Wang Fang
Wang Fang began her human rights defense in 2012, campaigning for her own rights after the forced demolition of her home by the Wuhan city government. Her experiences as a petitioner soon led her to take on advocacy for the cases of others, and she has participated in numerous human rights demonstrations since 2013, including the 2013 protest in support of press freedom outside the offices of China’s Southern Weekly news publication. The defender has also has joined advocacy movements for rights activists, victims of religious persecution, and victims of arbitrary detention.
Human rights defenders in China work in an extremely hostile environment and under President Xi Jinping they have seen the space in which to operate further restricted. Chinese HRDs are active in many spheres, and they include lawyers, journalists, academics, transparency campaigners, housing and land rights activists, bloggers, writers, HIV/AIDS activists and those promoting the rights of ethnic minorities. Regardless of the issues they work on, HRDs who highlight abuses, challenge the authorities or network to support detained colleagues all face reprisals from the government. These range from almost daily harassment and intimidation of family members to detentions, disappearances, torture and imprisonment.
