Advocacy
Pu has been involved in a number of high-profile freedom of speech cases in China, defending dissident writers and journalists. In 2004, he defended writers Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. The couple was facing libel charges for their portrayals of local Communist Party official Zhang Xide in their best-selling book A Survey of the Chinese Peasants. The case—and Pu's litigation in court—garnered international attention. Philip Pan of the Washington Post wrote that "by the time [Pu] finished his cross-examination, the mood in the courtroom had begun to change. When the trial ended three days later, ... it seemed as if Zhang – and the Communist Party itself – were the ones on trial." [7] The same year, Pu won a landmark victory on behalf of the China Reform magazine, which was similarly facing libel charges for its critical reporting on a real estate developer. The court decided in the magazine's favor, ruling that journalists are entitled to legal immunity on the condition that their stories are based on a reasonably believable source, rather than hearsay or fabrication. [4]
In 2006, Pu represented dissident writer Wang Tiancheng, who charged that legal professor Zhou Yezhong had plagiarised over 5,000 words of his writings without attribution. Although the court recognized that plagiarism had occurred, it ultimately ruled that the copied material represented too small a portion of the Zhou's book to constitute a crime. Pu told the South China Morning Post that he believed the court's decision may have been politically motivated. [10] In 2009, Pu represented Tan Zuoren, who documented deaths that occurred as a result of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
In 2012, Pu represented artist Ai Weiwei when his company sued the Beijing tax authority. [11] That same year, he also represented Tang Hui, who had been sent to a labor camp for peacefully petitioning against the sentences given to the people who raped her 11-year-old daughter, and then forced her into prostitution. [9] Tang, who repeatedly petitioned officials in Yongzhou in her daughter's case, was eventually sentenced to 18 months in "re-education through labor" for "seriously disturbing the social order and exerting a negative impact on society." Tang's sentence sparked calls for the abolition of the supposed system of re-education through labor. [12] Pu was one of three lawyers who defended Fang Hong, a dissident blogger who had been sentenced to one year in a labor camp for writing a poem mocking former Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai. After Bo's fall from power over a corruption scandal, Fang filed to have his guilty verdict overturned. He also sought compensation from the court. [13]
2014 arrest
Pu was arrested by the Chinese police in May 2014, ostensibly for having "caused a disturbance." The arrest followed Pu's attendance at a meeting of dissidents who were campaigning for official recognition of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Four other lawyers who attended the event were also jailed. [14] The prosecution examined his personal history, notes and computers, and interrogated his associates, but failed to find any evidence of treason, sexual misconduct, or corruption. The only evidence provided by the prosecution consisted of provocative blog posts. [8] He remained in custody despite the courts having rejected the case for lack of evidence. [9] [15]
A statement released by the American foreign ministry on 6 May 2015 asked that Pu be released, saying that this was in accordance "with China's international human rights commitments." Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded the next day, saying that "I think lots of people have the same feeling with me, that some people in the United States have hearts that are too big and hands that are too long. Washington should address human rights problems at home and stop trying to be the world's policeman or judge." [16]
In December 2015, Pu was put on trial in Beijing for online social commentary critical of the ruling Communist Party. [17] On 22 December 2015, Pu was found guilty of picking quarrels and inciting ethnic hatred and given a suspended three-year prison sentence. [18] Pu reported that he had been disbarred in April 2016, due to his postings on social media. [19]
Pu was nominated by an international group of writers, scholars, activists and legal observers for the 2016 Global Freedom of Expression Prize sponsored by the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression Center. [20]
Re-education through labor, abbreviated laojiao was a system of administrative detention in mainland China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and trafficking of illegal drugs, as well as political dissidents, petitioners, and Falun Gong followers. It was separated from the much larger laogai system of prison labor camps.
Human rights in China are periodically reviewed by international bodies, such as human rights treaty bodies and the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), their supporters, and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However, other countries, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Human Rights in China and Amnesty International, and citizens, lawyers, and dissidents inside the country, state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses.
Yang Jianli is a Chinese dissident with a United States residency. He is the son of a Communist Party leader. Yang was detained in China in 2002 and was released in 2007. He now lives in the United States, where he is a human rights activist.
The Democracy Party of China is a political party that started in the People's Republic of China, and was banned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The history of the DPC and its foundation date is unclear because it has many historical paths under different groups of founders. According to western sources, it is generally recognized to have assembled in 1998 by democracy activists and former student leaders from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Shi Tao is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.
Gao Zhisheng is a Chinese human rights attorney and dissident known for defending activists and religious minorities and documenting human rights abuses in China. Because of his work, Zhisheng has been disbarred and detained by the Chinese government several times, and severely tortured. He last disappeared in February 2009 and was unofficially detained until December 2011, when it was announced that he has now been imprisoned for three years. His commitment to defending his clients is influenced by his Christian beliefs and their tenets on morality and compassion.
Xia Lin, is a Chinese lawyer known for taking on human rights cases. Among his more prominent clients was the artist and activist Ai Weiwei. In late 2016 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud.
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In April 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport for "economic crimes," and detained for 81 days without charge. Ai Weiwei emerged as a vital instigator in Chinese cultural development, an architect of Chinese modernism, and one of the nation's most vocal political commentators.
Political repression of cyber-dissidents is the oppression or persecution of people for expressing their political views on the Internet.
Xu Zhiyong is a Chinese civil rights activist and formerly a lecturer at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications. He was one of the founders of the NGO Open Constitution Initiative and an active rights lawyer in China who campaigned against corruption and helped those underprivileged. He is the main founder and icon of the New Citizens' Movement in China. In January 2014 he was sentenced to four years in prison for "gathering crowds to disrupt public order". He was detained again on February 15, 2020, in the southern city of Guangzhou after two months in hiding, for his participation in a meeting of rights activists and lawyers in Xiamen in December 2019 in which "democratic transition in China" was discussed. He was sentenced for subversion to 14 years in jail on April 10, 2023.
Teng Biao is a Chinese lawyer and political activist. He is a lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He has been a vocal supporter of human rights activists such as Chen Guangcheng and Hu Jia. He has been arrested at least twice, in March 2008 and in February 2011. He was also a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School from (2015-16) and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by 303 Chinese dissident intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting its name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in Czechoslovakia. Since its release, more than 10,000 people inside and outside China have signed the charter. After unsuccessful reform efforts in 1989 and 1998 by the Chinese democracy movement, Charter 08 was the first challenge to one-party rule that declared the end of one-party rule to be its goal; it has been described as the first one with a unified strategy.
The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts, and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement, which began in the early 2000s, has organized demonstrations, sought reform via the legal system and media, defended victims of human rights abuses, and written appeal letters, despite opposition from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Among the issues adopted by Weiquan lawyers are property and housing rights, protection for AIDS victims, environmental damage, religious freedom, freedom of speech and the press, and defending the rights of other lawyers facing disbarment or imprisonment.
Ilham Tohti is a Uyghur economist serving a life sentence in China, on separatism-related charges. He is a vocal advocate for the implementation of regional autonomy laws in China, was the host of Uyghur Online, a website founded in 2006 that discusses Uyghur issues, and is known for his research on Uyghur-Han relations. Ilham was summoned from his Beijing home and detained shortly after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots by the authorities because of his criticism of the Chinese government's policies toward Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Ilham was released on August 23 after international pressure and condemnation. He was arrested again in January 2014 and imprisoned after a two-day trial. For his work in the face of adversity he was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2014), the Martin Ennals Award (2016), the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize (2019), and the Sakharov Prize (2019). Ilham is viewed as a moderate and believes that Xinjiang should be granted autonomy according to democratic principles.
The 2011 crackdown on dissidents in China refers to the arrest of dozens of mainland Chinese rights lawyers, activists and grassroots agitators in a response to the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests. Since the protests, at least 54 Chinese activists have been arrested or detained by authorities in the biggest crackdown on dissent since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Since the start of the protests in mid-February 2011, human rights groups have claimed that more than 54 people have been arrested by authorities, some of whom have been charged with crimes. Among those arrested are bloggers who criticise the government such as Ai Weiwei, lawyers who pursue cases against the government, and human rights activists.
Li Heping is a civil rights lawyer in the People's Republic of China and a partner of the Beijing Global Law Firm who was abducted on 10 July 2015. He is a prominent figure in China's Weiquan movement, having defended underground Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, dissident writers, and victims of forced evictions, among others.
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Picking quarrels and provoking trouble, also translated as picking quarrels and stirring up trouble or picking quarrels and making trouble, is a type of criminal offense in the People's Republic of China.
Ren Zhiqiang is an incarcerated Chinese real estate tycoon and a blogger on Sina Weibo with more than 37 million followers. Nicknamed "Big Cannon Ren", he is known for his outspoken criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He disappeared on 12 March 2020 after criticizing CCP general secretary Xi Jinping as a "clown" over the handling of China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2020 he was sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment on corruption charges, after a one-day trial.
