Ni Yulan

Ni Yulan (, born 24 March 1960) is a civil rights lawyer in the People's Republic of China. She has established herself in defending human rights in China by providing legal aid to persecuted groups such as Falun Gong practitioners and victims of forced eviction.

Ni has gone through multiple arrests, three prison sentences, and torture following her human rights cases against the Chinese government. Her license to practice law was later revoked by Chinese authorities.

In 2011, the Dutch government awarded Ni the Human Rights Tulip, and in 2016, the United States Department of State gave her the International Women of Courage Award.

Education and career

Ni entered Beijing Language and Culture University in 1978 and obtained a bachelor's degree in Chinese. She went on to obtain a law degree from China University of Political Science and Law, and became a lawyer in 1986. She then worked as a legal consultant at China International Trading Corporation while being simultaneously employed as an attorney at Justice Law Firm.

Ni is said to have been monitored by the Chinese government since 1999, when she provided legal assistance to a Falun Gong practitioner. In 2001, when Ni's neighborhood in Beijing had been slated for mandatory demolition in order to accommodate the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics, she helped her neighbors by either attempting to save their homes from being demolished or by demanding equitable compensation. She was then detained for 75 days. Ni said that during her detention, she was kicked and beaten continuously for 15 hours, consequently leaving her maimed and since then in need of crutches to walk.

Ni was again arrested in September that year while petitioning the Beijing National People's Congress Standing Committee about her having been beaten in police custody. Nonetheless, instead of receiving recompense, she was sentenced to a year in prison for "obstructing official business".

In November 2005, before then US president George W. Bush's visit to China, Chinese police warned Ni against leaving her home. Two days later, when she was taking a walk in a park near her home, she was assaulted by unidentified men. However, when she reported the attack to the police, she herself was taken into custody. According to Ni, her illness had not been treated during her detention, and she was, as a result, in poor health upon release.

Continued harassment

Since Ni Yulan's release in 2013, she and her family have experienced ongoing human rights abuses, including fraud, surveillance, being followed, and unexpected evictions from their residences by authorities and property managers.

In 2016, Ni was prevented by Chinese authorities from leaving China to attend The US Award Ceremony, where she would have received the International Women of Courage Award.

Soon after the Chinese government's denial of Ni's passport application, on 2 April 2016, a group of around twenty people forcibly removed her from her home in Beijing and assaulted her husband. Subsequently, the company managing the property told Ni that it had faced pressure from the government's security forces to evict her.

Awards

In 2011, Ni received the Human Rights Tulip, an annual award presented by the government of the Netherlands. Initially, Ni's daughter had asked for the ceremony to be delayed for two weeks since Ni was facing trial at the time, and it was feared that Ni receiving the award might aggravate her situation in China. However, the ceremony had to be cancelled later since Ni's daughter, who would have represented her mother at the ceremony, was not allowed to leave China.

In 2016, she received the International Women of Courage Award. During the ceremony, which Ni was barred by Chinese authorities from attending, then U.S. secretary of State John Kerry said: Ni Yulan has paid a steep price for her efforts to assert the legal rights of Chinese citizens. Her outspokenness has led her to imprisonment, during which she was beaten so badly that she became paralyzed from the waist down, but that hasn't stopped her [...] She continues to defend the property rights of Beijing residents whose homes have been slated for demolition.