Huang Qi

Huang was arrested on June 3, 2000—the day before the 11th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests of 1989—accused of posting on his website articles about the protests written by dissidents living abroad.[2] The website was used by the independence movement in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the Falun Gong.

He was jailed in July 2000 at the Detention Center No. 1 in Chengdu. Former cellmates said he was beaten regularly and denied medicine he needed. Huang was ultimately tried for "subversion" in August 2001. He was charged under articles 103, 105, 55 and 56 of the Criminal Law and tried in secret by the Chengdu Intermediate Court in August 2001.[7] He was detained without sentencing until May 9, 2003, when he was sentenced to five years in prison. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience "imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association" and called for his immediate release.[8]

On June 4, 2005, Huang Qi was released from jail after completing his sentence. He told Radio Free Asia that he wanted to resume his web site dedicated to the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. "I will do my best to resume the Tianwang Web site. When it was first created it was for very few people. But I now realize that there are many like-minded people," he said.[9]

After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he assisted in relief work and also responded to some parents' requests for assistance in their questions and complaints concerning the collapse of school buildings. Huang posted their demands as an article on his website. A week later, on June 10, plain-clothed policemen arrested him in Chengdu and held him "on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets", an ill-defined charge often used by the Chinese government to clamp down on dissent.[1][10] A formal announcement of his arrest was made on July 18, 2008.[11] He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in November 2009 based on the discovery of two city-level documents in his house.[12] The court was heavily guarded by police with only Huang's wife and mother allowed to enter, Huang's lawyers were unable to attend because of short notice given.[12] Huang is expected to appeal against the verdict and has been refused bail.[10][12]

Human Rights organizations condemned the verdict and "inhumane treatment" of Huang in prison.[3] Amnesty International alleges that during his detention Huang was interrogated for long periods and subject to sleep deprivation.[12] Huang's family have said that his health has deteriorated rapidly in detention and that he has not received adequate medical care.[12] One of his lawyers has stated that he has been diagnosed with two tumours, one in the stomach and one in the chest, during his period in detention.[12] Earlier on November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed a near-unanimous resolution seeking freedom of activists Huang Qi and Tan Zuoren.[13]

Following Huang's imprisonment, fellow human rights activist and pundit Liu Dan authored a piece on Huang's Tianwang website condemning Chinese President Hu Jintao's Harmonious Society ideology, saying that it was a "sham" in the face of Huang Qi's sentencing. Liu wrote that Hu's administration silences anyone whose opinions differ from the party line, whether that opinion is coming from external elements (censorship of dissidents), foreign elements (deletion of U.S. President Barack Obama's town-hall meeting from news items), or within the Chinese political system itself (removal of Premier Wen Jiabao's calls for greater freedoms in Xinhua publications).[14] Huang was released in 2011 after completing his sentence.

On November 28, 2016, Huang was detained after police raided his home. On December 7, a petitioner told Radio Free Asia that Huang has been detained at Mianyang City Detention in Sichuan Province but Huang's mother also went missing.[15] Several days later, on December 16, Huang's mother has returned home and Huang has been formally arrested for "leaking state secrets".[16][17]

In January 2019 Huang was put on trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Mianyang City in Sichuan, accused of leaking state secrets.[18] On July 29, 2019, it was announced that Huang had been found guilty of intentionally leaking state secrets to foreigners, and had been sentenced to twelve years in prison, as well as being deprived of his political rights for four years, and fined 20,000 yuan.[19] Huang has kidney and heart disease, and Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, noted that "[t]his decision is equivalent to a death sentence, considering Huang Qi's health has already deteriorated from a decade spent in harsh confinement".[19]