Li Qiaochu

Li Qiaochu (; born 13 January 1991 in Beijing) is a Chinese labor and women's rights activist and researcher on labour issues. She was detained by authorities for four months in the first half of 2020 and again in February2021, in both cases on national security charges. These were due to her connection with activists, including her partner Xu Zhiyong, who had secretly met in the southeastern city of Xiamen in December 2019 to discuss "democratic transition in China". In February 2024, Li was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for "inciting subversion of state power". She was released in August 2024 after having completed her sentence. and research on the rights of migrant workers.

On 24 January 2020, Li criticized in a Twitter message on occasion of the Lunar New Year the alleged underreporting of the number of deaths by the Chinese authorities in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling to "remember the pain [and] the lives that left us without even being tallied", and writing: "Let’s use civic engagement to pursue those responsible for trampling lives."

Four-month detention and 2021 arrest On 31December 2019, Li was held for 24hours, while being handcuffed, in Haidian District for questioning regarding Xu. Li later posted online about the interrogation,

Li was detained in the early morning of 16 February 2020 in Beijing, As of 11 March 2020, her charge and whereabouts had not been disclosed by authorities, with an officer saying that Li had been subpoenaed for "allegedly inciting subversion of state power". Li's lawyer, Song Yusheng, was denied information about his client on "national security grounds". Subsequently, Li was forced by police into house arrest and, according to PEN America, threatened with detention if she continued to speak about the detention of Xu. On 5February 2021, after Li visited Xu and activist Ding Jiaxi in prison, she tweeted about them having been tortured during detention, charging that Xu had been "tied to an iron chair for more than ten hours a day" for more than a week in May 2020. On 6February, police from Linyi County, where Xu was held, took away Li in Beijing.

In March 2021, Chinese Human Rights Defenders awarded Li, together with activist Li Yufeng, the 2021 Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders.

Li reportedly received a visit by her lawyer on 27 August, during her third stay at the hospital under the supervision of the Linyi Detention Center. This was the first time she had seen a lawyer during her detention; four previous requests had been rejected by authorities on the grounds that they would leak secrets and compromise the investigation. A rights lawyer familiar with the case suspected that Li, who was reportedly suffering from severe tinnitus and had gained substantial weight as side effects of her medication, had "likely been subjected to mild torture" during detention. On 10 September, Li reportedly again met a lawyer, who stated that Li had unsuccessfully applied for bail twice.

In February 2022, prosecutors issued an indictment saying that Li was facing trial for "subversion of state power", alleging that Li had published numerous articles by Xu with the intention to "overthrow the socialist system". By March 2022, several requests by her family for medical parole had been made with authorities but all had been turned down.

On 19 December 2023, a closed-door trial of Li in Linyi ended, according to a supporter group, without a verdict. Her lawyer had not been allowed to attend.

On 5 February 2024, Li was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for "subversion of state power", and deprived of her political rights for two years. She was released in August 2024 after completing her sentence, which as customary in China included pre-trial detention. That same month, she made a post on social media thanking her supporters, and asking for continued attention to her and Xu Zhiyong.