Shenzhen Legal Self-Media Writer and Legal Education Blogger “Criminal Observer” Zhao Hongliang Compelled to Appear Before Police in Shenzhen’s Longhua District for More Than 24 Hours and Still Has Not Returned

On August 13, 2026, this outlet learned that on August 10, 2026, Shenzhen legal self-media writer and Weibo influencer Zhao Hongliang, known as “Criminal Observer,” was taken away by officers from the Shangtang Police Station in Shenzhen’s Longhua District under a compulsory summons and has still not returned. Previously, on July 29, the Shangtang Police Station issued Zhao Hongliang a summons on the grounds of “suspected disruption of public-order in a public place” (Shen Longhua Public Security (Shangtang) Administrative Summons No.〔2026〕548), but Zhao Hongliang did not accept the summons. Zhao Hongliang has now been held under a compulsory summons for more than 24 hours and still has not returned; there is no definitive information as to whether he has been detained.

It is understood that the immediate reason the Shangtang Police Station summoned him for “suspected disruption of public-order in a public place” may have been that he posted public petition and rights-defense slogans aimed at judicial organs in another locality on the rear window of his private car. The slogans included the words “Shangqiu courts and procuratorate issue judgments without recordings” and “Telephone threats, a world without daylight.”

In January 2026, dissatisfied with the police’s handling of the outcome of the “decision not to impose an administrative penalty and administrative reconsideration” in the case in which he was insulted, Zhao Hongliang, as the plaintiff, also took the Shenzhen Longhua Public Security Bureau and the Shenzhen municipal government to court.

Recently, the Chinese Communist Party authorities launched a so-called “deepening special campaign against organized crime and evil” lasting one year. The authorities have characterized the so-called new variants of organized crime as shifting from “offline to online” and from “hard violence to soft violence.” As “public-opinion extortion and malicious compensation claims” are included in the scope of the campaign against organized crime, people are widely concerned that the campaign will be generalized in its implementation at the local grassroots level, resulting in legitimate consumer rights defense, private-sector speech, economic disputes involving private enterprises, and online petitions being labeled as “involving organized crime and evil” and becoming tools for the authorities to suppress public opinion and impose controls.

Profile of Zhao Hongliang: Originally from Yongcheng, Henan Province, he is a permanent resident of Longhua District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. A self-media legal education influencer, he has a large following on Weibo. Identifying as a “public-spirited person enthusiastic about the law,” he follows legal hot-button cases and produces accessible yet highly professional legal analyses, attracting a large number of readers and making him one of the leading bloggers in Weibo’s legal blogging network. In addition to purely legal principles, he often shares the “unwritten rules” or case-handling techniques of criminal justice practice, greatly helping ordinary internet users understand China’s criminal justice system.

Zhao Hongliang worked continuously at Ping An Bank in Shenzhen for approximately 21 years. In January 2023, he was criminally detained across provincial borders by Yongcheng police in Henan on the grounds of “jurisdiction based on the place where the result occurred,” after which he left the financial sector. He is still petitioning in relation to this old “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” case. Although a retrial was ordered in April 2025, serious conflict arose with the collegial panel during three hearings held in June of the same year because of procedural disputes.