Li Yuanfeng’s Statement to the Court: An Appeal to the World; Let God Decide!

I, Li Yuanfeng, have been prosecuted and held criminally liable by the Chinese Communist authorities for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power.” The Yiyang Municipal Procuratorate and the Yiyang Intermediate People’s Court have refused to allow my defense lawyer to copy the case files, on the grounds that the case materials are state secrets, and the indictment is also vague. I have no choice but to make a public appeal to the people of the world, explain the grounds of the case, and pray for God’s judgment.

Thank you to netizens and people from all around for your concern, and I am sorry! After thirty years of hardship defending human rights, the rights of petitioners, freedom of speech and freedom of writing, I have nevertheless ended up in a prison run by the Chinese Communist authorities.

On Double Tenth Day in 2024, I was taken to the Yuanjiang Public Security Bureau. The director asked me to give up speaking on Twitter and writing online, saying that he would give me a sum of money as compensation. This was only another such incident. Previously, during the pandemic, when I discussed pandemic policy online and demanded that the Chinese Communist Party be held responsible, the domestic security police also used inducements and threats to make me give up speaking on Twitter, seeking the truth about the Wuhan pandemic and holding the Chinese Communist Party responsible for its pandemic policy. I refused.

After I refused again, I was administratively detained for 15 days on the grounds of disrupting public order. On October 26, 2024, I was immediately criminally detained for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble upon leaving the Yuanjiang Detention Center. On November 13, 2024, the Yiyang Municipal Public Security Bureau again designated Yuanjiang domestic security as the case-handling unit and placed me under residential surveillance at a designated location in an unknown place on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power. I was made to sit on a board for 18 hours every day; the experience is difficult to put into words.

In September 2025, the Yiyang Municipal Procuratorate indicted me for inciting subversion of state power before the Yiyang Intermediate People’s Court. Both the procuratorate and the court restricted the lawyer from copying the case files on the grounds that the materials were state secrets. Yuanfeng is a laid-off worker who has defended his rights, a migrant worker from a coastal region, and a social activist engaged in grassroots work for a civil NGO. His speeches and writings were all made public on online platforms. How could there be any state secrets? At this moment, I have no choice but to make the grounds of the case public to netizens and people throughout the world, appeal to the people, and ask God to decide.

I. Regarding the indictment’s allegation that Yuanfeng colluded with overseas organizations and its request for a heavier punishment for the crime of inciting subversion of state power.

Here, Yuanfeng clarifies as follows:

1. When the Chinese Communist authorities raided Yuanfeng’s home, they seized a human rights defender certificate issued by a civil NGO. As a human rights volunteer with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, I know that the UN Human Rights Council regularly reviews the human rights reports submitted by member states. The UN Human Rights Council operates on the basis of majority voting. The Chinese Communist authorities and their partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America hold a majority of the seats on the Human Rights Council. The report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council was also a China human rights report submitted to the Chinese Communist authorities, who are a member state of the UN Human Rights Council. Yuanfeng’s statements at UN human rights conferences concerning the rights of Chinese migrant workers and laid-off workers are also documented and verifiable, and the human rights defender NGO was registered with the United Nations.

2. Among the materials seized by the Chinese Communist authorities during their raid on Yuanfeng’s home was a book, A Feast of Disappointment—The Constitutional Crisis of the Late Qing and Early Republican Periods, compiled by Yuanfeng himself from articles published on Democratic China Online by his fellow netizen Li Jianjun. During the interrogation, however, the authorities mainly subjected me to repeated questioning about the unrelated Independent Chinese PEN Center. Yuanfeng has known many members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center for many years. Previously, in Guangdong, while promoting migrant-worker literature within local literature, Yuanfeng often sat and talked with writers from the Independent Chinese PEN Center. At the time, he was not a member of the center and never had any financial dealings with it. It was only in the past two years, while he had returned to his hometown in Hunan to care for the elderly, that he joined the Independent Chinese PEN Center. Moreover, membership fees must be paid to enjoy the rights to vote and stand for election in the center. By way of explanation, the center was once headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and is also registered with the United Nations. It is a legal civil society organization under PEN International, just like the Chinese Writers Association.

3. More than 20 years ago, Yuanfeng engaged in labor-related NGO work in Guangdong. At that time, there was no legislation governing NGOs in China. Yuanfeng worked with an NGO foundation under the International Labour Organization on NGO projects, mainly engaging in migrant workers’ efforts to recover unpaid wages and defend their rights, cultural activities, work-injury visits and other activities.

II. The Chinese Communist authorities seized three books from Yuanfeng’s home—Wind of the Open Fields—A Field Survey of Rural Land Rights Defense, Drinking from the Yuanjiang River Together, and A Feast of Disappointment—The Constitutional Crisis of the Late Qing and Early Republican Periods—as well as materials relating to several rights-defense cases in Yiyang.

The indictment alleges that the book A Feast of Disappointment—The Constitutional Crisis of the Late Qing and Early Republican Periods, edited by Yuanfeng himself from Li Jianjun’s writings, contains material attacking the Communist Party, state leaders and the socialist system, and was identified by the Publication Appraisal Center of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee’s Publicity Department as a prohibited publication. It also accuses the book of making negative criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party and Sun Wen of the Nationalist Party. In response, Yuanfeng clarifies as follows:

For more than 20 years, Yuanfeng has continuously promoted Chinese local culture and local literature. In the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong, this was primarily done in the form of migrant-worker literature, reflecting the difficult circumstances of migrant workers and other workers from outside the region in the world’s sweatshops. This time, the Chinese Communist domestic security authorities also collected the small pamphlets of migrant-worker literature that Yuanfeng printed himself in Guangdong. Yuanfeng’s ideas in promoting local migrant-worker literature were, first, to enrich migrant workers’ spare-time cultural lives and, second, to use migrant-worker local literature to introduce the deeds of rural elites such as human rights lawyer Tang Jingle, in order to defend migrant workers’ rights. In Guangdong, through migrant-worker literature, Yuanfeng participated in calls to abolish the temporary residence permit system that exploited migrant workers, and, through the joint efforts of various parties following the Sun Zhigang incident, achieved certain results. He also participated in the demand put forward by human rights lawyer Tang Jingle for equal voting rights in urban and rural elections to the people’s congresses. Ultimately, under pressure, the Chinese Communist authorities abolished the unequal practice under which four rural votes were equivalent to one urban vote. After being forced by the Chinese Communist authorities in Guangdong to leave the province, Yuanfeng returned to Hunan and continued promoting rural land rights defense and petitioners’ rights defense, as well as participating in the promotion of local literature. It was while participating in the rights defense of migrants affected by a series of reservoirs along the Yuan River in Huaihua that Yuanfeng met Li Jianjun and learned about his series of articles on constitutional government during the late Qing and early Republican periods. Yuanfeng had previously attended cultural lectures in Guangdong, including lectures on India’s national philosophy of Gandhism. He also learned about the national philosophy of the United States and that the national philosophy of the Republic of China was Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People, while the Chinese Communist Party’s national philosophy was Mao Zedong Thought. He realized that since the Chinese Communist Party had overthrown the Republic of China, this indicated that there were certain problems with the Republic of China’s constitutional government and the Three Principles of the People. Moreover, China, whether officially or among the public, has a tradition of compiling histories. Yuanfeng believes that Li Jianjun’s articles represent a new local Huaihua school within the Three Principles of the People. There are various schools of the Three Principles of the People: the Taiwanese school, the pro-Communist school, a school such as Li Jianjun’s in Huaihua, and schools of interpretation of the Three Principles of the People put forward by the newly emerging pan-Blue movement on the mainland. The Chinese Communist Party overthrew the Republic of China, subverted its constitutional government and national philosophy of the Three Principles of the People, and established a state power based on Mao Zedong Thought as its national philosophy. It, too, speaks of its new Three Principles of the People. I believe that Li Jianjun’s writing and research on the Three Principles of the People, and my dissemination of his articles, constitute freedom of thought. This is my explanation of the book.

Yuanfeng’s book Wind of the Open Fields: A Field Survey of Rural Land Rights Defense reflects the rights defense of migrants affected by the Yuan River hydropower station in Huaihua, Hunan, and farmers’ land rights defense in the Yiyang area. The most important part, concerning land rights defense in Huaihua, indicates that the Chinese Communist Party’s land expropriation is illegal; the relevant issues were promptly raised in the report. The investigation of rural land in Yiyang mainly reflects the illegal occupation of rural land by the local Yiyang government, and it clearly raises the issue of Yiyang’s “black-gold politics,” reflects collusion between the police and organized crime, and reflects the interests-based collusion between officials and wealthy businessmen.

The book Drinking from the Yuanjiang River Together reflects the rights defense of migrants affected by the Yuan River reservoir in Huaihua, the land problems of migrant workers returning home, and migrant workers’ efforts to recover unpaid wages.

Among the materials relating to rights-defense cases seized during the raid, one set concerns the politically motivated assassination of Li Shangping, a teacher in Yiyang who defended workers’ rights in recovering unpaid wages. Another concerns the rights-defense and petitioning case arising from a fire in Yiyang, which exposed Yiyang’s black-gold politics, collusion between officials and businessmen, illegal land occupation, violations of the rights of owners of small-property-rights housing, and the chain of black-gold political interests exposed by fire-safety hazards.

III. As for the articles I have published and the statements I have made online over the years, they are entirely an exercise of my freedom of speech, and there is nothing to defend.

Now trapped in prison, Yuanfeng looks back on his path and sees that over the years he continuously promoted rights defense as well as local culture and local literature. While defending migrant workers’ rights in Guangdong, he also engaged in migrant-worker literature as part of local culture, reflecting the plight and despair of migrant workers in the world’s sweatshops. He also introduced a series of rural-born elites, such as human rights lawyers Tang Jingle and Luo Qian, and Li Jianjun, along with their deeds, ideas and positions. He wanted migrant workers to see hope, rural areas to see hope, and the Chinese people to see hope.

In Fenghuang, western Hunan, Yuanfeng also participated in the rights-defense movement by local people of various ethnicities demanding the abolition of admission fees for the ancient city, while promoting Miao and Yao culture. After returning to Yiyang, Yuanfeng continued promoting local culture. The Meishan area of Yiyang is precisely the ancestral homeland of the Miao and Yao peoples. Since Zhang Chun’s expansion and occupation of the Miao and Yao peoples’ homeland during the Song dynasty, the Miao and Yao peoples migrated westward and southward along the Zi River, the Yuan River and the Xuefeng Mountains. While defending rights in Huaihua, Yuanfeng established a WeChat group about Miao shamanic culture called the “Huaihua Corpse-Carrying Group,” introducing the Miao people’s local shamanic culture. The Chinese Communist authorities were extremely afraid of ethnic culture and threatened people working within the system in various places to leave the WeChat group. But Yuanfeng remained determined and continued promoting local culture in Yiyang, as well as disseminating and promoting the Christian culture and deeds brought to Yiyang by missionaries.

Now that Yuanfeng is imprisoned, he hopes that old friends will not forget and will once again join hands to fight this finest battle for human rights. We once held placards on the streets of Guangdong to protest the black-gold politics of local Chinese Communist governments, help migrant workers defend their rights, and protest the corruption of Chinese Communist officials; we called on the streets of Guangdong for the families of vaccine victims and patients to defend their rights; we protested outside Shandong Tower, the Guangzhou office of the Shandong provincial government, against the victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s family-planning tyranny and called for support for Chen Guangcheng; we called on the streets of Guangdong for veterans defending their rights; at the Lin Zhao tomb in Suzhou, Jiangsu, we commemorated and called for those rightists and intellectuals who suffered under the Chinese Communist tyranny; at the Beijing National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and central government departments, we called for petitioners; and at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, we called for the human rights of the people of all ethnic groups in China.

Years ago, Yuanfeng participated in collective action by teachers defending their rights to recover unpaid wages. At the Hunan provincial government, the provincial high court and the petitions bureau, it was precisely these teachers’ continued rights defense and resistance—including the politically motivated assassination in which Teacher Li Shangping was shot dead, and Luo Qian’s forced dismissal from his teaching post because of his rights defense, after which he performed manual labor at construction sites and died young—that, through the joint efforts of all sides, enabled the teaching community to secure relatively dignified incomes and a good standard of living in old age. It also enabled teachers’ children to receive a good education. Here, Yuanfeng also calls on the Chinese Communist authorities to clarify the truth about Li Shangping’s politically motivated assassination by gunfire. Through his social investigations in Yiyang, Yuanfeng learned that black-gold politics was rampant there. Even in prison, Yuanfeng remains determined to pursue the truth.

Yuanfeng is merely a social activist engaged in civil NGO work, with only this level of ability and understanding. I have done my utmost.

Here, I present the facts of my case as stated above and make them public to society. I ask the people of the world to understand and ask God to judge.

Li Yuanfeng, on the day of his trial