While millions across China have piled onto trains, planes and buses to welcome the Year of the Snake with extended family, relatives of those who ran afoul of the ruling Communist Party remain separated from loved ones.
Many of China’s political prisoners are serving jail terms because they criticized the government, shared sensitive information with others, or stood up for the victims of official abuse. They are journalists, editors, lawyers and activists. They and their loved ones spoke to RFA about their feelings of separation, ongoing injustice and their hopes for the new year to come:
Beijing-based veteran political journalist Gao Yu
It’s hard to describe what last year was like. By July, I had been taken away [by police] three times.
By August 26, the eve of the China-Africa Forum, my broadband, mobile phone, and landline were all cut off. It was not easy.
Now it’s New Year, and I can’t even be sure I will be able to access my medications, yet all of them are made in China.
When we get off to this kind of start, what hope can we have for the coming year?
Coco, mother of jailed website editor Niu Tengyu
Today is the first day of the New Year, when thousands of families are getting together, but I’m here alone, gazing towards the south.
My son Niu Tengyu, who has suffered a miscarriage of justice, is being illegally detained in Sihui Prison in Guangdong province.
On New Year’s Day, 2024, I received notification from the Maoming Intermediate People’s Court that they were upholding the original verdict, so I appealed to the Guangdong People’s High Court.
In April 2024, the Guangdong High Court once again rejected my application for a retrial.
In that month, Niu Tengyu’s younger brother, who was just 13 at the time, was followed by seven or eight unknown persons for a week. They even sent people to follow a friend who paid for my medical expenses and his family.
I have 14 lawyers for my son, all told. The first 13 of them were forced to withdraw because they were threatened by the authorities.
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[Niu Tengyu and his 23 co-defendants] were secretly arrested, secretly detained, secretly tried, while the case files were kept secret so the lawyers couldn’t read them. Their names have all been replaced by codes.
Clearly, this is a shocking injustice. We must expose it, and bring it into the daylight.
Rights lawyer Bao Longjun, the first detainee in a 2015 crackdown on lawyers
Things are getting worse. There are more and more restrictions on lawyers and suppression, so lawyers are getting too scared to speak out. Our greatest hope is that the rule of law they claim to practice will truly be implemented, and that political prisoners are freed as soon as possible.
We want lawyers to be allowed to truly protect their clients rights using legal means.
We also hope that we will be allowed to leave and return to China normally, so I can see my [son] a bit sooner.
Rights attorney Li Yuhan, released after a six-year jail term in March
This year, I hope to be able to live in safety, and be allowed to leave for Germany without hindrance.
My legs are very swollen, and I fell on the subway in November and broke my wrist.
Rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who remains under surveillance with his family
What we would like in the New Year to is live more freely, without harassment, and to be allowed to direct our own lives.
I really hope this wish will come true.
U.S.-based Chen Zijuan, wife of rights lawyer Chang Weiping
The atmosphere of a family reunion and of eating New Year’s Eve dinner together seems very far away for me. I haven’t had this experience for many years now. The only good thing about this year was that Chang Weiping was released.
I had a video call with him on New Year’s Eve so that the children could talk to their father. The only happy thing was that he was at least able to eat well on New Year’s Eve.
But he is still in a state of unfreedom. A normal life is still a long way off for him, which is very sad.
According to law, he has served his sentence and should be a free man, but he is not. The Chinese government doesn’t care about its own laws.
It wants to punish people by separating them from their wives and children.
Zhang Chunxiao, wife of detained rights lawyer Lu Siwei
Will I miss him more during the Spring Festival? Actually, I miss him just as much all the time. But because I still have to take care of the kids, this pain and longing is a very secret emotion for me, because I can’t let the children see it, because it will affect her mood.
We’ll be having New Year with a friend’s family, so they feel as if they’re living a normal life.
The sense of missing him is also accompanied by anxiety, and concerns for his safety.
The trial was originally scheduled to start after Jan. 1, but it was delayed, and I don’t know when the verdict will be announced.
I have no idea what kind of sentence he’ll get, or what kind of conditions he’ll live under after the verdict.
His general health has always been poor, so I would expect his mental and physical health to worsen in this situation.
Chen Guiqiu, wife of rights lawyer Xie Yang
In theory, he should be free to go wherever he wants, without interference from the state security police.
Now that Xie Yang has been released, he should be able to come to the United States to be reunited with us. But he’s still being prevented from leaving the country, because the state security police want us to go back to China.
The state security police are also persecuting my relatives in China, my father and my brothers and sisters.
But I can’t go back. We would be arrested if we even went to Thailand, so you can imagine what it would be like if we went back to China.
My little girl was only two-and-a-half years old when Xie Yang was arrested [in 2015]. She hasn’t had a father figure in her for 10 years now, and there’s no way to make up for that.
But whenever my kids ask about their father, I tell them the truth. They are still proud of their father.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.