(Yunnan) Wang Liqin, the wife of renowned Chinese poet Wang Zang, returned home 10 days ago after serving her sentence. She seems to be in good health.
Chengdu lawyer Lu Siwei lost his lawyer’s license during his time as Wang Zang’s defense lawyer. Lawyer Lu, who is familiar with the family’s situation, confirmed the news that Wang Liqin returned home after serving her sentence. Lu Siwei expressed: “Wang Liqin returned home. We just had a phone call. She is in good condition. Because she doesn’t have a cellphone, it’s inconvenient to contact her. I’ll let everyone know when she has one.”
Wang Liqin is the mother of four children. Two years ago, not long after her husband was arrested, she spoke up to advocate for him on Twitter; authorities in Yunnan implicated and arrested her on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power” on July 24, 2020.
Her husband, Wang Zang (real name Wang Yuwen), started writing under the pseudonym “Little Prince” at the end of 2003, criticizing totalitarian culture. Police arrested him many times.
In 2012, Wang Zang moved to the Songzhuang Art District in Beijing, where many artists and dissidents reside. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) national security began to pressure him frequently, forcing him to relocate many times, which affected his livelihood. He eventually returned to Yunnan.
Wang Zang criticized the “Cultural Revolution” initiated by Mao Zedong for bringing massive disasters to the Chinese people. He also publicly supported Mr. Guo Feixiong and many other human rights lawyers abused and tortured by the authorities. He cared about the self-immolation incident of Tibetans and supported imprisoned Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti.
In October 2014, Wang Zang posted photos supporting Hong Kong’s yellow umbrellas on the Internet and held poetry readings in support of Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central with Love and Peace” democratic movement. The Beijing police criminally detained him for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and detained him for nine months before being released without charge in July 2015. Wang Zang was subjected to torture during the interrogation, and Wang Zang’s wife, Wang Liqin, was harassed by the Chinese Communist Party’s National Security personnel.
In the middle of the night on May 30, 2020, police from Chuxiong, Yunnan, took Wang away at gunpoint in front of his family. Afterward, Wang Liqin was subjected to surveillance and harassment, so she exposed her experience on the Internet and asked the outside world for help. She cried in the video while sharing her experience.
Wang Liqin called on the authorities to release Wang Zang on the Internet, with a solemn expression, holding a card that read: Yunnan police, please release Wang Zang immediately.
The police of Chuxiong, Yunnan Province, threatened that they would send all her children to an orphanage.
She was summoned to the police station on June 17, 2020, and was subsequently detained as a suspect for the same charge of “inciting subversion of state power.” Her only crime was that she spoke publicly about the detention of her husband. Last month, The Chuxiong Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court sentenced her to two and a half years in prison and her husband to four years on the same charge.
During Wang Liqin’s sentence, she and Wang Zang’s four young children were taken care of by Wang Zang’s mother, and both the elderly and the children were subjected to close surveillance. The authorities also did not allow relatives and friends to provide any financial assistance.
The local authorities of Chuxiong, Yunnan’s imprisonment of Wang Liqin, was criticized by the public as the crime of “association” and is highly vile in nature.
~Gao Zhensai, Special Correspondent of ChinaAid
