Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist detained for nearly three years in China, has gone on trial in Shandong province charged with “inciting subversion of state power”.

On the eve of the trial, the chairs of the US congressional commission on China called for Li’s unconditional release, citing reports that the labour rights and feminist activist needed urgent medical treatment.

Li’s charges carry a sentence of up to five years, or potentially longer if she is deemed a ringleader.

Previously employed in Tsinghua University’s sociology department, Li had worked as a researcher and activist since at least 2017, when she worked with other volunteers to support migrant workers who had been evicted from their homes in Beijing in 2017. She later supported various MeToo campaigns and helped Xu maintain the website Beautiful China, where they published articles about China’s civil rights movement.

    • @spudwart@spudwart.com
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      1511 months ago

      China is likely perpetually at the boiling point of a social uprising, but they just have so much power and so strong of a boot that they can keep pushing it down.

      But as the saying goes. “They have to be lucky every time, We only have to get lucky once.”

      • @Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
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        211 months ago

        We need to be lucky every single time, otherwise the power that replaces it is as corrupt if not worse than the last one

        • @spudwart@spudwart.com
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          211 months ago

          Yes, it’s a cycle.

          But the point is that if its this persistent, then at some point it will start slipping through the cracks. They’ll either bend or break

      • Quokka
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        111 months ago

        There are often many riots and protests going on in China, but so little gets reported out.

  • e_mc2
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    311 months ago

    Praise to her work, but that just looks like a really bad AI image.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    211 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist detained for nearly three years in China, has gone on trial in Shandong province charged with “inciting subversion of state power”.

    On the eve of the trial, the chairs of the US congressional commission on China called for Li’s unconditional release, citing reports that the labour rights and feminist activist needed urgent medical treatment.

    Li’s trial concluded at 3pm local time with no public judgment, according to the Facebook page FreeLiqiaochu李翘楚.

    In November, a court in Shandong upheld the conviction of Xu and a fellow human rights lawyer, Ding Jiaxi, for subversion of state power, sentencing them to 14 and 12 years in prison respectively.

    Li was arrested on 14 March 2021, having previously spent several months under “residential surveillance at a designated location”, a form of detention used by China’s police to hold someone outside of a normal prison without access to family or lawyers.

    After her release from that period of detention, Li described her experience as “black hoods and handcuffs, closed rooms, 24-hour white lights”.


    The original article contains 440 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!