HRIC Weekly Brief
September 23, 2025
Top News 头条
On 19 September 2025, prominent citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four more years in prison in an attempt to target whistleblowers and critics of the CCP. A former lawyer turned citizen journalist, Zhang travelled to Wuhan in early 2020 as COVID-19 was spreading. At a time when state media was tightly scripted and information suppressed in the name of “stability,” she documented the real horrors unfolding: overwhelmed hospitals turning away patients, shortages of essential supplies, and the extreme uncertainty of a developing pandemic. Her videos became some of the only independent reports to emerge from Wuhan’s lockdown. For this, Zhang was sentenced to four years in prison, where she endured hunger strikes and lasting damage to her health.
Only a few months after her release in 2024, for refusing to stay silent, she was re-arrested and charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after sharing posts on social media that “seriously damaged the country’s image.” Zhang is reported to have stood trial in Shanghai on Friday. Western diplomats were reportedly turned away from observing the trial.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said reports of Zhang’s re-arrest and sentencing were “deeply disturbing”. He said: “This is the second time Zhang has been convicted and subjected to a custodial sentence for this offence. We call for her immediate and unconditional release.” China’s Foreign Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment and it could not be determined if Zhang even had legal representation.
Her case is not only about China—It is about the right to truth in moments of global crisis. Zhang Zhan’s bravery deserves recognition and solidarity, not another prison term. Please help to spread awareness of Zhang’s story and demand for her immediate and unconditional release.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
Official Chinese Law Database Receives Major Upgrades: A Guide and Review: A detailed guide and review of the August 20, 2025 update with significant improvements to the database, with a “more modern look, upgraded core functionalities, and useful new features.”
Quicktake: Types and Levels of Cybersecurity Incidents: The Cybersecurity Administration of China has released more detailed procedures for reporting cybersecurity incidents that call for differentiated responses based on the incident’s severity level, accompanied by Guidelines for grading incidents. It hints at a more comprehensive conception of cybersecurity that includes content regulation as well as technical attacks on operations.
Related: State Measures on the Management of Cybersecurity Incident Reporting: The measures are due to come into effect on November 1.
LegCo bill rejection fails to represent public opinion on same-sex marriage: The gap between public opinion and the LegCo vote suggests the unrepresentativeness of Hong Kong’s “patriots-only” legislature, which values only the opinions of officially selected patriotic political elite and their narrow band of supporters.
Related: Legislative veto is not the last word in recognising same-sex partnerships in Hong Kong. As this op-ed writer remarks, “If LegCo will not pass a bill, that is not the government’s fault. That does not, though, mean the government can sit back and claim that it has fully complied with the court’s order on this topic.”
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
HRIC on LinkedIn: On September 5, 2025, China launched the world’s first prototype “Satellite Internet Firewall,” developed by Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. The payload integrates AI-driven anomaly detection, on-board inspection, large-model autonomous decision-making, and even intelligent deception—a system of decoys designed to lure, misdirect, and study attackers. Alongside its ability to filter vast volumes of traffic, this system provides real-time protection for both the hardware and the data flows of satellite internet.
China extends social media sanctions to include Weibo, Kuaishou: The Cyber Administration of China will be taking “disciplinary and punitive measures” against popular apps Weibo and Kuaishou for highlighting celebrity news and “undesirable” content. The measures include “summonses for interviews, injunctions to correct breaches within a specified period, warnings and strict sanctions against those responsible.”
Inside China’s Surveillance and Propaganda Industries: Where Profit Meets Party: Leaked documents from Geedge Networks and GoLaxy have shed light on the commercial ecosystem in China where private companies compete for contracts, leverage academic ties, and build sophisticated products to satisfy both ideological demands and market pressures.
How a Chinese company exports the Great Firewall to autocratic regimes: As reported last week, Geedge Networks provides censorship services to states outside China and has tested new surveillance technology domestically in Xinjiang and other Chinese cities. “InterSecLab found that the system relies on remote management by the company employees in China, and the data of internet users from their clients are shared with students at MesaLab, a research laboratory on informational national security at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This not only implies an infringement of internet users’ privacy, but also has serious implications for national data sovereignty, as InterSecLab’s researchers highlighted.”
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
AL CHN 9/2025: Nine independent UN experts have jointly written to the Chinese government over a reported surge in human rights violations of a transnational nature against activists, human rights defenders and ethnic and religious minorities from China who have fled to other countries, calling for accountability and transparency in the matter.
Chinese dissident who led pro-democracy group in NYC pleads guilty to spying for Beijing: Yuanjun Tang has pleaded guilty to collecting and sharing information on activists with the Chinese government.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
“I Am a Brave Person”—Zhang Yadi: From Political Depression to the Path of Freedom and Truth: Zhang ‘Tara’ Yadi, who has been studying in France, returned to Changsha, Hunan province, on July 22 to visit family and disappeared on July 30. A prolific writer and multilingual human rights advocate, she once wrote, “Supporting Tibetans is not just about speaking out for them, but also about fighting for a path to freedom for ourselves.”
Related: Free Tara 释放张雅笛 on Twitter/X. New reports reveal that Zhang was criminally detained on suspicion of “inciting separatism” and is currently held at Changsha National Security Detention Center.
Related: China: Free Student Advocate for Tibetan Rights.
China’s Liberal Press and its Feminism Gap: A reflection on feminism’s struggle within China’s liberal media, the rise and suppression of Women Awakening Network, and journalism’s transformation under harsh censorship.
China’s ‘temple economy’ in the spotlight as scandals rock influential religious leaders: The recent crackdown on influential religious leaders have pointed to the increasingly precarious position of influential religious leaders in China, as the official support for the commercialization of religious sites gives way to an emphasis on frugality and political obedience.
Tibetan monk missing since 2021 after arrest in Lhasa: News of Dhargye’s disappearance has only now surfaced outside Tibet. He had been arrested on August 5, 2021, along with two other monks: while his companions were released after several months, Dhargye never returned.
UN Human Rights Report | HKDC Kwok Fung-yee and Lau Ka-man face reprisals for cooperating with the UN: According to a new report, several individuals who cooperated with the UN and its human rights mechanisms suffered intimidation and reprisals, some of which involved transnational repression. Some examples include Jimmy Lai’s international legal team and Uyghur language scholar and poet Abduweli Ayup.
Hong Kong man handed 1-year probation order over ‘6436’ graffiti on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary: Tsang Kin-fung, a one-time member of the now-defunct pro-democracy Civic Party, had pleaded guilty to the offense earlier this month.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
China Uses Foreign Delegation Visits to Whitewash Uyghur Genocide: Between September 11 to 13, visitors toured cities, religious sites, bazaars, cotton fields, and cultural landmarks as part of an orchestrated propaganda exercise where Chinese state media deliberately selects participants, controls itineraries, and stages encounters to present a sanitized view of Xinjiang.
China stations military veterans in schools and kindergartens in Tibet: “China has launched a pilot programme in Tibet that stations military veterans in state-run kindergartens and schools, raising alarm over the growing militarisation of Tibetan education.”
China Expands Belt and Road Initiative to Afghanistan: China has reportedly invited Afghanistan to join its Belt and Road Initiative, emphasizing security cooperation related to the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM),” a group which has frequently been used by the Chinese authorities as an excuse to impose surveillance on and detain Uyghur communities.
China’s defense minister renews threats to take over Taiwan as he opens security forum: At the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security, China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun’s remarks took veiled swipes at the United States and took a more aggressive stance on topics such as democratically governed Taiwan.
Hong Kong chief pledges to continue national security crackdown in key annual address: In his fourth policy address, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee pledged to continue with the city’s national security crackdown and punish actions that threaten national security.
Related: Policy Address | Focusing on people’s livelihoods and expanding integration between Hong Kong and mainland China. In the same policy address, Lee emphasized the importance of continued and expanded integration between China and Hong Kong.
International Responses 国际反应
Taiwan’s new civil defense handbook aims to boost public readiness as China tensions persist: The handbook, issued by the All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency, features checklists and questions to help Taiwanese residents plan for crises ranging from military invasion to natural disasters on the earthquake-prone island.
US lawmakers visiting China seek to improve military cooperation: This is the first visit from the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019.