Fei Chang Dao

In 2022, I published "State Prosecutions of Speech in the People’s Republic of China: Cases Illustrating the Application of National Security and Public Order Laws to Political and Religious Expression," ( https://ssrn.com/abstract=4168412 ), a free casebook containing my translations of over 100 documents produced by agencies of the government of the People's Republic of China between 1998 and 2020. Each of those documents reflected the outcome of a case where a PRC citizen was subjected to some form of punishment by the PRC government for their political or religious speech. As I was compiling the casebook, I was concerned that readers might be misled into believing that it represented a comprehensive accounting of all the people who had been imprisoned for their political and religious speech in the PRC. I was therefore careful to note in the introduction that it was not a "complete" collection of every case involving freedom of expression:  The sheer volume

Translator's Notes: Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a PRC civil rights lawyer who co-founded the New Citizens' Movement (中国新公民运动) along with fellow civil rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜). Xu has been the target of government prosecutions for over a decade, and the government's attempts to silence him have been covered extensively by this blog: http://blog.feichangdao.com/2022/03/xu-zhiyongs-li-qiaochu-indictment.html . The text below is Xu's statement published shortly before a court was expected to issue a verdict in his trial for subversion in connection with meetings he and Ding held with other activists in 2019. The Chinese version was created by running an image posted by Ding's wife on Twitter on April 8, 2023 ( https://twitter.com/luoshch/status/1644179129237925892 ) through OCR software. I have tried to proof the OCR version, but some errors in transcription may remain.  There are other translations of Xu's statement available from Chinese PEN ( https://www.chinesepen

Translator's Notes:  Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜) is a PRC civil rights lawyer who co-founded the New Citizens' Movement (中国新公民运动) along with fellow civil rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong (许志永). Ding first became the target of government prosecution in 2013, when he and Xu Zhiyong were arrested, and eventually imprisoned, for their roles in small demonstrations in Beijing calling for equal social and educational benefits for migrant workers in Beijing.  The text below is Ding's statement published shortly before a court was expected to issue a verdict in his trial for subversion in connection with meetings he and Xu held with other activists in 2019. The Chinese version was created by running an image posted by Ding's wife on Twitter on April 8, 2023 ( https://twitter.com/luoshch/status/1644501747635826690 ) through OCR software. I have tried to proof the OCR version, but some errors in transcription may remain. Ding Jiaxi's Statement to the Court  Autocracy Shall Perish If we start c

Translator's Note:  Qin Yongpei was a civil rights lawyer who first became a target of police investigations in 2015 during the " 7.09 Crackdown ." Police detained him in 2019 and on March 31, 2023 a court sentenced him to  five years imprisonment and three years deprivation of political rights for inciting subversion of state power on the grounds that he used social media to "sow doubt amongst the populace about our country's State regime and socialist system." While the court's judgment did not specify which social media posts caused such doubts to be sown, the police's prosecution recommendation listed the content of several Sina Weibo and Twitter posts that it deemed "reactionary": "The most terrifying thing about Chinese characteristics is that evil controls everything,"  "The sun is already setting on Chinese characteristics,"  "Chinese characteristics are a wellspring for hooligans,"  "The peopl

Translator's Notes:  The Chinese version was created by running images of the court judgment through OCR software. I have tried to proof the OCR version, but some errors in transcription may remain. Long Kehai is a Christian jailed for tweets that "insulted State leaders" and "denigrated the Party." Consistent with recent practice, the court said nothing about what content disturbed the peace, so below I have translated some of the last tweets he posted just before he was detained on August 1, 2022. On June 12, 2022, Long was subjected to 10 days administrative detention for possession of materials that advocated terrorism and extremism for "viewing and commenting" on a video on WeChat. Shortly after his release he posted an image of the detention decision on Twitter saying:  "A video that exposes and criticizes the crimes of war against humanity is regarded as possessing items that promote violence and terror. This is putting every Internet us