ZHANG Guiqi (Pen name, Lu Yang)

A poet, teacher and member of the ICPC, Zhang Guiqi is serving a six-year prison term imposed on 26 July 2022 after a trial behind closed doors where he was convicted of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. He was also sentenced to a further three years’ deprivation of his political rights. He has been detained since May 2020, just hours after he posted a video on social media where he called for President Xi Jinping to step down and for an end to the ‘CCP’s regime’. On 29 March 2023, Zhang was transferred from Liaocheng Detention Centre to Shandong Provincial Prison to serve his sentence (see Case Lists 2023/2024, 2022 and 2020). As of the end of 2024, Zhang continues to serve his sentence, and is expected to be released in May 2026.

Zhang Guiqi, born on 4 January 1971, is a poet and former teacher from the Shandong province in eastern China. He has acted as founder, editor and publisher for several online poetry platforms, including the Chinese Contemporary Poetry Platform, which was forced to shut down in 2007 following a directive issued by Chinese government censors. In 2008, he became a signatory to the seminal Charter 08 document, which called for greater human rights protections and political reform in China. 

Following the detention of one of Charter 08’s authors, writer, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and former president of the ICPC, Liu Xiaobo, Zhang joined the PEN Centre as a member. Over the following years, he was an outspoken activist in support of free expression in China, supporting government critics who have been persecuted for their peaceful expression.