Zhang Lin
Writer and social activist
Zhang Lin (June 2, 1963 - ), a dissident writer and social activist, was arrested in 1994 and then sentenced to three years of Reeducation-Through-Labor after contacting foreign journalists about human rights violations near his home village.
This profile is part of a cooperation with Independent Chinese PEN Center. It has been written by Secretary-General Yu Zhang and was first published in From Wang Shiwei to Liu Xiaobo - Prisoners of Literary Inquisition Under Communist Rule in China (1947-2010). It’s part of our ongoing effort to support freedom of speech and human rights.
Zhang Lin was born in Bengbu, Anhui Province, to worker parents. He was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1979 to study engineering physics. While in Beijing, he came under the influence of the Xidan Democracy Wall Movement and established the Historical Geographical Society. When the movement failed, he applied to discontinue his schooling, but finally received a college degree in 1985 and was assigned a job in the production technology department of the Bengbu Textile Mill.
Zhang resigned from his job in 1986, and in August that year he entered Hong Kong illegally to seek out the KMT. When he failed, he asked to be sent back to China, where he was held for three months in Guangzhou. Following his release, he made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Taiwan-controlled island of Quemoy via Xiamen. Starting in April 1988, Zhang Lin became actively involved in civil society organizations in Hainan and Yunnan and then returned to Bengbu, where he organized Anhui Branch of Futurology Society.
Following the death of ousted CPC General Secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, Zhang Lin rallied more than 5,000 people in Bengbu’s city center and then began a more wide-ranging organizing of workers, students and others to take part in the Democracy Movement. Following the June 4th Incident, Zhang organized a “civilian Kamikaze corps” to block traffic in Bengbu and planned other protest actions, but was arrested on June 8. Zhang was charged with various public order and counterrevolutionary offenses, but due to the “complexity” of the case, he wasn’t formally indicted until 18 months later.
On February 13, 1991, Zhang Lin was sentenced to two years in prison for “counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement”. When he contracted a near-fatal case of neuritis on March 2, the court granted him early release.
In early 1994, Zhang Lin joined Liu Nianchun and Li Hai in establishing the “Federation for the Protection of Workers’ Rights”. In Beijing, he contacted several foreign journalists and invited them to look into corruption problems in Bengbu’s factories and villages. He also helped publicize activities marking the fifth anniversary of June 4th Massacre. The Beijing police arrested Zhang Lin and Liu Nianchun on May 26. After being harshly beaten in detention, Zhang was sent back to Bengbu, where he spent three years in RTL for “hooliganism”.
After completing his sentence on June 1, 1997, Zhang went to the United States to work for the exiled dissident Wei Jingsheng. He joined Wang Bingzhang, Wang Xizhe, Fu Shenqi and others in establishing the China Democracy and Justice Party in February 1998, and in October, he and another member, Wei Quanbao, left the US with the intention of developing the party in China. Zhang was prevented from entering the mainland through Hong Kong’s Lowu border crossing, and after his way to Guangzhou on November 7, he was arrested and sentenced to three years of RTL for illegal entry.
Having served out his sentence at the end of 2001, Zhang Lin returned to Bengbu and began publishing articles on the Internet exposing China’s social ills. His attempt to attend a memorial ceremony for Zhao Ziyang in 2005 resulted in another spell of detention. On July 28, the Bengbu Municipal Intermediate People’s Court found that from January 2004 to January 2005, Zhang Lin had posted several articles on the Internet and had given a radio interview in which he fabricated incidents and incited subversion of state power, and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.
While in prison, Zhang Lin went on hunger strike to protest his sentence and maltreatment. He suffered from dislocated spinal disks, muscular atrophy in his leg, and joint and eye ailments.
Zhang Lin joined the Independent Chinese PEN Center in 2005, and that same year his autobiographical work Mournful Spirit was published in the US. In 2007, he was awarded ICPC’s Writers in Prison Award.
Zhang was released with a six month sentence reduction on August 12, 2009. Then he continued with his writing and social activism, and remains under police surveillance and harassment, with periodic house searches and short detentions.
In 2013, Zhang Lin held a number of protests for the rights of her youngest daughter Zhang Anni to study in another place beyond her registed city. On July 19, he was again placed in criminal detention by the Bengshan Branch of Bengbu Public Security Bureau, Anhui Province for “suspicion of gathering crowds to disrupt the order of public places.” On September 17, 2014, he was convicted by the People's Court of Bengshan District, Bengbu City, and sentenced to three years and six months in prison.
On September 9, 2016, Zhang Lin was released from prison with a sentence reduction of four months and nine days. In August 2017, he went to exile in Nepal and then in India. On January 26 of the following year, with the assistances from several human rights organizations, he arrived in the United States and joined his two daughters who went there years earlier.
Bibliography
1. Ya Yi, “Use Revolution to Save a Suffering China – An Interview with Zhang Ling”, 1997.
2. Yang Yinbo, “Record of an Interview with Zhang Lin”, 2004.
3. Zhang Lin, “The File of Zhang Lin”, 2004.
4. Zhang Lin, Mournful Spirit, 2005.
5. Fang Cao, “News Flash: Zhang Lin Sentenced to Five Years’ imprisonment (Verdict Appended)”, 2005.
6. Tang Qiwei, “Famous Anhui Democracy Activist Zhang Lin Freed Wednesday”, 2009. 7.
7. Wu Yu, “Ten-year-old Zhang Anni, the Youngest ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ in China”, 2013.
8. Zhang Lin, “A Terminally Ill China under the Deprivation of Civil Rights”, 2018.
9. Fang Bing, "Chinese Dissident Zhang Lin Freely Arrives in the United States, Saying Difficulty to Promote Democracy in China”, 2018.
10. Zhang Lin, “ Exile in Nepal, Buddha Country” (1-12), 2018.
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