Works by independent writer Zhou Yuanzhi censored by Amazon after his death, new book by Hubei writer Liu Yiming also caught in the crossfire

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On October 22, 2026, this outlet learned that Mr. Zhou Yuanzhi, a well-known independent writer and human rights defender from Zhongxiang, Hubei Province, who was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for his writing, died suddenly of a heart attack on October 14, 2026, at the age of 65. His pen names were Chu Yichu, Hua Liangxing and Zeng Renquan. Yet not long after his death, shocking reports quickly emerged that overseas digital publishing and sales platforms had imposed a sweeping ban.

On October 20, readers and rights advocates in China and abroad found, while searching Amazon, that the sales and information pages for Mr. Zhou’s landmark novel, The Murky Wan’er River: Diary of a Hostess, whose incisive portrayal of ordinary people sought to pierce the “mask of prosperity,” had been technically erased without warning and had become completely inaccessible.

What has further outraged the public is that this sweeping online censorship targeted not only the deceased, but also displayed a wide-ranging pattern of collateral punishment. On the same day, readers searching further found that a new history and culture book by another well-known Hubei independent writer, Liu Yiming (real name: Xiong Zhongjun), titled Fallen Stars: The Names That Once Lit Up an Era, part of the “Collection of Writers and Scholars from Mainland China” series planned by the same publisher as Zhou Yuanzhi’s work, had also been forcibly removed from the site without any violation or notice, leaving it caught in the crossfire.

Mr. Zhou Yuanzhi refused throughout his life to attach himself to authoritarian power and profit. He once served as deputy director of the urban tax bureau in Zhongxiang City. Thirty years ago, he was expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed from public service for writing an article criticizing rural policy. After leaving the system, he continued writing without pause, focusing for years on social injustice, official corruption and human rights issues. He also devoted himself to helping petitioners and disadvantaged groups by writing legal complaints for them free of charge, and was consequently subjected to more than 30 years of relentless persecution by the Chinese Communist authorities. He was arrested by the state security bureau and detained several times. After his release from prison, he was also deprived of basic pension and medical insurance benefits, and spent his later years in poverty and ill health. As recently as August 2026, shortly before his death, he was administratively detained for seven days by the Zhongxiang Public Security Bureau solely for reposting content online, and was released early only after his condition became life-threatening in detention and public pressure mounted.

Written at the cost of the last of his strength, The Murky Wan’er River records, in a stark and incisive style, the brutal truth behind China’s gleaming mask of prosperity: ordinary people at the bottom of society are subjected to layer upon layer of exploitation and, to survive, have no choice but to sell their lives and dignity. Yet this “testimony completed over a lifetime by an independent writer” was swiftly censored by a transnational platform on October 20, before the author’s body was even cold. The related removal of Mr. Liu Yiming’s compassionate documentary work, Fallen Stars, which focuses on figures from modern and contemporary times across various fields who have passed from the scene and on their commitment to humanism, further confirms the technical “expansion of collateral impact” caused by the relevant censorship mechanisms as they carry out targeted political purges.

For a long time, the Chinese Communist authorities have imposed pervasive censorship on conscientious writers in China and abroad. In September 2026, Mr. Liu Yiming’s Baidu Baike entry was also forcibly deleted. Amazon, the international e-commerce giant, swiftly “erased his words” after Mr. Zhou Yuanzhi’s death. This inevitably raises grave concerns about whether major overseas technology platforms are making concessions to the Chinese Communist authoritarian regime in exchange for benefits and enabling the long-arm reach of cross-border political censorship.

The Rights Defense Network expresses its deep sorrow at Mr. Zhou Yuanzhi’s sudden death and strongly protests and condemns the absurd conduct of transnational platforms in arbitrarily censoring and removing the works of Chinese independent writers and rights advocates. We will continue to follow and report on whether transnational platforms are bowing to authoritarian censorship systems and on independent writers’ efforts to defend their works.