Shenzhen Legal Self-Media Personality and Legal Education Blogger “Criminal Observer” Zhao Hongliang Administratively Detained for 8 Days After Being Compulsorily Summoned by Longhua District Police in Shenzhen

On August 13, 2026, this outlet learned that on August 10, 2026, Shenzhen legal self-media personality and Weibo influencer “Criminal Observer” Zhao Hongliang was compulsorily summoned and taken away by police from the Shangtang Police Station in Shenzhen’s Longhua District, and has not returned to date. Previously, on July 29, the Shangtang Police Station issued Zhao Hongliang a summons on the grounds that he was “suspected of disrupting order in a public place” (Shen Longhua Gong (Shangtang) Xing Chuan Zi [2026] No. 548), but Zhao Hongliang did not accept the summons.

We have just learned that after Zhao Hongliang had been under compulsory summons for more than 24 hours, he was administratively detained for 8 days. The Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau Longhua Branch’s “Notice to Family Members of Administrative Detention” (Shen Longhua Gong (Shangtang) Xing Ju Tong Zi [2026] No. 5255) states that Zhao Hongliang was administratively detained for 8 days, from August 11, 2026, to August 19, 2026, in accordance with Item 4 of Article 30 of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Penalties for Administration of Public Security for disrupting order in a public place. Place of execution: Shenzhen Detention Center �Address: Longzhu Avenue, Xili Subdistrict, Nanshan District, Shenzhen

It is understood that the immediate trigger for the Shangtang Police Station summoning him for being “suspected of disrupting order in a public place” may have been his posting on the rear window of his private car slogans concerning a public appeal and rights defense effort against judicial authorities in another locality. The slogans included the words “Shangqiu judicial and procuratorial authorities issue verdicts without recordings” and “Telephone threats—darkness without end.”

In January 2026, Zhao Hongliang also took the Shenzhen Longhua Public Security Branch and the Shenzhen Municipal Government to court as the plaintiff, dissatisfied with the police’s handling of his case involving insults, specifically the “decision not to impose an administrative penalty and administrative reconsideration” outcome.

Recently, the Chinese Communist Party authorities launched a so-called “deepening the special campaign to combat organized crime and eliminate evil” lasting one year, officially characterizing 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 incorporated into the scope of the campaign against organized crime, people are broadly concerned that the campaign will be generalized in its implementation at the local grassroots level, resulting in normal consumer rights defense, public expression, economic disputes involving private enterprises, and online appeals being labeled as “involving organized crime and criminal gangs,” and becoming a tool for the authorities to suppress public opinion and exercise control.

Profile of Zhao Hongliang: Originally from Yongcheng, Henan Province, he is a permanent resident of Longhua District, Shenzhen, Guangdong. A legal education influencer in the self-media sphere, 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 readership and making him a leading blogger in Weibo’s legal matrix. In addition to purely legal principles, he often shares the “unwritten rules” or case-handling techniques in criminal justice practice, which greatly helps ordinary internet users understand China’s criminal justice system.

Zhao Hongliang previously worked at Ping An Bank in Shenzhen for approximately 21 consecutive years. In January 2023, he was criminally detained across provincial boundaries by Yongcheng public security authorities in Henan on the grounds of “jurisdiction based on the location of the result,” after which he left the financial industry. He is still appealing the old “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” case. Although a retrial was ordered in April 2025, he became seriously at odds with the collegial panel during three hearings in June of the same year because of procedural disputes.