Shutting them up III. Victims of China’s crackdown on human rights 1
Chinese authorities imprison human rights defenders, including citizen journalists and human rights lawyers. Those detained are held in harsh conditions and subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. Completing this workhas taken me nearly two years. I have searched for information on the fate of hundreds of people arrested for expressing their desire for freedom of expression and their hope for democratization of their country. Hundreds of people arrested, seized, held without the support of their families, without legal assistance, tortured, imprisoned in inhumane conditions, simply because they protested, sometimes with a simple letter addressed to the government or the Party, peacefully asking for greater freedom for Chinese citizens. Reading about the sufferings, the long years of harsh imprisonment of righteous women and men has caused me profound discomfort, insomnia, a sense of helplessness, and I had to stop many times for weeks, sometimes for months, before I could resume and finally manage to select 95 names, lives, destinies. I tried to choose representative examples of the reasons why in China one is criminalized for daring to criticize the system in some way. Summarizing in a few words the vicissitudes that these people have gone through, sometimes for an entire lifetime, is impossible. I apologize to all those who are not remembered in this work, and to those who are remembered for the too few words that tell their stories.
Tam Tak-chi, political activist, accused of uttering seditious words in 2022. Charged with ten more charges, including incitement to knowingly take part in an unauthorised assembly. Sentenced to 3 years and 4 months.
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