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Appendix: List of imprisoned and detained petitioner activists

The following is a selected list of confirmed cases of currently or recently imprisoned or detained petitioner activists:

Chen Enjuan – male, from Shanghai, sentenced to 21 months of reeducation through labor on December 2, 2002 for “disturbing public order” after attempting to petition in Beijing.

Li Boguang – male, thirty-seven-year-old human rights lawyer and writer and Director of Beijing’s Qimin Research Institute, who represented farmers in lawsuits against the government, was detained in Fu’an City on December 14, 2004 for alleged unspecified criminal offenses. He was released on January 21, 2005 on bail awaiting trial.

Li Guozhu - male, Liaoning petitioner and former police officer working with Sanchun Dadi, an independent Beijing NGO. Li was detained in November 2004 after a police raid on the NGO.

Li Xiaocheng - male, applied for a permit to hold a mass protest of petitioners in Tiananmen Square in August 2004; disappeared shortly thereafter. Reportedly he was detained by police who approached him while posing as journalists. He was formally charged with inciting protest in June 2005.

Ma Yaling – female, sentenced to 18 months of reeducation through labor in March 2004, in Shanghai after publishing an article online titled “A True Record of Being Turned Away from the National Petitions and Letters Office and the Petitions Bureau of the National People’s Congress.” Ma had previously been sentenced to reeducation through labor in 2001 by Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, where both her legs were broken by the police.

Mao Hengfeng – female, she has petitioned to state authorities many years over her coerced abortion, her right to work, and other basic rights. In April 2004, Shanghai police sentenced her to eighteen months in reeducation through labor. She has been reportedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment there. She was released on September 12, 2005 completion of her 18-month term.However, she defied orders to stop protesting about this and other violations of her rights, and so the security forces have harassed and beaten both her and her husband, Wu Xuewei. Both are at risk of arbitrary detention and torture.

Sun Shuping – female, 32, from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was held in custody for holding an illegal gathering after she applied for a protest permit and was refused. Subsequently she was charged along with Wu Daming for bringing over 100 protesters on Tiananmen Square on December 12, 2003. Sun first came to Beijing to petition over family property.

Sun Xiaodi - male, Gansu petitioner who was active in protesting the industrial pollution of rivers near his home, disappeared in Beijing on April 27, 2005.

Wang Qiaojuan – female, along with Wang Mingqing and Yang Weiming, Wang Qiaojuan was detained by police in a Shanghai train station on June 24, 2005 as they were preparing to go to Beijing to protest the new national petition regulations. Wang has been formally charged with “disturbing peace in a public space.”

Wu Daming – male, 46, Sichuan Province, came to Beijing originally to appeal a debt dispute. He applied for permission to protest with Sun Shuping and was refused. Subsequently, Wu was also detained for organizing an illegal gathering and leading over 100 protesters onto Tiananmen Square in 2003. No additional information is available.

Xu Yonghai – male, 44, longtime advocate of housing rights and religious rights. Xu was detained in November 2003 and in March 2004 charged under Article 111 of the Criminal Law for “circulating state secrets.” He was sentenced to a two-year prison term in August 2004.

Ye Guoqiang - male, Beijing man who staged an attempted suicide protest in Tiananmen Square in October 2003, to protest his family's forced eviction from their home to make way for the Beijing Olympics. In November 2003, Ye was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for disturbing public order.

Ye Guozhu - male, brother of Ye Guoqiang. Ye continued to petition on the family's forced eviction case. In August 2004 he applied for a permit to hold a march of 10,000 people. Three days later he was detained and in September charged with disturbing social order. In December 2004, Ye was sentenced to a prison term of four years.

Zhang Shangzhong, from Shaanxi Province, and Zhao Fengcai, from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, were detained in Beijing in December 2004 for organizing a protest by petitioners at the Diaoyutai State Guest House, the site of some major meetings.

Zheng Mingfang – female, was sentenced by a court in Tianjin to two years’ imprisonment after she signed an application for 10,000 people to march on Tiananmen Square. The court charged her with “illegal business activities.”

Zhao Xin applied for a permit to hold a memorial march for former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang in January 2005. When he went to the police bureau to pick up his permit, Zhao was detained for two months.


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