Democracy advocate on forced vacation

After serving a seven-year prison sentence, renowned democracy advocate Zhu Yufu was released on March 4, then immediately placed on a forced vacation.

Zhu was taken into police custody on March 5, 2011, accused of “inciting subversion of state power” after he wrote a poem which encouraged citizens to stand up for their rights. In 2012, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, followed by three additional years of deprivation of political rights.

After Zhu’s release, he was taken by officers for a “vacation” at Hangzhou Qiandao Lake with his wife, Jiang Hangli, most likely because of the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress. Zhu’s family and friends fear for his health as he is now 65 years old.

Zhu returned home after the “vacation” on March 27 and is under 24-hour surveillance.

Zhu has served 16 years in prison across three incarcerations as a founding member of China’s Democracy Party, now banned by the Communist Party. This led to his first arrest in 1998, when he was also sentenced to seven years in prison, with three years’ deprivation of political rights.

After his release in 2006, he continued to promote democracy, which led to another arrest in May 2007, where he served two years in prison for “obstructing government business.” He had only been released for two years from this sentence when he was re-arrested in 2011 for the poem.