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On the two-year anniversary of Chinese authorities’ crackdown on the peaceful “Blank Paper” demonstrations, Chinese Human Rights Defenders calls on Beijing to release all wrongfully detained protesters.
"We urge the international human rights community to press the Chinese government to fulfill its human rights obligations to protect freedom of peaceful assembly, expression, and the right to fair trials," the organization writes on its websites.
In late November 2022, people across China, outraged by a deadly fire in Urumqi and frustrated by strict COVID-19 lockdown measures, took to the streets in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wuhan. Demonstrators held up blank sheets of paper, symbolizing censorship and their inability to express dissent openly. They chanted various slogans, including “End zero-COVID.” Some even called for “Down with Xi Jinping” and “Down with the Communist Party!”
The protests represented a rare instance of spontaneous demonstrations across multiple Chinese cities since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests in 1989, with citizens openly expressing dissent in public space. Authorities responded with widespread detentions of students, journalists and other citizens across the country.
Two years ago, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) tracked the names of more than 30 people who were taken into custody and estimated that at least 100 people had been detained. No official figures of arrests have been released. Some people were released shortly after their arrests. However, others faced harsher punishments, including imprisonment and enforced disappearances
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The ongoing prosecution of participants and supporters of the Blank Paper protests underscores the urgent need to hold the Chinese government accountable and to put an end to its impunity for repeated and ongoing violations of its obligations to protect human rights.