China: Xi regime targets activists, journalists, ethnic minorities, foreign critics and underground churches

Civic space in China is still rated as ‘closed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. China’s authoritarian state, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has systemically repressed fundamental freedoms. Human rights defenders and activists report harassment and intimidation; unfair trials; arbitrary, incommunicado and lengthy detentions; and torture and other ill-treatment for exercising their fundamental rights. Protests do occur but are quickly repressed, and critical civil society groups have been shut down. There are also increasing concerns about transnational repression against activists in exile.

In January 2026, President Xi Jinping removed from office the country’s two most senior generals – Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. They were placed under investigation for serious disciplinary violations. This leaves Xi virtually alone at the top of the military hierarchy.

On 4th February 2026, Human Rights Watch reported that in 2025, Chinese authorities systematically denied the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, and persecuted government critics. Tightened Chinese Communist Party (“Party”) ideological control was accompanied by harsh forced assimilation of Tibetans and Uyghurs. There has been no accountability for crimes against humanity in Xinjiang where several hundred thousand Uyghurs remain unjustly imprisoned.

In recent months, the regime has detained a student activist, blocked a woman human rights defender from accessing medical treatment and sentenced activists for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’. It also blocked the yearly Tiananmen Mothers’ Group from gathering, targeted a lawmaker in Taiwan and has used the courts to systematically criminalise dissent. Journalists continue to be targeted for their reporting while artificial intelligence is escalating censorship and surveillance. UN experts have highlighted repression of Uyghurs and the cultural expression of minorities, there have been arrests at underground Protestant churches while dozens of Tibetan activists were arrested for protesting against a mine.

Association

Student activist Zhang Yadi detained and facing charges

Zhang Yadi, an advocate for Tibetan rights who had been an international student in France, has been detained. If convicted under article 103(2) of China’s Criminal Law, which prohibits “inciting others to split the country and undermine national unity,” she faces up to 5 years in prison, or up to 15 if found to be a ringleader.

According to Human Rights Watch, while studying in France, Zhang Yadi (also known as Tara), 22, edited a Chinese language digital platform promoting Tibetan rights and interethnic dialogue. She had returned to China during the summer holidays when authorities arrested her on 31st July 2025, in Shangri-La, a city in Yunnan province, China. She is believed to be held in a detention centre in her home town in Changsha City, Hunan province.

Zhang is part of Chinese Youth Stand for Tibet, which emerged after the November 2022 White Paper Protests, when protesters held up blank sheets of paper to oppose Beijing’s draconian Zero-COVID policy. The group publishes articles on Substack that aim to “foster a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture within Chinese-speaking communities, challenge and deconstruct Han chauvinism, and address ethnic conflicts and prejudice.”

Woman human rights defender Yang Li blocked from accessing medical treatment

On 18th January 2026, woman human rights defender Yang Li was intercepted by plain-clothes police, detained and forcibly prevented from travelling to Beijing to seek urgent medical treatment whilst in a critical condition.

According to Front Line Defenders, Yang Li and her father attempted to travel to Beijing University First Hospital for treatment. Immediately after leaving their home in Jintan, plainclothes police officers abducted them and forcibly transferred them to officers from the Jintan Law Enforcement Case Management Centre. On 24th January 2025, police blocked Yang from getting on a train to Beijing to attend another scheduled appointment.

Yang Li is a woman land human rights defender from Jintan District, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Since 2014, she has peacefully documented and spoken publicly about the human rights impact of illegal land expropriation, forced eviction, and demolition in her community, including the displacement of residents and the lack of adequate compensation. On 30th December 2025, Yang Li was released from detention facilities in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, having served one year and three months for ‘disrupting the work order of state organs.’ During her detention, she was subjected to ill-treatment and systematic denial of medical care.

Activist and writer jailed for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’

‘Picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ (Article 293 of the Criminal Code) has been one of the most frequently used charges by Chinese authorities against activists in the past five years, according to a report by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). In September 2025, the UN High Commissioner identified it as overly broad and vague and called for its repeal.

In January 2026, a court in Hunan sentenced Cheng Xiaofeng to three years and six months under the provision. Cheng Xiaofeng, a former police officer turned activist, is known for assisting fellow residents in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province, in seeking accountability from authorities for injustices they faced. He spoke out against the Chinese government’s draconian zero-COVID measures and filed a formal application to organise a public protest in August 2021. Police detained Cheng in July 2024, reportedly because of his online speech and activities supportive of other activists.

Columnist Min Liangchen was sentenced to three years in prison in January 2026. Liangchen mostly wrote about Chinese culture, history, and critiques on social issues. His articles have appeared in more than 300 publications since the 1980s. He had worked as an editor and commentator for several newspapers and magazines and retired from Zhengzhou Evening News in 2013 after 10 years with the outlet. In recent years he continued to publish in Hong Kong and overseas publications, which is believed to be the reason for his detention.

Tiananmen Mothers’ gathering obstructed by the government

According to Human Rights in China (HRIC) the annual New Year’s gathering of the Tiananmen Mothers’ group was, for the first time, unreasonably obstructed by the government and prevented from taking place. The gathering was originally scheduled for 28th December 2025, at a restaurant in Chongwenmen, Beijing, to celebrate the New Year and the most important Chinese festival, the Spring Festival.

On 4th June 1989, the Chinese government deployed the military and cracked down on protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing thousands of peaceful democracy protesters, and arrested tens of thousands in cities across China. To this day, the government has never acknowledged the massacre happened.

The New Year’s gathering - of the families of the victims - is a tradition of the Tiananmen Mothers’ group. Initially, it was a small gathering, but as the number of participants increased year by year, the gathering was held in a restaurant from 2009.

New UN report on reprisals highlights China’s targeting of human rights activists

In September 2025, the UN Report of the Secretary-General highlighted new allegations of reprisals from two dozen countries, including China.

Two staff members of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, Anna Kwok and Carmen Lau, were allegedly subjected to reprisals for their past and ongoing cooperation with the United Nations, including in the context of the fourth cycle of the universal periodic review of China by the Human Rights Council. Arrest warrants were issued for both of them and their passports were revoked.

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur linguist and activist, was allegedly intimidated during his participation in the Second International Conference on Language Technologies for All, co-organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the European Language Resources Association and its Special Interest Group on Underresourced Languages.

China issues warrant for Taiwanese lawmaker

In November 2025, the Chinese government scaled up its acts of transnational repression against Taiwan by issuing a warrant for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Puma Shen.

According to ARTICLE 19, this is the first time China has initiated such a judicial action against a sitting Taiwanese lawmaker. Following the initial charge of secession, China followed up with a threat to refer Puma Shen for an INTERPOL Red Notice, claiming it would compel global law enforcement to arrest him.

Puma Shen is a DPP parliamentarian, taking office in February 2024. Previously, he was a co-founder of Kuma Academy, a Taiwanese civil defence organisation focused on whole-of-society resilience in the face of PRC interference. He is also a co-founder and former Chairman of Taiwan-based Doublethink Lab, which researches foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) perpetrated by the PRC and China’s broader global malign influence. Doublethink Lab publishes the China Index, which describes itself as ‘devoted to studying the malign influence of digital authoritarianism’.

Courts used to repress human rights defenders

A report published by Amnesty International on 1st October 2025, found that Chinese courts are systematically weaponising vague national security and public order laws to silence human rights defenders. The new report exposed the judiciary’s central role in sustaining the Beijing authorities’ crackdown on fundamental freedoms.

The research briefing analysed more than 100 official judicial documents from 68 cases involving 64 human rights defenders over the past decade. It details how Chinese courts are rubber-stamping convictions against peaceful activists, journalists, lawyers, and ordinary citizens, often on the basis of their words, associations or international contacts.

In over 90 percent of cases analysed in Amnesty’s research, courts relied on national security or public order provisions that are vague, overly broad and inconsistent with international standards. Charges such as “subversion of state power,” “inciting subversion,” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” were most frequently applied, enabling authorities to criminalise peaceful speech and association.

Courts frequently treated online expression – including blog posts, social media comments, or sharing human rights articles – as evidence of “subversion.”

International engagement was routinely cited as criminal activity. Giving interviews to foreign media, publishing articles on overseas websites, or attending NGO trainings abroad were presented as proof of “collusion with foreign forces”.

Meanwhile, fair trial rights were consistently violated: defendants were denied access to lawyers of their choice, subjected to prolonged pre-trial detention, or forced into “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL) – a practice which amounts to enforced disappearance and can amount to torture or other ill-treatment.

Expression

Journalists continue to be targeted for their reporting

China’s status as the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with 50 held in 2025, has now extended to three years consecutively.

In December 2025, Chinese authorities formally charged well-known journalist and author Du Bin (pictured above) with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” according to Human Rights Watch. Police in Beijing took Du, 53, into custody on 15th October 2025, a day before he had a scheduled trip to Japan. He was held at Beijing’s Shunyi Detention Centre.

Du’s arrest appears to be related to his books, which the authorities allege “attack national leaders.” However, Du’s family have said that they have yet to receive notice of a formal criminal arrest or charge, in apparent violation of the notification requirements in China’s Criminal Procedure Law.

Independent journalists Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao were detained by police following their investigation into corruption by local authorities. Wu Yingjiao and Liu Hu were taken into custody by local police on 1st February 2026 on charges of “making false accusations” and “illegal business operations”. Their detention followed the publication of an investigative report they co-authored on the Chinese social media WeChat on 29th January 2026, which reportedly exposed corruption by Pu Fayou, the Party Secretary for Pujiang County, located in the province of Sichuan. The article has since been deleted from WeChat. They were released on bail on 14th February 2026.

Artificial intelligence is escalating censorship and surveillance

China’s ruling Communist Party is using artificial intelligence to turbocharge the surveillance and control of its 1.4 billion citizens, with the technology reaching further into daily life, predicting public demonstrations and monitoring the moods of prison inmates, according to a new report.

The report, released in December 2025 by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), details how the government’s AI tools, used to “automate censorship, enhance surveillance and pre‑emptively suppress dissent,” have grown more sophisticated in the past two years.

The authors added that the implications are both broad and deep – allowing Beijing even greater control in policing its population and managing the flow of information, as well as strengthening its power overseas as a global exporter of surveillance technology.

UN experts highlight repression of Uyghur and cultural expression of minorities

In October 2025, UN experts expressed serious concern over the increasing criminalisation of Uyghur and other minority cultural expression in China, citing the case of artist Yaxia’er Xiaohelaiti and the enforced disappearance of scholar Rahile Dawut.

Yaxia'er Xiaohelaiti, a 26-year-old Uyghur songwriter performing under the name Uigga, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of “promoting extremism” and “possessing extremist materials.” Rahile Dawut, a renowned woman ethnographer and cultural scholar, was forcibly disappeared in 2017 while travelling to Beijing and has not been seen since.

The experts underscored that cultural rights, including the right to artistic freedom, academic expression, and the use of one’s language, are integral to the full enjoyment of human rights.

The experts also raised broader concerns about the use of expansive and ambiguous counter-extremism laws, such as the 2015 Counter-Terrorism Law and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region De-extremification Regulation, which appear to be used to curtail minority cultural and religious expression. While China’s 2024 counterterrorism framework includes human rights language, it reportedly fails to establish independent safeguards or repeal repressive measures.

Arrests at underground Protestant churches

In October 2025, the authorities arrested nearly 30 pastors, preachers, and church members of the unofficial Zion Protestant Church in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. Among those arrested was the pastor and founder of the Zion church, Ezra Jin Mingri, 56, in Beihai city, Guangxi province.

According to Human Rights Watch, Zion Church, founded in 2007, has previously faced official harassment. In 2018, authorities shut down the church in Beijing and placed a travel ban on Jin, preventing him from visiting his family in the United States. Despite severe restrictions, the church continued to grow and is now one of the largest unofficial Protestant congregations in China, with thousands attending its services across the country.

The latest crackdown came after the authorities issued an Online Code of Conduct for Religious Professionals in September 2025, banning the circulation of unauthorised religious content online, effectively denying public access to religious teachers and teachings outside of Communist Party control. Jin was arrested for “illegal use of information networks,” a crime under China’s criminal law (article 287-1) which carries up to three years in prison.

In December 2025, there was a crackdown on the Yayang Church in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province - another unofficial Protestant church - with approximately 100 members arrested. At least two dozen members remain in detention. In January 2026, HRW reported that Chinese authorities have detained half a dozen members of the Early Rain Covenant Church, an underground Protestant church based in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Peaceful Assembly

Dozens of Tibetan activists arrested for protest against mine

In November 2025, Chinese authorities arrested dozens of Tibetans who were protesting a mining project in one of their communities, according to Tibetan activists and the government in exile, an act of defiance by a community that has been tightly controlled by Beijing.

On 5th November 2025, scores of people in a Tibetan autonomous area in the western Chinese province of Sichuan protested after learning of the start of a gold mine in a pasture area used by nomads for their sheep and yaks.

After the villagers in Gayixiang township confronted local authorities about the mine, which was at an early stage, Chinese authorities arrested at least 60 of the protesters. Chinese authorities have blocked access to Gayixiang, which the Tibetans refer to as Kashi village, cut off communications and intensified security in the area.

A day after the protests, authorities initiated a door-to-door search in Kashi and around 80 Tibetans were detained. Detained individuals were transported to Sershul County facilities for interrogation. Sources reported that those detained suffered torture, including sleep deprivation and aggressive interrogation, leading to physical injuries such as broken ribs and kidney damage. Detainees were also compelled to sign multiple documents pledging to refrain from sharing information about the developments and committing not to protest mining activities in the future.

Beijing has imposed increasingly draconian restrictions on Tibetan people living in China as part of an effort to tighten control over ethnic minorities and stamp out separatist sentiment. In recent years, China has stepped up restrictions on Tibetan religion, education and language—even sending young children to state-run boarding schools to be inculcated with Chinese culture—and imposed strict surveillance measures on Tibetan communities.