democracy legislators to resign in protest. The arrests of the 53 politicians appears part of Beijing’s increasing actions to exert full control over the LegCo, Human Rights Watch said.

Concerned governments, including the United Kingdom, European Union countries, and the incoming Biden administration in the United States, should press for appointment of a United Nations special mandate holder to monitor and report on Hong Kong’s human rights developments, Human Rights Watch said. They should also impose coordinated targeted sanctions on officials responsible for violating the human rights of people in Hong Kong. Legislators around the world should express solidarity with their Hong Kong counterparts.

“Governments should urgently take concerted and concrete actions to ensure that Beijing pays a price for its escalating abusive behavior,” Wang said. “Standing with Hong Kong’s democrats needs to be more than a rhetorical commitment.”

Authorities in Qinghai province in northwestern China last month detained a Tibetan woman known for her online advocacy of democracy and the rule of law, holding her for 10 days before releasing her under continuing surveillance, Tibetan sources say.

Tsering Tso, who had drawn police attention with her postings on the social media platform WeChat, was taken into custody at her home in the provincial capital Xining on Nov. 12 and brought by 10 officers to a detention center in Trika (in Chinese, Guide) county, an India-based Tibetan rights group said this week.

“In addition to surviving only on steamed buns and boiled water during her detention, she was subjected to ill-treatment and intimidation,” the Tibetan Centre For Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said, adding that detaining officers had hoped to pressure her to give up her advocacy work.

“By detaining people like Tsering Tso, the Chinese government is violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed and agreed to abide by. However, China is inflicting many other policies on Tibetans in Tibet that violate international laws,” TCHRD researcher Tenzin Dawa said.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one of some 60 rights instruments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948.

With the approach of the annual UN Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, estimates of political prisoners in Tibet range from more than 500 in U.S. Congressional reports to more than 2,000 in a database kept by the TCHRD.

“Tibetan political prisoners endure harsh prison conditions, including torture, deprivation of food and sleep, and long periods in isolation cells,” said the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, which notes that “opaque” Chinese record keeping makes it hard to determine how many are being held.

“In the current political climate imposed by Chinese authorities, even the most mild expressions of Tibetan cultural or religious identity can be punished by torture and arrest,” says the ICT.

One of the most famous prisoners of conscience is Tibet’s Panchen Lama, who vanished into Chinese custody as a young boy 25 years ago and has not been heard from since.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was recognized on May 14, 1995 at the age of six as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 10th Panchen Lama.

The recognition by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama angered Chinese authorities, who promptly took the boy and his family into custody and then installed another boy, Gyaincain Norbu, as their own candidate in his place.

The ranks of Tibet’s political prisoners include numerous monks, scholars, educators, and artists.

Beaten by police

Tsering Tso had also served a period of detention in 2017 after petitioning for the rights of Tibetans to apply for passports, during which she was physically assaulted by a security officer named Jamga who kicked her in the head, face, chest, and abdomen, leaving her hospitalized for her injuries, TCHRD said.

Police officers in November gave no reason for her detention following a trip she made to Thailand, Tso told RFA’s Mandarin Service in an interview.

“There were no concrete reasons for my arrest,” Tso said, adding, “But while I was returning from Thailand, I had a feeling they would arrest me, and I think they had already planned this from the beginning.”

“Finally, on Nov. 2, I was accused of violating the law by sending two message on WeChat related to issues of ‘stability,’ and I was detained for 10 days. I have no idea how my postings might have threatened stability,” Tso said.

A Nov. 13 announcement by the Trika county Public Security Bureau said that Tso had been charged with disseminating discussions of “provocative issues” on social media, adding that she would be fined and held in administrative detention for 10 days.

Tsering Tso had regularly written on topics like democracy and the rule of law on her social media platforms, Dawa told RFA in an interview. “But the Chinese government has always threatened people who speak up about these things.”

Reached for comment on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, “We continue to press the [People’s Republic of China] to respect the freedom of speech and beliefs of its own people, and in particular those who seek to protect Tibet’s unique religion, language, and culture.”

Tibetan researcher held

A Tibetan researcher at Tibet University in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa has meanwhile also been detained, with no word given as to his whereabouts since he was taken into custody in June, RFA has learned.

Kunsang Gyaltsen, a student in his late 20s from Qinghai’s Mangra (Chinese, Guinan) county, is thought to have been arrested for circulating booklets containing unauthorized views of Tibet’s political history, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA, citing sources in the region.

“Chinese authorities have concealed all information about him, and despite numerous attempts by family members to learn where he is being held, there has been no response from authorities at all,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pema Gyal, an analyst at TCHRD, confirmed the account of Gyaltsen’s arrest and disappearance, adding that information about his current status is unavailable “because his parents have been denied access to him.”

A formerly independent nation, Tibet was taken over and incorporated into China by force nearly 70 years ago, following which Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India, and Beijing maintains a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.

Authorities in the central province of Hunan have detained a prominent rights activist after he helped to publicize the story of Dong Yaoqiong, a woman sent to a psychiatric hospital for splashing ink on a poster of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in a Twitter livestream.

Ou Biaofeng was taken away from his home in Hunan's Zhuzhou city by officers of the Lusong district police department on Dec. 3, who held him under administrative detention for 15 days for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

"Four state security police came to our home without prior notice and took him away," his wife Wei Xinxin told RFA. "The fact that he was taken away so suddenly makes me quite worried, because it is a bit different from previous times."

Ou's friend Chen Siming said Ou's detention was linked to his public support for Dong.

"This is an open secret, and the police and state security police know that," Chen said.

"He was very concerned about [Dong's recent video] and has been in contact with Dong Yaoqiong on Twitter since then," he said.

Following her release from the psychiatric hospital, Dong posted a video on Twitter on Nov. 30 saying angrily that she had no mental illness and complaining of being held under long-term surveillance after her release.

Chen said the authorities likely blame Ou for international news coverage of the video, which broke Dong's public silence following her release.

"[Ou Biaofeng] was the only channel of communication between Dong and the rest of the world," he said. "Dong would never have gotten that much publicity without him."

"She also mentions Ou Biaofeng in the video."

Chen said Ou also has a track record of speaking out on human rights issues, and had been warned by the state security police that he risked a jail term over the cumulative effect of his activities.

A Changsha-based friend of Ou's who gave only the nickname Rosemary said that Ou remained in detention at the end of the 15-day sentence, and that police have been questioning his friends and fellow activists since his detention, suggesting that they may be building a case against him.

"I know of three or four people [who have been questioned]," Rosemary said. "He was held under 15 days' administrative detention, but the stability maintenance system kicked into place in other provinces, across the whole country ... and people were warned not to follow the case or speak out in support of him."

"We are worried this 15-day administrative detention is just a pretext [ahead of a criminal case]," she said. "[Other activists] have also had their administrative detentions converted into criminal detention."

On Tuesday, defense lawyer Zhang Lei was denied permission to meet with Ou, who is being held at the Zhuzhou Detention Center.

"When I was in detention, my friends could meet with me twice a week," Chen, who accompanied the lawyer, told RFA. "Now the detention center is saying that all meetings are suspended due to the pandemic."

"Not even lawyers are being allowed to meet with detainees," he said. "I am pretty worried, given what just happened."

Authorities put on trial Ge Zhihui, a human rights defender with disabilities, on December 15, 2020. Ms. Ge is an advocate for social and economic rights, who had been disabled by a demolition team while resisting the forced eviction of her family from their home. At her December 15 trial at the Beijing Fengtai District Court, she faced the charge of “picking quarrels & provoking trouble.” The prosecution’s case against her included the claims that Ms. Ge had showed support for persecuted human rights defender Cao Shunli, protested against officials who were interfering in a village election, and posted critical comments online. Except for her lawyer, nobody was allowed into the courtroom, not even her family members. The court did not announce a verdict. Police detained Ms. Ge in July 2019 and she has since languished at the Fengtai District Detention Facility. China ratified the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008, The UN’s disability rights and social, economic and cultural rights treaty bodies are both currently conducting reviews of China’s implementation of the treaties.

Chinese journalist and filmmaker Du Bin has been detained by authorities for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on December 16. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on the Chinese government to release Du immediately and respect Chinese citizens’ right to freedom of expression.

Du, 48, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker and journalist who has previously worked for The New York Times as a freelance photographer. According to Du’s sister Du Jirong, Du was arrested and detained by Beijing police on December 16 over vague allegations he was ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’.

The journalist’s detention may have been linked to his recent writing, including a book on the rule of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin scheduled for publication in 2021. According to South China Morning Post, Du has been under scrutiny from the Chinese Communist Party for writing and editing a number of politically sensitive books, such as a documentation of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

The police have recently summoned Du for questioning on multiple occasions, during which he was asked to delete sensitive contents on his Twitter account, according to Weiquanwang, a website tracking detentions and persecution of activists and dissidents in China, as well as Voice of America. Authorities have also inquired about his book projects, the reports said.

Violations of press freedom and journalists’ rights have increased in China in recent years as authorities continue to expand their control over the media. A number of citizen journalists were detained for their coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in China during 2020, while about a dozen foreign journalists have been expelled, partly due to the ongoing tension between the United States and China.

Last week, the IFJ documented the arrest of Haze Fan, a staff member who has been at the Bloomberg News Beijing bureau since 2017, on suspicion of taking part in activities endangering national security. In August, Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist who had worked in the English service of the state run television CGTN, was detained by the Chinese government for the same accusation leveled against Fan.

Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested eight activists in connection with a July protest, the latest in a widening crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Local media reported that those arrested included former legislators Wu Chi-wei, Eddie Chu and “Longhair” Leung Kwok-hung, along with Civil Human Rights Front’s (CHRF's) Figo Chan, among others.

The police accused them of “inciting, organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly,” referring to the July 1 demonstrations in which thousands defied a protest ban and rallied on the streets against the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing the day before.

Speaking to reporters after he was released on bail, Figo of the pro-democracy CHRF said Hong Kong authorities are oppressing dissidents by filing unreasonable charges.

“I strongly condemn the Hong Kong government for continuously suppressing Hong Kong citizens,” he said.

Since pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2019, the city’s police force has been at the forefront of Beijing’s efforts to eliminate the demonstrations.

According to a survey published by Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute on Tuesday, the police now rank last in public approval among Hong Kong's "disciplinary forces," which include first responders, correctional officers, People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison troops, anti-corruption investigators, and customs and immigration officials.

“The Police Force attains a rating of 40.3 marks, with 34% of the sample giving zero mark and continues to be the lowest among the nine disciplinary forces,” the organization said.

Chan Ka Lok, an associate professor and director of the Comparative Governance and Public Policy Research Center at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the low ratings were due to police abuse of power, and the force’s unwillingness to establish an independent investigation committee to assess police performance in handling the pro-democracy movement since 2019.

Tuesday’s arrests were carried out hours after the United States sanctioned another 14 Chinese officials over China’s move last month to expel four pro-democracy lawmakers from Hong Kong’s legislature. When asked whether there is any correlation, Chan told VOA that “the police's approach is a replay of ‘hostage diplomacy’ in the Cold War era.”

Since Monday, more than a dozen Hong Kong citizens have been arrested for their roles in pro-democracy demonstrations. Chan said these arrests resemble the mass arrests often used by the Chinese police force in the mainland and will turn Hong Kong into a place ruled by fear.

New pro-Beijing party

Meanwhile, a group of mainland-born, pro-establishment executives working in Hong Kong have founded a new political party in a bid to influence local government policies.

The Bauhinia Party was founded in May by three powerful executives: Li Shan, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of Credit Suisse Group AG; Huang Qiuzhi, chairman of CMMB Vision Holdings Limited; and Chen Jianwen, chairman of Bonjour Holdings Limited. Li and Wong were born in mainland China and later became Hong Kong residents.

According the Hong Kong Companies Registry, a government department that registers local and foreign companies, the party seeks to “promote a democratic political system best suited to Hong Kong based on the rule of law and civil liberty with the realization of universal suffrage as guaranteed by the Basic Law, so as to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability.”

But Hong Kong commentator Stephen Shiu said the creation of the party shows Beijing is no longer satisfied with old pro-establishment forces and hopes a new party representing new immigrants from the mainland can help restrain “extremist forces” in the legislature.

Other analysts say that Beijing wants to put its own people into Hong Kong’s political arena.

They argue that to Beijing, even its closest ally, the New People’s Party, is still seen as a local party rather than one formed by its own people.

Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai has been arrested and charged with fraud.

The 73-year-old Lai appeared in a Hong Kong courtroom Thursday along with two other executives of his Next Digital company and was accused of violating terms of the company’s lease of its office space. He was denied bail and his case has been adjourned until next April.

Lai was arrested at his home in August and charged with suspicion of colluding with a foreign country under the city’s new national security law imposed by China. Hours after his arrest, more than 100 police officers raided the headquarters of Lai’s Next Digital company, which publishes the newspaper Apple Daily. The newspaper livestreamed the raid on its website, showing officers roaming the newsroom as they rummaged through reporters’ files, while Lai was led through the newsroom in handcuffs.

He was one of at least 10 people arrested that day, including at least one of Lai’s sons.

Lai is already in legal jeopardy for his pro-democracy activism. He was one of 15 activists arrested earlier this year and hit with seven charges, including organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies and inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

Lai’s arrest Thursday comes a day after three young Hong Kong pro-democracy activists -- 24-year-old Joshua Wong, 23-year-old Agnes Chow and 26-year-old Ivan Lam -- received jail sentences between seven and 13 1/2 months in connection with a protest outside the city’s police headquarters in June 2019.

Lai is one of the highest-profile Hong Kongers targeted by the new security law since it went into effect in July. Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

The new law was imposed by Beijing in response to the massive and often violent pro-democracy demonstrations that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of last year, and is the cornerstone of its increasing grip on the city, which was granted an unusual amount of freedoms when Britain handed over control in 1997.

A court in Shanghai, China on Monday sentenced former lawyer and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the coronavirus outbreak, a harsh sentence that legal scholars say is aimed at having a chilling effect on Chinese rights activists.

Zhang, 37, was one of several citizen journalists who covered the initial outbreak in China’s central city of Wuhan. Their coverage painted a far more serious picture of conditions than the government’s official narrative of the spreading infection. Her reports included examples of the harassment of families of victims who were seeking accountability, according to human rights advocates.

Zhang was detained by authorities in May and accused of spreading false information, giving interviews to foreign media, disrupting public order and "maliciously manipulating" the outbreak. She went missing in Wuhan on May 14, according to media reports, and a day later turned up under arrest in Shanghai, more than 640 kilometers away. In court, she was formally charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” an accusation frequently used against Chinese activists.

Zhang’s lawyer, Zhang Keke, told VOA that Zhang Zhan has been on a hunger strike for nearly five months. She appeared in court in a wheelchair, all but refusing to speak — apparently using silence as a form of protest.

“The only thing she said is that citizens have the right to freedom of speech, and they have no right to question her,” Zhang Keke said.

According to the defense lawyer, the prosecutor during the trial accused Zhang of publishing so-called "problematic remarks" on China’s social media platforms including Weibo and WeChat. Yet the prosecution failed to provide any posts or videos as evidence.

“She didn’t fabricate any reports, nor has she created any harm to the society,” Zhang Keke said, adding that Zhang will likely appeal the verdict.

A Chinese human rights lawyer who asked to remain anonymous told VOA that the four-year sentence is extremely harsh. “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble usually leads to a fixed-term imprisonment of no more than five years. For first time offense, the sentence is usually one year,” he said, adding that Zhang’s harsh sentence was aimed at instilling fear among citizen journalists and civil rights lawyers.

Rights groups also condemned the ruling. Cédric Alviani, East Asia bureau head of the Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders, (RSF), called on the international community to increase pressure on the Chinese government until Beijing releases Zhang and other detained press freedom activists in China. “Zhang Zhan was only serving the public interest by reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak, so, she should never have been detained, not to mention, received a four-year prison sentence. This trial is actually a parody of justice,” Alviani told VOA.

The United Nations’ human rights office said in a tweet on Monday that it was troubled by the four-year sentence. “We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release,” the office said.

China has been accused of covering up the initial outbreak of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease and silencing whistleblowers, including the late Dr. Li Wenliang, and citizen journalists Fang Bing, Chen Qiushi, Li Zehua and Zhang Zhan, for exposing information that authorities did not approve for release. Dr. Li died of COVID-19 after Beijing silenced his attempts to warn the world about the coronavirus.

China has fiercely denied these accusations and said the country has been highly successful in containing the virus, compared to Western countries including the United States.

According to a survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists, China was the world’s leading jailer of journalists in 2020, with at least 47 people behind bars.

At 2 pm on November 26, political police officer Guo (last name) asked human rights activist Li Qiaochu to meet him in Beijing Haidian District. Instead of engaging in a typical, approximately hour-long session complying with a police officer’s request to meet to address a concern, officials detained Ms. Li overnight. The next day, November 27, however, authorities conditionally released Ms. Li to her parents.

For Ms. Li’s release and for her to avoid imprisonment at that time, police told her parents that they had to sign a guarantee Ms. Li would no longer communicate on the internet. Otherwise, authorities warned, they would imprison her. In addition, upon Ms. Li’s release, police confiscated her computer and cell phone.

Earlier this year, on February 2, police detained human rights defender Xu Zhiyong, On February 16, officials also detained 29-year-old Ms. Li, Mr. Xu’s girlfriend, one of the initiators of the New Citizens’ Movement. Authorities continued to detain Mr. Xu but released Ms. Li on bail soon after her arrest.

After her release, Ms. Li appealed for Mr. Xu‘s release. Her efforts, however, merited ongoing threats of detainment and obligatory meetings with Gua and other officers. In fall/winter 2017, Ms. Li, also a researcher of labor issues, had accompanied volunteers to gather information and share data with heavily affected communities following an incident where the “low-end population” of migrant workers in the Beijing district had been driven out. There, the group assisted workers who had lost their jobs and housing.

In 2018, Ms. Li actively participated in the “MeToo” movement against gender violence, supporting the movement on platforms such as Twitter. She often stood in solidarity with various prisoners of conscience and their families.

In June 2019, doctors diagnosed Ms. Li with depression and advised her that she needed long-term medication. Nevertheless, she continued to participate in activities as usual.

From the start of December 2019, authorities stationed public safety personnel at her house. They have also surveilled her routes to and from work.

In the past, due to Ms. Li’s human rights activism, police regularly harassed her, Now, also due to Ms. Li’s past human rights activism, police continue to monitor her, violating her privacy and civil rights.

Now, in addition to police harassing and monitoring Ms. Li and violating her rights, she lives with the threat officials will imprison her if she communicates online.

Sunday, November 30, Justice Bureau authorities phoned Beijing Lawyer Wang Yu informing her that the Chinese Government had revoked her license to practice law. Lawyer Wang had defended human rights activist Yu Wensheng, arrested in January 2018, currently imprisoned in Jiangsu, China. Since authorities sieged Mr. Yu, they have not only denied his wife’s visitation rights, they have revoked his rights to communicate with others, and have turned down requests for him to obtain dental treatment. Lawyer Wang has provided support and stood by Ms. Xu Yan, Mr. Yu’s wife, who has continued to fight for her husband’s rights during his detention.

On November 29, the day authorities revoked Lawyer Wang’s license, she and her husband, Lawyer Bao Longjun, joined with several other human rights lawyers, including Xie Yanyi, Wen Donghai, and Cheng Hai, to host a modest event to advocate for Mr. Yu. The support group petitioned the High People’s Court of Jiangsu to open trials on Mr. Yu’s case and allow his wife to visit him in prison.

As the first human rights lawyer arrested in the "709 incident,"* and because Lawyer Wang has helped Ms. Xu fight for Mr. Yu's rights, as well as helped many others defend their rights, she contravened the Chinese Communist Party CCP authorities’ taboo.

China typically resorts to implementing a series of suppressions toward human rights activists for example, lawyers face deliberate obstacles when representing human rights cases. In severe situations, they face the risk of police detaining them. If detained, the lawyer’s legal counsel also faces the risk of detainment for representing dissenting cases. Lawyer Wang’s case depicts this scenario.

In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping initiated an action plan to weaken nascent human rights movements. CCP authorities apprehended Lawyer Wang in accordance with this plan. Authorities also arrested Lawyer Li Yuhan, Wang’s lawyer, currently serving her sentence in Liaoning, Shengyang. While defending Lawyer Li, Li Boguang, the lawyer who represented her, suddenly died in Jiangsu, Nanjing.

During the process of defending others, the four related lawyers suffered a series of persecutions. In January of 2016, authorities arrested Lawyer Wang, charging her for state subversion. After her imprisonment at a detention center in Tianjin, authorities released Lawyer Wang in July 2016.

As a lawyer’s livelihood depends on practicing law, revoking his or her license to practice law significantly impacts the survival of the individuals’ and his or her families’ survival. The CCP's current practice of revoking licenses of lawyers who defend human rights blatantly deprives them of their right to survive. CCP authorities also revoked the license to practice law for Lawyer Wang’s husband for representing human rights cases.

Human rights lawyer Chen Jiangang, exiled to America, said: “Both the husband and wife, have been deprived of their way out. Xi Jinping is the number one murderer, the chief CCP oppressor of human rights. Xi Jinping’s era does not allow for real lawyers.”

Lawyer Wang did not violate any laws or regulations during her time practicing law. Governing judicial organs forcibly revoked her license to practice law, against her own will. According to article 49 of “Lawyers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China,” the provincial judicial administration can revoke the lawyer’s license only if the circumstances of violation were severe.

For the first trial of a person accused of a crime, due process should define the Justice Bureau’s legitimacy and rationality. Only after confirmation can officials instruct the second deviation. Therefore, the punitive measures authorities imposed on Lawyer Wang violated her constitutional and legal rights, a serious crime.

The CCP perceives the human rights movement as a threat to its regime. Therefore, those like Lawyer Wang, who help wrongly accused and imprisoned rights defenders, as well as their defense lawyers, may also be wrongfully imprisoned. The authorities’ approach aims to put human rights activists in a situation where they’re isolated and without aid. Their ultimate goal? To shake the will of human rights workers.

In her work to help and defend human rights activists, as Lawyer Wang did not violate the law, the CCP’s punishment, revoking her license to practice law lacked justification. *Denotes the large-scale unified arrest in July of 2015 when CCP officials sieged more than 300 Chinese human rights defenders.

On 26 November 2020, the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau in Shandong province once again rejected the request of the lawyer of human rights defender Ding Jiaxi to meet his client. The Public Security Bureau said that, as Ding Jiaxi is facing national security charges, allowing him access to legal counsel would "impede the investigation" or result in the "leaking of State secrets".

Fears are growing over the health and well-being of rights lawyer Chang Weiping, who is currently in detention on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, his family says after being allowed to visit him.

Shaanxi authorities allowed the Nov. 25 meeting after Chang's family and lawyers lodged official complaints about his incommunicado detention under "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)" following his description of his torture during an earlier period in detention.

Chang's visit with father Chang Shuanming took place at a police station in Shaanxi's Baoji city, a source close to the family told RFA on Wednesday.

During the 10-minute visit, Chang appeared significantly thinner than before, and spoke slowly, the source said. He was also concerned that his wife might give interviews.

"From his father's description, he was exhausted, ... his eyes were red, and he spoke as if he was reciting something by heart," the source said. "His reactions were also slow, suggesting that he has probably been tortured."

There were also signs that the second detention was taking a psychological toll. As his father left, Chang shouted out to him, saying he no longer wished to live, the source said.

"His father said that when they came to say goodbye, Chang shouted out with all his strength that he didn't want to live any more," the source said.

Family threatened by police

Baoji police had pursued Chang's wife all the way to her place of work in the southern city of Shenzhen to put pressure on her not to speak out about his case, the source said.

"His father is a veteran member of the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party, and [Chang's] wife works in Shenzhen," the source said. "They even went to Shenzhen to find his wife and her employer, to threaten her and stop her speaking up on behalf of her husband."

"They have done everything in their power to threaten the family, making it harder for them to talk to the outside world about their grievances," he said, adding that the visit was also likely allowed in a bid to limit negative publicity.

Sources said two lawyers previously hired to represent Chang have now dropped the case under intense police pressure.

Repeated calls to Chang Shuanming's cell phone rang unanswered on Wednesday.

Tortured in detention

Qi An, a researcher with the London-based rights group Amnesty International, said Chang had already made a video describing his torture at the hands of the authorities during an earlier 10-day period of RSDL in January 2020.

"In the video, he mentions that he was put in a tiger chair," Qi said. "Human rights experts including the United Nations have said that RSDL in itself is a violation of human rights."

"Suspects in RSDL aren't allowed to see family or a lawyer, making it hard to verify whether someone has been tortured," Qi said.

The aim of the torture appears to be to extract a "confession" and guilty plea from suspects, Qi said.

"Many people say after they are released from RSDL that the authorities wanted them to plead guilty or provide some information," Qi said. "Of course, we don't know what information the authorities may want from Chang Weiping, but there is an operation to crack down on any of the rights activists or lawyers who took part in the Xiamen gathering."

Chang was taken away from his home by police in Baoji city in China's northern province of Shaanxi, on Oct. 22, on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power."

The arrest came six days after he posted a video on YouTube sharing details of his torture.

Chang's January detention came after rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi and activists Zhang Zhongshun and Dai Zhenya were detained following a meeting with New Citizens' Movement founder Xu Zhiyong, who was himself later detained after publishing an open letter calling on CCP general secretary Xi Jinping to step down.

On November 10, 2020, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court convicted activist Zhang Baocheng (张宝成) of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “promoting terrorism, extremism, and inciting execution of terrorist activities” and handed down a 3.5-year prison sentence; three years for the “picking quarrels” charge and 8 months for the terrorism charge. The sentencing hearing followed an August 18 trial. Zhang appealed against his conviction on November 16. The court convicted Zhang of using the Internet, especially Twitter, to send out or share videos and information that “smear and insult the country’s leadership, oppose the Communist Party, split the state, harm ethnic unity and insult judicial organs.” One type of post cited included Zhang raising awareness of the plight of imprisoned activist Huang Qi’s elderly mother Pu Wenqing. Zhang was convicted of sending 1 video about East Turkestan (Xinjiang) which authorities said touched on “violent terrorism and extremism.” Beijing police initially seized Zhang on May 28, 2019, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. He was not granted access to his lawyers until October 2019. Zhang Baocheng is currently being detained at Beijing No. 3 Detention Center and is expected to be released in November 2022.