Justice for Wang Quanzhang?

Wang Quanzhang, his son and wife Li Wenzu before he was detained in 2015

While the rest of us celebrate Christmas -- from the birth of Jesus to Santa Claus getting you exactly what you want, to gathering with loved ones -- China uses that day to convict and jail people it deems a threat.

Most famously it was pro-democracy activist and Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009, and two years before that well-known Aids and environmental activist Hu Jia was arrested on Christmas Day and later sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail.

Liu Xiaobo (right) was jailed on December 25, 2009

In 2015 Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who had represented artist Ai Weiwei was handed a three-year prison sentence just before Christmas, and in 2011, writers Chen Xi and Chen Wei were sentenced to 10 years and nine years in prison respectively on December 25. 

This year it was human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang's turn.

He was held incommunicado since July 2015 and only yesterday was tried in a secret trial that neither his wife nor his supporters could attend.

His wife was prevented from leaving her apartment in Beijing to go to the trial that was held in nearby Tianjin. Before his trial, she and other lawyers were prevented from visiting him to see how he was doing.

However, It seems Wang is still in strong spirits -- it was somehow leaked that he fired his lawyer in the courtroom which may have caused a delay in the proceedings.

What has he done wrong?

Li shaves her head in protest of Wang's detention

He is accused of "stirring up trouble", representing the banned group Falun Gong, colluding with a foreign-funded group to "propagate methods and tricks for resisting the government", and was one of the many lawyers who was rounded up in 2015 in a crackdown against human rights lawyers for "subversion of state power".

Meanwhile his wife, Li Wenzu is doing her best from the outside to draw attention to her husband's situation. She and other supporters have tried to go to the detention centre where Wang was being held, and this month they shaved their heads to protest what they said was the judges' failure to enforce Wang's rights under Chinese law.

The mandarin word for hair sounds similar to law.

"In Chinese, having no hair sounds like having no law," Li said. "We meant that we can do without our hair, but we can't do without law."

The fact that Wang has been held so long is a violation of China's own laws, as well as international ones.

She is denied access to her husband in detention

Michael Caster, a human rights advocate who previously worked with Wang in Beijing believes Wang's stubbornness "kept him going through years of abusive, incommunicado detention and given him the strength to refuse a forced confession. He was never one to be intimidated by threats from judges or by the physical abuse of police."

If there are angels, we hope they are watching over Wang. His story is being spread around the world.

The Annual July 1 March

It took us over an hour and a half to walk out of Causeway Bay

Today is Canada Day and HKSAR day... the 21st anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. The best way to celebrate? March in protest against the Hong Kong government!

When we arrived at Victoria Park from the Tin Hau MTR station, the football pitches were set up for a pro-Beijing Hong Kong Celebrations Association featuring a lion dance exhibition with many tents, but hardly anyone there. There was a joke that people were being paid to show up there.

Calls were made to free Liu Xia from house arrest

Meanwhile next to the pitches is a lawn area that wasn't full, but had a few thousand people already gathered. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was there -- in the form of a cardboard cut out, while other people held up banners for their specific causes. A significant one demanded that Liu Xia, the wife of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo be freed from house arrest.

Almost as soon as we arrived, organizers encouraged us to leave at 3pm on the dot, walking towards Tin Hau and then turning right onto Hennessy Road. Getting out of Victoria Park was OK, and at the beginning we walked quite quickly.

But soon we came to a complete stop and crawled along Hennessy Road. In fact it took an hour and a half just to walk out of Causeway Bay and into Wan Chai. Weather-wise it was slightly overcast, with periodic breezes which was nice. For a few seconds some raindrops fell.

Carrie Lam made a flat appearance...

When we were near the shopping mall Hysan Place, we could actually feel the cold air from the air conditioning blasting from the mall! There were some policemen who posted themselves right by the mall entrance to benefit from the air conditioning...

Periodically someone on loud speakers would encourage marchers to chant slogans, but for the most part the street was lined with political parties and social groups soliciting for donations which got a bit too much.

We saw people like Lee Cheuk-yan of the Labour Party, League of Social Democrats' Lau Siu-lai who was ousted from the Legislative Council, and Joshua Wong Chi-fung of Demsisto give speeches and then less than an hour later we saw them again in Wan Chai. It wasn't just political parties, but every other cause under the sun, from human rights, to animal rights, saving Lantau, to recycling and stop shopping. Domestic helpers demanded more money and there was even a group supporting North Korean defectors.

The constant barrage of voices on microphones was nauseating, combined with the heat and having to walk slow wasn't much fun. We were also joined by the Falun Gong which was awkward.

Strangely the Falun Gong joined us with drums

We could hear a marching band behind us and it was a coordinated group of people in blue and yellow satin outfits, banging on drums and playing trumpets, clarinets and saxophones wearing white gloves. We didn't want to be associated with them, but they were marching at a good pace that made us jealous!

Nevertheless, by the time we got to Admiralty, things were looking up and we were walking at a good pace to the border with Central and then we turned right to make a loop towards Tamar. Here we were stopped so that cars could go by and behind me I could see lots of people waiting like us.

Organizers estimated around 50,000 people, lower than last year, but my friend YTSL begs to differ as she has marched every year in the last several years. She says definitively that this year there were many more people than last year, which organizers had said 60,000 people showed up.

So how could this year only be 50,000?! The police had the gall to say only 9,000 people marched.

When we reached Tamar, we were actually allowed to go into Civic Square, which was a strange sensation as it had always been locked up during then leader Leung Chun-ying's time. It was a bit of an anti-climax ending the march here and then having to wait for the rest of the marchers to come before a rally would be held.

I decided to leave early and went home, sweaty and tired, but happy to be counted with the discontented.

Gao Zhisheng Predicts the End of the CPC

A photo of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng taken in April this year

Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is still alive, but under house arrest and has been denied medical care since his release two years ago.

This was the latest news from his 23-year-old daughter, Grace Geng Ge. She was in Hong Kong to represent her father at the release of his book, Stand Up China 2017 -- China's Hope: What I Learned during Five Years as a Political Prisoner.

Geng introduced the book at the Legislative Council building where she met with Hong Kong lawmakers and the media.

Gao, 52, currently lives with his brother in a remove village in Shaanxi province, and can't even go beyond the courtyard of the home. And because the condition if his teeth are so bad, he can only eat liquid foods and has been denied access to a dentist.

His daughter Grace Geng Ge presents his book in Hong Kong

Geng, her mother and younger brother have lived in the United States, and she says she hasn't seen her father for seven years. Trying to communicate with him is difficult, and she said their last conversation was six weeks ago, when guards happened to stray from their post.

In 2011, Gao was jailed for "instigating subversion of the state" until 2014, and was in solitary confinement for three years, according to his manuscript that was smuggled out of the mainland.

He told AP he wrote the book, "to expose the truth and crimes of this regime".

"This book is my way of posing resistance," he said. "I wrote it secretly because I had to hide from the minders who watch me around the clock."

It details the physical torture he experienced, from having an electric baton held to his face, having to wear a blindfold when he went to the toilet, and one time when he was deprived of sleep and forced to stand; if his knees faltered they would be struck. When he showered, no less than six guards watched him, and he was not allowed to speak.

When Gao was finally released, his wife Geng He said he lost 23kg and could barely eat and talk.

Gao talks about his torture and predicts the end of the CPC

His book also talks about 2017, he says he received a message from God saying it will be the year the Communist Party's rule over China will end. The book also outlines a plan to build a democratic China after the party's collapse.

When he was released two years ago, Gao chose not to be reunited with his family, believing that China needed him.

"At the very beginning, I did not totally understand. I wondered why our father couldn't be with us," Grace Geng Ge said as she sobbed with emotion.

"But... after some time, I came to think of his decision as truly great. He loves the Chinese people so much that he put his family in second place. I think that what he thinks is very, very great, so I am very proud of it."

She added her father was prepared for possible retaliation after the publication of his book.

"He is ready physically and mentally," his daughter said. "And he told us: 'I hope you can be ready'."

His book is being published in Taiwan, but as of yet hasn't found a distributor in Hong Kong, following the incident of the five missing booksellers and concerns of self-censorship.

We shall see if Gao is right about his prediction of the CPC. Many, like Gordon Chang, have been predicting the demise of the party for the past 10 years.

Will next year be the one?

In the meantime, Gao's selflessness shows that everything he does is for the good of the country. He was upholding rule of law when he defended the likes of the Falun Gong and fought for farmers' land rights.

And now he remains in China, waiting patiently for a democratic China to blossom. We hope he is right.

Cautious Freedom

Free at last -- but how much freedom with Gao Zhisheng really have?

We are thrilled to hear activist lawyer Gao Zhisheng was released earlier today after three years in jail in Shaya, in remote northwest China.

His brother went to pick him up and then travel to Urumqi with minders following them. They went to Gao's sister-in-law's home and it was there that the lawyer was able to call his wife in San Francisco and speak to her for the first time in four years.

"I spoke to Gao Zhisheng, I spoke to him," his wife Geng He said, her voice filled with emotion. "I ask him how his health was, and all he was able to say was, 'My teeth are in bad shape,'" she said.

Geng could hear unfamiliar voices in the room, and deduced they were minders. Her sister told her that half a dozen of Gao's teeth were loose and he had to tear his prison servings of steamed buns into tiny pieces in order to eat.

"Can you imagine the kind of ill treatment he was facing in there?" she asked.

His release was a stark change from the two visits from relatives he was allowed in three years, while his wife and two children fled China in 2009 and were accepted as refugees in the US.

What did Gao do to deserve this horrific treatment?

Previously he was a leading human rights lawyer, self-taught and praised by the Chinese government. But then he began defending the rights of Falun Gong members and farmers with land disputes which Beijing frowned upon. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

This isn't the first time Gao was jailed. He was convicted of subversion in 2006 and sentenced to three years in prison. Three years later he was released on probation, and then disappeared a few times.

The last time he was released he recounted in graphic detail to the media how he was physically tortured, kept awake, beaten, his genitals prodded and violated. Soon afterwards he was disappeared again... and then it was later revealed he was in this remote prison for violating the terms of his probation, according to Xinhua.

"Among all the rights lawyers, he has endured the most suffering and we are happy that he was able to come out today," said Beijing rights lawyer Li Fangping. "But we feel very pessimistic about the days ahead. In the past, he was always in either illegal detention or being tortured. We are very worried about whether he will be able to regain full freedom."

We worry too about what will happen to Gao. But more importantly what is his mental state after all he has been through? Has he completely given up the fight to preserve his sanity or is he still the fiery advocate? Will Gao be able to see his family again?

There are too many questions and hopefully they will be answered with time.

Nevertheless, the constant stream on Twitter about his release proves Gao has not been forgotten. We hope he is feeling our love and support from around the world.

Security Paradox

A cartoon about the July incident in which Alpais Lam Wai-sze swore at police

In an ironic twist, the teacher who swore at the police is now asking them for protection.

Alpais Lam Wai-sze went to the Tai Po police station yesterday accompanied by her lawyer because she has received a threatening letter with a box cutter blade attached to it.

She said she would write a letter to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and police commissioner Andy Tsang Wai-hung requesting police protection.

The handwritten letter in simplified Chinese was signed "underground Communist Party member". Dated August 6, the letter criticized Lam for supporting the Falun Gong and threatened to kill her. "We have to kill you... You should call the police, you must call the police," it said.

The letter writer claimed to be part of the Patriotic Youths Association, with "tens of millions of supporters". The author also accused Lam of being "an anti-Communist element" who taught students to oppose the doctrine.

"I was quite scared as any woman would be in a situation like this, but I did what any citizen would do and sought police help," Lam said outside the Tai Po police station where she filed the report. Her lawyer, lawmaker Andrew Cheng Kar-foo said this was the third death threat she had reported to police since July.

Lam is currently on sick leave from Pui Ling School of the Precious Blood in Fanling. "I hope this is the last time I have to report a letter like this," she said. "I still think Hong Kong is a place with the rule of law and I trust the police will help me get to the bottom of this."

The teacher made headlines in July when she swore a police because she was upset at how they handled an anti-Falun Gong group that was obstructing a Falun Gong group.

There was a huge debate over whether a teacher should be swearing, and the police themselves, including former colleagues banded in a protest against her.

Since then the chief executive has called for the education minister to write a report about Lam's incident, which many fear echoes the Cultural Revolution.

There was nothing illegal about what Lam did -- she happened to be filmed in a video that was put online without her consent. She was not on duty as a teacher at the time, but an ordinary citizen who was voicing her opinion; nor is it an offense to shout obscenities at the police.

Which is why we've now come to this ironic twist where the police have to protect the very person they don't care much for because she's receiving death threats.

However we do believe the authorities will do their duty. For their first clue is that the author of the threatening letter is from the mainland...