Human rights defender Guo Feixiong at risk of losing his life in prison

Human rights defender Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄) (real name: Yang Maodong 杨茂东) has been on hunger strike in prison and his health has severely deteriorated. When his family visited him in early September at the Sihui Prison in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, the human rights defender looked severely emaciated, extremely pale, and weighed around 40kg, down significantly from his normal weight of approximately 70kg.

Guo Feixiong is currently serving an eight-year sentence issued in May 2023 as punishment for “inciting subversion of State power”. He is a well-known human rights defender in China who has previously been imprisoned twice, first from 2006 to 2011, and again from 2013 to 2019. The human rights defender is vocal about issues of democracy, anti-corruption and censorship. He was the 2015 Front Line Defenders Award laureate.

Guo Feixiong has undertaken multiple hunger strikes since December 2021 to protest the exit ban imposed on him and his subsequent detention. During their most recent prison visit, his family learned that, since their last prison visit in June 2023, the human rights defender has been experiencing health issues which affect his thyroid glands, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and liver. The human rights defender also frequently feels dizzy and feverish. The prison authorities have been tube-feeding him in order to keep him alive. If he does not end his hunger strike and the weight loss continues, the health consequences could be severe, including loss of life.

According to information published by the Guo Feixiong Concern Group, Guo Feixiong’s older sister contacted local authorities to demand an improvement in the human rights defender’s prison conditions. However, local security officials warned her not to write to higher officials or conduct public advocacy on behalf of the human rights defender’s situation. Guo Feixiong’s recent request to be transferred to a prison at a location closer to his sister, and with better conditions, was also denied.

United Nations human rights experts have sent two communications to the Chinese government, both in February and December of 2022, raising concerns about Guo Feixiong’s arbitrary detention and prosecution.

Front Line Defenders is extremely concerned by the reports of Guo Feixiong’s rapidly deteriorating health. It urges the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the human rights defender and to ensure that he has prompt access to adequate and necessary medical care of his choice. Front Line Defenders also urges the Chinese authorities to respect Guo Feixiong’s right to freedom of movement, including by permitting and facilitating his travel to the United States so that he may be reunited with his children.

On 11 May 2023, the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court tried, convicted and sentenced human rights defender Yang Maodong (杨茂东), who is better known by his pen name Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), to eight years in prison for “inciting subversion of State power”, to be followed by “deprivation of political rights” for three years. The trial lasted about two and a half hours, and the verdict was reached after a short recess of one hour. The human rights defender said he would appeal this sentence.

Guo Feixiong is a well-known human rights defender in China who has already been imprisoned twice, from 2006 to 2011 and again from 2013 to 2019. The human rights defender is vocal about issues of democracy, anti-corruption and censorship. He was the 2015 Front Line Defenders Award laureate.

The court found that the interviews that Guo Feixiong gave to overseas Chinese-language media and articles concerning democratic reforms which were written or reposted by the human rights defender online, constitute “incitement to subvert State power” under Article 105 of the Criminal Law of China.

In late January 2021, Guo Feixiong was barred from boarding a flight to the United States to see his wife Zhang Qing, who was terminally ill. Despite the human rights defender’s pleas, the Chinese authorities refused to lift the exit ban on him and placed him under strict surveillance throughout 2021. On 10 January 2022, Zhang Qing passed away at a hospital in the US. Two days later, the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau formally arrested Guo Feixiong, and the prosecutors indicted him in July 2022. He has been conducting hunger strikes throughout 2022 to protest the exit ban imposed upon him, as well as his detention and prosecution.

Independent UN human rights experts have raised Guo Feixiong’s case with the Chinese government in February and again in December 2022, expressing concerns about the exit ban, incommunicado detention, and violations of due process rights to which the defender was subjected. The experts have also repeatedly called on the Chinese authorities to review and reform provisions under Chinese legislation concerning national security, in particular Article 105 of the Criminal Law concerning “subversion”, which have been routinely used to detain, prosecute and convict human rights defenders.

Front Line Defenders strongly condemns today’s verdict against Guo Feixiong as it believes it is solely in retaliation against his peaceful and legitimate human rights work. We call on the relevant authorities in China to promptly quash the conviction and sentence, immediately release him, and fully guarantee and respect his basic rights, including his freedom of movement.

On 6 July 2022, human rights defender Yang Maodong, who is known by his penname Guo Feixiong, talked to his lawyer via a video link in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province. The defender has been on hunger strike since December 2021. As a result, he has lost a significant amount of weight and now weighs only 50kg. His family is worried that if he continues to lose weight at the current pace, his life will be in danger in two to three months.

On 12 January 2022, the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau in Guangdong province sent a notice to the family of human rights defender and 2015 Front Line Defender Award laureate Guo Feixiong (aka Yang Maodong), informing them that the human rights defender has been formally arrested on suspicion of “inciting subversion of State power” under Article 105(2) of China’s Criminal Law. According to the arrest notice, he is currently being detained at the Guangzhou Municipal No. 1 Detention Centre.

Guo Feixiong is a well-known human rights defender in China, who has previously spent 11 years in detention due to his human rights work. The human rights defender has been missing since 5 December 2021, after sending a text message to close friends saying he was under police custody. The formal arrest by the Guangzhou police came less than two days after the human rights defender’s wife, Zhang Qing, died after a year-long battle with cancer on 10 January 2022, in Maryland, United States. The authorities imposed an exit ban on Guo Feixiong in January 2021 and barred him from boarding a flight at the Shanghai airport to the United States to care for his wife Zhang Qing. It is unclear whether the human rights defender has been informed of his wife’s death while in police custody.

Under article 105(2) of China’s Criminal Law, those who incite “others by spreading rumors or slanders or any other means to subvert the State power or overthrow the socialist system” are subject to “fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights”.

In April 2021, UN human rights experts jointly wrote to the Chinese government to reiterate their “alarm at the continued use of national security provisions of the Criminal Code that have been used to restrict the rights to freedom of expression, of association, and of peaceful assembly.” They were particularly concerned about the ill-defined terms of Article 105, the length of imprisonment stipulated in it as well as other national security-related provisions included in China’s Criminal Law. In a joint report published in December 2021, Front Line Defenders and partner organisations drew attention to the Chinese government’s frequent use of travel ban to punish human rights defenders and their family members.

Front Line Defenders condemns the Chinese government’s inhumane and unlawful refusal to respect Guo Feixiong’s right to freedom of movement for over 12 months, thus denying him an opportunity to see his dying wife. His formal arrest adds to the repeated violations against him over the last 16 years, including two prison sentences amounting to 11 years. Front Line Defenders urges the relevant authorities in China to immediately release Guo Feixiong, to drop the charges against him, and to facilitate his safe travel to the United States as soon as possible in order to attend his late wife’s affairs and comfort his two grieving children.

On 25 November 2021, Zhang Qing, human rights defender Guo Feixiong’s spouse, released a letter addressed to Guo Feixiong revealing that cancer cells have spread all over her body and that her doctors told her she has one or two months left to live. She said she would fight the cancer, but that she needs him by her side as soon as possible.

Guo Feixiong is a well-known human rights defender in China, who has previously spent 11 years in detention due to his human rights work. On 28 January 2021, he was stopped at the Shanghai Pudong Airport and was prevented from boarding a flight to the US on the grounds that his departure would “threaten national security”. On 29 November 2021, Guo Feixiong released an online statement declaring that the Guangzhou municipal police and the Guandong provincial police finished reviewing his application for permission to leave China earlier in November, but that the case was later sent by the provincial police to the national Ministry of Public Security for approval. According to the human rights defender’s statement, the national Ministry has not reached a decision yet. Due to persistent harassment and threats against the human rights defender and his family, Zhang Qing together with their son and daughter fled from China and settled in the US in 2009. On 11 September 2015, Zhang Qing and their daughter Yang Tianjiao came to Dublin to receive the Front Line Defenders Award on behalf of Guo Feixiong, who was detained in China at that time.

In June 2021, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and State Chairman, told senior party leaders to “help foreign audiences understand that the Party pursues the well-being of Chinese people” and instructed officials to cultivate a “reliable, admirable and respectable image of China.” Imprisoning human rights defenders for their peaceful and legitimate work and barring them from leaving the country to care for ailing family members directly violates the Chairman’s guidance. Front Line Defenders reiterates its urgent call to the relevant authorities in China to immediately lift restrictions on Guo Feixiong’s freedom of movement and facilitate his travel to the US without further delay. Pending his departure to the US, the authorities should ensure his physical and psychological integrity and fully respect his basic rights, including his right to communicate freely without coercion or censorship.