Huang Qi, 64 Tianwang
Medium:Internet
Charge:No charge
Imprisoned:November 28, 2016

Police detained Huang, publisher of the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, outside his apartment complex in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on November 28, 2016, according to mediareports. More than 10 officers searched Huang's home and detained his mother, Pu Wenqing, who was in his apartment at the time. Police took Pu to her home in the nearby city of Neijiang. When Pu arrived, she found her residence had also been searched, according to media reports.

CPJ's phone calls to the Chengdu Public Security Bureau seeking more information about Huang's detention in late November went unanswered. Police had not announced any charges against him as of December 1, 2016.

Huang founded64 Tianwang in 1998 with his then wife Zeng Li, as a missing-persons service. The website started covering issues not reported on by China's mainstream news media, such as protests, allegations of government corruption and abuse of power, police brutality, and the detention of writers and activists. On November 23 and 25, 2016, 64 Tianwang reported on the arrests of demonstrators who were protesting the death of a petitioner allegedly beaten by government supporters. Huang told Radio Free Asia that such reporting "could bring him trouble."

Huang and his staff have been subjected to police harassment since he founded 64 Tianwang. In October 2016, police briefly detained Huang ahead of a gathering of the Chinese Communist Party Congress. Huang was jailed from 2000-2005 on charges of "subversion of state power" for articles posted on 64 Tianwang, and from 2008-2011 on charges of "illegally holding state secrets." A volunteer for the site, Pu Fei, was detained for two weeks in 2008 after Huang was arrested. In April 2016, Wang Jing, a reporter at 64 Tianwang, was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." She was arrested on December 10, 2014, while photographing protesters near the Beijing headquarters of the state-run broadcasting agency China Central Television, according to news reports. The website has been blocked in China since March 2003 and is frequently targeted by hackers, according to Radio Free Asia.

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