Zhang Zhongshun, human rights defender and participant in the “Xiamen Citizens’ Gathering Case” sentenced to four and a half years, spends his 59th birthday in prison

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On August 20, 2026, this outlet learned that August 19, 2026, was the 59th birthday of Zhang Zhongshun, a human rights defender and participant in the “Xiamen Citizens’ Gathering Case” who was sentenced to four years and six months for “subversion of state power” and “illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.” He spent his 59th birthday in prison. Zhang Zhongshun was sentenced to four years and six months in 2024 for participating in the Xiamen gathering; he is currently serving his sentence at Jiteng Prison in Shandong Province.

Profile of Zhang Zhongshun: Born on August 19, 1967, he is from Penglai, Shandong Province; he is a human rights defender, a graduate of the Fudan University–University of Hong Kong IMBA program, a former teacher at Yantai University, an independent thinker, and a participant in the “December 13 Xiamen Gathering Case.”

In 2007, while teaching at the School of Economics and Business Administration at Yantai University, he was reported by students’ parents for showing a video of the 1989 June Fourth incident while teaching Public Ethics in class. On August 24 of that year, he was secretly arrested by police from Laishan District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, and his home was raided. On August 28, he was criminally detained on suspicion of a cult-related offense and taken to the General Hospital of the Armed Police in Jinan (Jinan Xinkang Prison), where he was held; on September 30, 2007, he was arrested on suspicion of “using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law” and held at the Yantai City Detention Center; on February 28, 2008, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by the Laishan District Court of Yantai City for the same offense; following an appeal, the Yantai Intermediate Court upheld the original judgment on second instance, and on August 12 of the same year he was sent to a prison in Shandong Province to serve his sentence; he was released from prison in February 2010, and in March was dismissed from his position at Yantai University, while the house in which he lived was forcibly demolished.

In early December 2019, more than 20 rights lawyers and human rights defenders, including Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, gathered in Xiamen, and Zhang Zhongshun was one of the participants. As a result, on December 26, 2019, he was placed under residential surveillance by the Chinese Communist authorities’ “12.13 special task force” on suspicion of “subversion of state power,” and was released nearly six months later.

Afterward, because he provided testimony for the defense lawyers representing Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, Zhang Zhongshun was placed under residential surveillance for a second time on September 23, 2022, by Yantai police in Shandong on the same charge in the same case, and his residence was searched again. On January 9, 2023, Zhang Zhongshun was transferred to the Linyi City Linshu County Detention Center in Shandong and criminally detained; in April 2024, he was tried in secret by the Linyi Intermediate Court, which did not notify his family in advance. In November 2024, the Linyi Intermediate Court in Shandong sentenced him to four years and six months for “subversion of state power” and “illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.” In December 2024, he was taken into custody at Jiteng Prison in Shandong Province.