Wuhan human rights defender Zhang Yi spends his 61st birthday in Lhasa City Detention Center

（(Rights Defense Network Information Center report)）On September 7, 2026，this outlet learned：today is the 61st birthday that Wuhan human rights defender Zhang Yi has spent in Lhasa City Detention Center。

In 1989，he was arrested for participating in the June 4 democracy movement，and was later sentenced to two years in prison。For more than 30 years since his release，he has continued to participate in citizens’ rights-defense activities，and has persisted in commemorating June 4。In July 2026, he was criminally detained in Lhasa for displaying a photograph of the Dalai Lama，and was later formally arrested on suspicion of “inciting separatism”。He is currently being held in Lhasa City Detention Center。

Zhang Yi’s biography：Born on September 7, 1965，he is from Wuhan, Hubei Province，and previously studied at the School of Law of Wuhan University’s School of Adult Education，In 1989, he was an electrician with the Wuhan Waterworks Company，a pro-democracy dissident，a former volunteer with the Wuhan Mutual Aid and Solidarity Association（group），a rights-defense citizen，a human rights defender，and a political prisoner detained in China。

Because of Zhang Yi’s participation in the “1989 democracy movement”，he was subsequently arrested by the authorities and sentenced to two years in prison for “the crime of gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic order”，and was sent to Hongshan Prison to serve his sentence；he was subjected to torture in prison，which caused permanent hearing loss in one ear；after his release，because he continued to hold dissenting views and for many years continued to commemorate “June·4” and engage in citizens’ rights defense，the Wuhan authorities designated him as a key target for stability-maintenance surveillance；

In June 2018，he was placed under administrative detention by Wuhan police for posting online photographs of Liu Xiaobo’s “cenotaph” and planning related commemorative activities；on December 30 of the same year, he was again violently intercepted and beaten by officers from the Dongxihu District police and Changqing Garden police station in a parking-lot entrance beside the “Luo Yutou” restaurant on Lanjiang Road in Wuhan’s Hanyang District，because he refused to cooperate with the “stability-maintenance demands” put forward by the public security domestic-security police；

During the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020，because he was a volunteer with the Wuhan Mutual Aid and Solidarity Association（group）and in keeping with the group’s aim of providing assistance to the families of Wuhan victims，he bravely gave multiple interviews to foreign media，actively called for the rescue of Fang Bin（Fang Bin（CPPC number：00868），who was secretly sentenced to three years for filming videos of the number of deaths in hospitals during the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan）、and voiced support for rights-defense family members such as Zhang Hai who had been arrested，as a result of which he was warned、admonished and threatened by police more than ten times，to the extent that the Wuhan authorities once sought to collect information on him and frame him for “financial fraud” in order to silence him；during this period, his son Zhang Hongyuan also faced the risk of arrest for helping his father give interviews to foreign media and film videos of public protests against lockdowns, forcing his son to leave China alone in April 2023 and travel to the Netherlands to seek political asylum；

In June 2026，he planned to travel to Tibet and Xinjiang，but the Exit-Entry Administration refused to issue him a border pass，and only after he repeatedly negotiated with them was he ultimately permitted to travel；on July 1, 2026，while he and his younger brother Zhang Xuan were traveling in Lhasa，both were suddenly taken away by police from Lhasa’s Chengguan District；his younger brother was released after making a statement at the police station，but Zhang Yi was placed under administrative detention for 15 days，allegedly because, while visiting Sera Monastery, he wanted to borrow a prostration mat from a Tibetan person but, because of the language barrier, showed the person a photograph of the Dalai Lama on his phone，only to have the police learn of it and quickly take him away；on July 18, the 17th day of his detention, his younger brother received a telephone call from Lhasa police saying that Zhang Yi had been criminally detained on suspicion of “incitement”，asking the family to transfer living expenses for him and saying that the detention notice would be mailed to his family home in Wuhan a few days later；the family later received the detention notice, which showed that Zhang Yi had been criminally detained by the Lhasa Municipal Public Security Bureau on July 18, 2026, on the grounds of “suspected incitement to split the country,” then formally arrested and held in Lhasa City Detention Center。

This outlet will continue to follow Zhang Yi’s situation。