Blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng makes phonecall to a US congressional hearing asking to meet Hilary Clinton over fears for the safety of his family. The man translating for him is Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, a US-based Christian human rights group. more ›

Talk about some damning evidence. A photo gallery posted by PAS China on Flickr shows blind lawyer/Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arriving at the US Embassy earlier this week. In the photos, Chen is seen smiling and, at one point, embracing US Ambassador Gary Locke. Later pictures show him being reunited with his family at the Chaoyang Hospital, with US officials standing in the background. more ›

In just a few hours after leaving the US embassy and being reunited with his family, blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has turned around to say he wants to leave China. In contrast to earlier reports by both Chinese and US officials that he left the embassy of his own volition, Chen added that he chose to leave because he was told that his wife and children would be sent back to Shandong. more ›

Turns out all that speculation that blind Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng fled to the US Embassy in Beijing was true. American officials confirmed that, following a six-day stint at the Embassy, Chen left Wednesday to receive medical treatment at a nearby hospital in the city. But it looks like Chen may have been forced out — he told the AP from the hospital this evening that authorities threatened to beat and kill his wife if he refused to leave the Embassy. more ›

The fate and whereabouts of Chinese blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has overshadowed the upcoming China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue. more ›

Just days after blind lawyer and activist Chen Guangcheng miraculously escaped from house arrest; the Beijing police have held his friend and fellow government critic Hu Jia for questioning. more ›

Blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has managed to escape from house arrest while his guards were not watching, and appeared immediately afterwards on Youtube, delivering a message to Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, with the following three demands: more ›

China has officially announced that it's ending its time-honored practice diplomatic practice of sending North Korean refugees back to the DPRK to face possible execution, with official Chinese government sources saying refugees being sent back is effectively "the end of their lives". more ›

Land rights lawyer Ni Yulan (倪玉兰), who has now been permanently disabled due to police torture, has been sentenced to jail by a court in Beijing along with her husband Dong Jiqin (董继勤). more ›

Astrophysicist and activist Fang Lizhi (方励之), one of the figureheads of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, passed away Friday in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 76, after 22 years of life in exile. more ›

Prince Claus Award laureate Tsering Woeser writes in Foreign Policy about the silence of the Han Chinese people and the double standards of Chinese human rights activists on Tibetan self-immolations. She asks, how many Tibetans have to burn themselves before the Chinese care?: more ›

Ten parents of Chinese homosexuals have written to China's top legislative organ and political advisory organ to call for a legislation to stop discrimination against gays. In an open letter to the NPC and the national CPPCC, the parents say there are around 60 million gays in China, going by the ratio of 3 to 5 gays among every 100 people. more ›

It's that time of the year when delegates from all corners of the People's Republic gather in Beijing for the "Two Sessions" (ie., the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) to debate discuss important national issues and rubber-stamp pass new legislation. more ›

Click the "CC" button to see English captions. more ›

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin has slammed US ambassador to China Gary Locke for the remarks he made in an interview with Charlie Rose on China's recent human rights record. more ›

'Tis the season for exceptionally harsh prison sentences. China seems to have made a habit of convicting its political activists at Christmas time, and this year is no exception. In the last week, two Chinese democracy advocates, Chen Wei and Chen Xi, have been sentenced to prison terms of 9 and 10 years, respectively. And today, a couple goes on trial for campaigning against forced evictions. more ›

In a seminal speech to mark Human Rights Day which commemorates the 1948 signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged leaders of the world to “be on the right side of history” and to recognise that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights". It's a moving, impassioned speech which totally earned her the standing ovation at the end, and it's worth 30 minutes of your time. Read the full transcript of the speech here. more ›

“There is an artiste; a world famous artiste who has donated the most to philantrophy causes, who is also the most misunderstood and suffered the most pain in the world. You may guess many names but actually, this one is Michael Jackson, the superstar of the United States. more ›

"Today, the West feels very shy about human rights and the political situation. They’re in need of money. But every penny they borrowed or made from China has really come as a result of how this nation sacrificed everybody’s rights. With globalization and the Internet, we all know it. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. The Western politicians—shame on them if they say they’re not responsible for this. It’s getting worse, and it will keep getting worse.” more ›

After dissident-artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) was freed from an 81-day detention and slapped with a RMB15 million fine for tax evasion, a princely sum he has been given 15 days to cough up, his mother Ai Ying (高瑛) did what any mother would. She began looking for things to sell. Together with her other son Ai Dan (艾丹), she announced that the former residence of her husband, the poet Ai Qing (艾青), was now up for sale. more ›

It's that time of the year again -- Norway's Nobel Committee has met to decide who should be the winner of its peace prize this year. Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland says the choice has "not been particularly difficult" this time round while pundits are placing their bets on representatives of the Arab Spring revolution which swept across the Middle East earlier this year. Among the top contenders are Google executive Wael Ghonim from Egypt, and Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni. Jagland also took the opportunity to defend the decision to award last year's prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, even though that immediately led to frozen Sino-Norwegian ties and possibly made life more difficult for Liu:

"The reactions (from China) were as expected. They were not more extreme than what we expected," he said. more ›

Xinhua today trumpets a series of changes to the national code of conduct for prison inmates made by the Ministry of Justice in order to "show respect for the human rights of prison inmates". Among the changes: an end to the practise of forcing inmates to squat with both hands behind their heads, a lift on the ban on dyed hair (particularly among female inmates) and the use of execution by lethal injection to replace the firing squad (we'll still kill you but in a more humane fashion). more ›

You may remember Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天), who was given a horrifyingly humiliating interrogation of her sex life shortly after being released from three months of "disappearance" for tweeting about the Arab Spring and the Jasmine protests. more ›

Joshua Rosenzweig, the excellent blogger behind www.siweiluozi.net (on Twitter at @siweiluozi), talks with Al Jazeera about the release of Hu Jia, Ai Weiwei, and the complexity of understanding whether or not international pressure can have an impact on human rights in China: more ›

Just days after Ai Weiwei's release from prison, prominent activist Hu Jia and the four individuals who'd been taken away on account of their relationships to the artist Ai Weiwei have been released. Hu was released after completing a three and half year sentence for state subversion. His wife, Zeng Jinyan confirmed that he arrived home at 2:40am today through her Twitter account. more ›

The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed a historic resolution on human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity by a vote of 23 to 19 with three abstentions, in Geneva yesterday. more ›

Chen Guangcheng, his wife and five-year-old daughter have been under informal house arrest since February 24th. On June 15th, China Aid received a letter from Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, revealing what happened after he released a video to China Aid on Feb. 9. He had been beaten unconscious and not allowed to see a doctor. Yuan was also severely wounded. In the video, he said police threatened to beat him up or imprison him again if he spoke up. The letter says that on Feb. 18, a group of 70-80 men including the vice secretary of the Communist Party of Shuanghou Town, Zhang Jian, stormed their house and beaten the two of them for two hours, ransacked their home and restricted them from seeking medical attention. It says that Zhang Jian told them they were following orders from higher-level officials. Reuters said it couldn't verify the truth of the letter, while AFP said that reporters who tried confirming this back in February were roughed up.

more ›

Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天), one of many activists to have 'disappeared' during the crackdown on the Jasmine protests, was recently freed on May 24 after three months of detention. more ›