There is something incongruous about the photo of Li Qiaochu that appears on the website of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. It shows a smiling young woman, with one hand seeming to playfully cover one eye, against a yellow background.
The text below the photo, however, tells the chilling story of the Beijing-based women’s rights and labor activist.
“Crime: Unknown
Length of Punishment: N/A
Court: N/A
Trial Date: N/A
Sentencing Date: N/A
Dates of Detention/Arrest: February 16, 2020 (detention); June 18, 2020 (released on bail)
Place of Incarceration: Unknown (disappeared)”
The information has not been updated. On November 26, 2020, Li was detained overnight after what should have been a usual hourlong “session complying with a police officer’s request to meet,” reports ChinaAid.
A blunt open letter
Li was released the next day, on the condition that her parents signed a guarantee that she “would no longer communicate on the internet.” Otherwise, she would again be imprisoned. Upon the activist’s release, the police confiscated her computer and cell phone.
The story of Li Qiaochu shows the uncertainties and the challenges facing women activists in China. Women are seen as partners behind men activists. At the same time, their work as activists is often disregarded.
Li’s two arrests are perceived to be related to the arbitrary detention of her partner, Xu Zhiyong, one of China’s most prominent rights activists and a legal scholar. In a post dated February 4, he called for China’s leader Xi to step down, “criticizing his handling of the coronavirus outbreak and myriad other policies,” reports NPR. Xu was detained on February 15, 2020.
As Xu’s romantic partner, Li worried about his safety after publishing such a blunt open letter. However, as his revolutionary partner, she was proud of his fierce determination.
The day after Xu’s arrest, Li was detained, too, and charged with subversion. After her arrest, the media labeled her “Xu Zhiyong’s girlfriend” and “the woman behind Xu Zhiyong’s back.”
A tireless advocate
However, Li’s own tireless work on social justice issues has often been overlooked. The failure to recognize women’s contributions to the public sphere generally reinforces their subordination and dependency. Li said, “Women activists are oppressed and devalued at every turn. “We need to fight against both totalitarianism and patriarchy to keep the discourse (on gender awareness and equality) going.”
Li has been actively advocating the rights of workers and women for years. In the winter of 2017, the authorities in Beijing launched a citywide “clean-up operation” in which they forcibly evicted tens of thousands of migrant workers from their rented homes.
According to ChinaAid, Li also has a keen interest in researching labor issues. This has allowed her to witness the workers tearfully and fearfully resisting the police who carried riot shields and shouted at the workers. Li saw how some workers had to move out in the cold night.
The activist criticized the government for its cruelty, and together with other volunteers, helped the workers find affordable housing.
Li felt the urge to do more after witnessing the struggles of the underclass. She became more vocal in advocating women’s rights by supporting survivors and collecting their stories during the #MeToo movement in 2018. Inspired by other survivors, she also stood forward to accuse Wang Jiangsong, a prominent expert on labor issues, of sexual harassment.
Rife misogyny
However, some people chose to blame Li for destroying the reputation of civil society, which was already in a vulnerable and fragile state before she came forward. This made her see the hostility toward female activists and the misogyny that exists even within the ranks of civil society. “Authoritarianism and persistent patriarchy have contributed to the oppression of women human rights defenders,” Li said.
Yet, Li embraces being labeled the partner of Xu Zhiyong because it justifies her position in campaigning for his release as well as the release of the other detainees in what has been called the “12.26” case. She sees the importance of this identity since she is the only one in mainland China who dares to advocate for their freedom.
Xu and the detainees all attended a citizens’ meeting in Xiamen on December 26, 2019, in which China’s political events, development of civil society—taboo topics that are seen as challenging the Communist Party’s rule—were discussed. Li herself was not at the meeting.
While Li works on Xu’s case, she constantly worries that she will be imprisoned again. Imprisonment was a harrowing experience for the activist, who was diagnosed with depression in 2019. Her being placed under “residential surveillance in a designated location” for four months, without access to her family or a lawyer, led her to become severely depressed. Article 73 of China’s draconian Criminal Procedure Law allows the authorities to impose this form of detention for those suspected of “crimes of endangering state security” in an undisclosed location for up to six months.
Women Defenders in China
Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a coalition of Chinese and international human rights organizations, publishes on its website various lists of activists and advocates who are being persecuted by the government through prosecution, arrest, illegal detention, and even outright disappearance.
One of their lists consists of women activists who have faced China’s authoritarian rule one way or another. The charges against them range from misdemeanors like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to weighty accusations like “inciting subversion of state power.” Regardless of the charge, these women endure state surveillance, inhumane treatment in detention, torture, disregard for their medical conditions, and other forms of inhumane treatment.
The collection shows just how involved women activists are in demanding accountability from the Chinese government. They have been imprisoned for protesting faulty vaccines in 2019, petitioning for support for World War II veterans, gender equality, and environmental justice. Some are journalists monitoring human rights abuses, while others are wrongfully accused innocents who were at the wrong place and the wrong time. Others have either been incarcerated in undisclosed prisons or feared to have been disappeared.
By Asia Democracy Chronicles
Painful memories
During her imprisonment, Li had to beg for her medicine. She said, “I was so humiliated because I vomited after taking the medication. I felt shame that I expressed my gratitude when they brought me fruit or reduced the number of guards from three to two. I felt guilt when I was asked to denounce my boyfriend.”
Even after her release, these painful memories haunted her.
Li’s incarceration destroyed any illusions she had about changing the status quo in China. It also led her to realize that the law could be manipulated in favor of political interests. Li said she will never trust the system again.
She remains firm in her resolve to fight the system. After her release on bail on June 19, 2020, she resumed her activism by writing and publishing her own detention story and campaigning for other political detainees.
“They put us behind bars to frighten and silence us,” said Li. “But we can’t let totalitarianism have its way.”
Despite the strict monitoring of her activities by the authorities, Li defends the rights of political prisoners through legal means. She constantly requests information about their state of health and the places of their incarceration. She then makes public all the details of the detainees’ repeated harassment and intimidation, including the interrogations that they undergo, and the names and telephone numbers of the police involved.
Li feels her efforts have helped lessen the frequency of the interrogations. She sees every small win as a victory and shares both her joy and frustrations to inspire other human rights defenders. For Li, her “open and go public with everything” strategy is working.
“Li Qiaochu is so brave to keep speaking up for Xu Zhiyong and other human rights activists,” said Teng Biao, a human rights activist and lawyer in China. “She represents the toughest women defenders in the history of human rights struggles in China.”
A “hero complex”
The future looks bleak for the couple. Since Xu’s formal arrest on June 19, 2020, he has been incarcerated in the Linshu County Detention Center in Shandong Province. Li has decided to wait for him, even if she does not know if and when he will be released.
Some time ago, Li made it clear to Xu that she wanted a lover who would consider her a revolutionary partner fighting alongside him, not just a wife to be kept at home. Now Li wants to be his revolutionary partner and wife and is seeking permission to marry him even while he is in prison.
Her friends say that Li has “a hero complex.” They fear that she may never find a normal job or live a normal life again.
They are concerned that Li would suffer the same fate as Liu Xia, the artist, poet, and wife of the late Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010, while imprisoned for co-authoring an open letter calling for liberal democracy in China.
Infuriated by the award, Chinese authorities placed Liu Xia under unofficial house arrest. For years, she lived under constant surveillance—despite having never been charged with a crime—until her husband’s death due to liver cancer in 2017.
Li admitted that she does have a kind of “hero complex.”
“The hero I am fantasizing about is myself,” she said. Li said she has never looked up to Xu as a hero because she has seen his imperfections in their daily life together. Nevertheless, “I love him, and I want to free him from prison.” ●
Echo Freedoman is a freelance journalist covering stories of human rights defenders and civil society in China.
