Dr. Yu Zhang
Researcher, writer, editor, Secretary-General of Independent Chinese Pen Centre
Dr. Yu Zhang is the Secretary-General of The Independent Chinese Pen Centre. He’s defending freedom of speech.
Location: Jordbro, Sweden
Yu Zhang is a Chinese citizen with permanent residence in Sweden. He was born in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in central China on April 27, 1952, and graduated at the Wuhan Institute of Chemical Technology in 1977 when starting to be a teaching assistant there. On the last day of 1981, he arrived in Stockholm to study at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and got Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry in 1987 when continuing as a research scientist there until 2007. In 1991-1993, he was a visiting researcher at Unit of Analytical Chemistry, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.
Beside his scientific research, Zhang has been engaged in promoting Chinese culture overseas while defending freedom of expression in China. In the wake of Beijing Massacre in 1989, he took part in founding of "Supporting June Fourth Movement in Sweden" as a supervisor, a human rights association of Chinese students and Scholars. In 1990, he founded Nordic Chinese, a Stockholm-based monthly newsletter, as its publisher and editing director, and later also as its chief editor until ceasing publication in 1997. In 1999, he joined Tong Xun (later renamed to the Nordic Chinese Communication), an Oslo-based Chinese monthly magazine, as its editor, and became its chief editor in 2002-2007.
In 2002, Zhang was invited to join the Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC), a branch of International PEN, to draft ICPC’s Charter for its first Congress in November 2003 when Dr. Liu Xiaobo, the laureate of Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, was elected as its President. In January 2004, Zhang was appointed as the Coordinator of its Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC), which he served until 2011, and late in November 2005 as the Secretary-general until June 2008, while Dr. Liu continued to serve as the President until October 2007 and the Board member until his arrest on 8 December 2008. Afterwards, Zhang served for various duties of ICPC, mainly as Deputy Secretary-general/Executive Secretary in 2009-2016, Coordinator of Press & Translation Committee in 2011-2018, Financial Secretary/Accountant in 2013-2020. He is now WiPC Coordinator since April 2018 and Secretary-general since May 2020.
His literary work has been published mostly in Chinse and some in English.