ZHANG Guiqi (Pen name, Lu Yang)

A poet, teacher and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC), Zhang Guiqi is serving a six-year prison sentence imposed on 26 July 2022 following a closed-door trial in which he was convicted of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. He was also sentenced to three years of deprivation of his political rights, including his rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Zhang was detained in May 2020, just hours after he posted a video on social media calling for President Xi Jinping to step down and for an end to the ‘CCP’s regime’. On 29 March 2023, he was transferred from Liaocheng Detention Centre to Shandong Provincial Prison to serve his sentence (see Case Lists 2020-2025). Zhang remained imprisoned at the end of 2025 and is expected to be released in May 2026. 

Born on 4 January 1971, Zhang Guiqi is a poet and former teacher from Shandong province in eastern China. He founded, edited, and published several online poetry platforms, including the Chinese Contemporary Poetry Platform, which was forced to shut down in 2007 following a directive from Chinese government censors. In 2008, Zhang became a signatory to Charter 08, the landmark manifesto calling for political reform and greater protection of human rights in China.  

Following the detention of writer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and former ICPC president Liu Xiaobo—one of Charter 08’s principal authors—Zhang joined the ICPC as a member. In the years that followed, he became an outspoken advocate for freedom of expression in China, supporting writers and activists persecuted for their peaceful expression.