Second-instance trial upholds original verdict in case of Zhejiang pro-democracy activist Zou Wei

On May 18, 2026, this outlet learned that the second-instance trial in the case of Zou Wei upheld the original verdict. In 2024, Zhejiang pro-democracy activist Zou Wei and independent writer Zan Aizong held a sea memorial ceremony for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo at the Qiantang River estuary in Haining, Zhejiang. Subsequently, the authorities prosecuted the two on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” On February 13, a Hangzhou court held a hearing and sentenced Zou Wei to three years and six months in prison. Zan Aizong was sentenced to three years in prison. Dissatisfied with the verdict, Zou Wei legally appealed; on May 18, 2026, his appeal was rejected and the first-instance verdict was upheld.

Zou Wei’s profile: Born in 1968, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province; an important member of the Zhejiang Committee of the China Democracy Party (commonly known as a Zhejiang pro-democracy activist), human rights activist, and political prisoner detained in China.

Because of his persistent pursuit of the ideals of democracy and freedom, he became an early and steadfast participant in the pro-democracy movement in the Hangzhou area of Zhejiang; also because Zhejiang pro-democracy activists risked breaking through the suppression and blockade by the Chinese Communist Party government to establish the Zhejiang Committee of the China Democracy Party, he has always identified himself as a Zhejiang pro-democracy activist, and as a result has been summoned and had his home raided by the authorities and police many times; on January 12, 2012, because of the Wukan incident in Lufeng City, Guangdong Province (that is, during the grassroots elections in Wukan Village, Lufeng City, a collective protest occurred in which villagers’ demands escalated from economic demands to political demands; because the incident shocked the world, the Chinese Communist Party believed that the domestic political situation was serious, and at this stage more than a dozen Hangzhou police officers suddenly stormed into his home and conducted a major raid, confiscating his personal computer, address book, USB drives, and anything else considered “valuable” on the spot, and taking him away for questioning; on November 20, 2023, because dissident Sun Lin in Nanjing, Jiangsu, was allegedly beaten to death by police at home, he held up a placard to speak out, and was also an active signatory to the online “Open Letter to the Nanjing Municipal Government on the Unclear Truth about Sun Lin’s Death”; he was immediately taken away and criminally detained by police from Hangzhou’s Gongshu District, and both his home and his mother’s residence were searched; on March 17, 2024, on the fourth anniversary commemorating the “being killed” of Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of the COVID-19 pandemic, he held up a placard to speak out, and after being forced by police to travel during the convening of the Chinese Communist Party’s Two Sessions, he went to Huzhou City to attend to business and posted online information about being forced to travel and being subjected to “stability maintenance,” after which he was again taken away and summoned and reprimanded by local police; on July 13, 2024, the seventh anniversary of the death of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, he and independent writer Zan Aizong, Zhuang Daohe, pro-democracy activist Mao Qingxiang, and four others, seven people in total, traveled to the Qiantang River estuary in Haining, Zhejiang Province, to hold a sea memorial ceremony for Liu Xiaobo, and posted some photographs of the event online; consequently, six people were taken away by Hangzhou police in the early hours of the following day, five of whom were reprimanded, had records taken, and were subsequently released, while he and Zhan Aizong, because the Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was soon to be held in Beijing, were nevertheless kept in custody and forcibly made to travel; after returning home, on July 20, he and Zan Aizong were again formally criminally detained on the same day by police from Hangzhou’s Gongshu District on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” in connection with the sea memorial ceremony; on August 29 of the same year, the two were formally arrested by the Gongshu District People’s Procuratorate of Hangzhou on the same charge. They were subsequently prosecuted. The case of Zou Wei and Zan Aizong was heard at a court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, at 2:30 p.m. on February 13, 2026; Zou Wei was sentenced to three years and six months, and Zan Aizong to three years. Sentence end date: January 19, 2028. He is currently detained at the Gongshu District Detention Center in Hangzhou (also known as the Banshan Detention Center, 342-68 Banshan Road, Gongshu District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, postal code: 310011).