Activist Launches Twitter Campaign Calling for Attention to China’s Political Prisoners

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A former Chinese human rights lawyer now based in the United States has launched a Twitter campaign to bring international attention to the situation of China’s political prisoners, following the brutal prison assault and death of the father of “ink girl,” known for inking over public posters of Xi Jinping.

Lawyer Wang Qingpeng told The Epoch Times on Oct. 1 that after learning about the sudden death of Dong, she and her friends on Twitter realized that the outside world had stopped following Dong’s situation after he was arrested. She believes this is why the authorities dared to retaliate against him so recklessly.

According to various international media outlets, Dong Jianbiao, the father of “ink girl” Dong Yaoqiong, was beaten to death in Chaling prison, Hunan Province, on Sept. 23. His body was cremated the next day.

Dong Yaoqiong, a former real estate agent in Shanghai, live streamed herself on Twitter on July 4, 2018, spraying ink on a propaganda poster bearing Xi Jinping’s image. Dong was recently released after she was subjected to “compulsory treatment” in a psychiatric hospital for more than a year. (Screenshot from Dong’s Twitter video)

A Hunan citizen named Chen Siming was then arrested for sharing the news that Dong had died on Twitter. Hunan journalist Hu Jianlue was also arrested for attending Dong’s funeral.

In 2018, Dong Yaoqiong posted a video on Chinese social media of her criticizing the Chinese communist regime and splashing ink on the regime’s leader Xi Jinping’s portrait in Shanghai. In response, authorities detained her in psychiatric hospitals three times where she was injected unknown medicine that caused changes in her behavior. Currently, her whereabouts is unknown. Her father, who was a mineworker, had been searching for her and trying to rescue her, while calling for the outside world’s attention to her situation.

The local authorities arrested him in 2021.

Power of International Attention

Lawyer Wang told The Epoch Times, “On Sept. 25, I saw that many people on Twitter were retweeting the news of political prisoners facing retaliation from the Chinese authorities after the international community stopped paying attention to them. So I posted the ‘Appeal to Overseas Twitter Users to Each Focus on One Chinese Political Prisoner’ letter on Twitter, calling on the international community to pay attention to detained political prisoners’ situation in China.”

The appeal was liked and forwarded by many Twitter users, with 130,000 views. Wang said, “It’s been five days since I posted the appeal letter, and more than 20 people have signed up. At present, 16 Twitter users have joined the Telegram group for the one-on-one focus on Chinese political prisoners, and several others are in communication with the prisoners, their families and lawyers.”

A China Without Political Prisoners

At present, the activity mainly focuses on detained political prisoners who spoke out for human rights, Wang said. “Our goal is that there will be no more political prisoners in China, everyone can speak freely, and China can have a government that is legally supervised by the people,” she said.

Wang also shared, “Yesterday, a friend on Twitter, Esme Chen, told me that paying attention to political prisoners is not just about them, but also for ourselves and the next generation. If the CCP’s policy spreads to the whole world, then it will make our escape from the communist China meaningless. Now the CCP authorities have deleted and silenced the voices of all those dissidents who have a backbone, leaving only indifferent, insensitive, and abusive posts all over on the internet, making the world think that we Chinese are all like this. In fact, these political prisoners and people on the Twitter group who follow their situation are the true representation of the Chinese people.”

Chinese rights lawyer Wang Qingpeng posted detained Chinese activist Ji Xiaolong’s photo on her Twitter account, warning that Ji’s in danger of being sent to a psychiatric hospital for persecution by the authorities on Sept. 22, 2022. (Screenshot via Twitter)

“Esme Chen is currently posting the case of detained political prisoner Wang Linlin. I am updating the information about the case of Ji Xiaolong, and some people are tweeting the cases of Tan Binglin, Zhang Zhan, Tang Jitian, Wu Tu, Li Qiaochu, Chang Weiping, Xuebing, and others,” Wang said.

Ji Xiaolong was arrested by authorities for the second time on Sept. 23 for opposing the COVID-19 lockdowns. Ji was previously jailed for three-and-a-half years for openly criticizing the regime, and was released in February this year. The Twitter focus group said that Ji’s health condition in prison was concerning, as he was yet to recover from his previous time in detention.

Li Xi contributed to this report.