Ya’an police arrested Wang Shurong, a volunteer reporter for the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, in February 2016. She is serving a sentence of six years on accusations of “undermining public security” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Police detained Wang on February 8, 2016, according to the Hong Kong-based group Chinese Human Rights Defenders and China Political Prisoner Concern. Wang was sentenced on April 21, 2017.
Wang’s most recent story for 64 Tianwang, published two days before her arrest, was about six petitioners from Sichuan being violently detained in Beijing by Sichuan government officials, according to Radio Free Asia.
Wang was on her way to petition against the inaction of local government officials in Sichuan when police detained her along with other petitioners, according to Radio Free Asia. Wang has been campaigning for human rights issues in China since 1965, according to her lawyer Lin Qilei’s report on the New Citizens Movement website. Both Lin and Pu Fei, another 64 Tianwang volunteer, told CPJ that the Ya’an city government targeted Wang due to her previous reporting on local government scandals.
On June 4, 2017, the Ya’an Intermediate People’s Court rejected Wang’s appeal and upheld the original verdict and sentence. Lin told CPJ that Wang loudly condemned the court’s decision after hearing the verdict and that officials pressured Wang’s sister to not talk to media outlets.
In September 2020, an individual who was involved in Wang’s case and wished to remain anonymous for fear of government retaliation told CPJ that she was being held at the Chengdu Women’s Prison in Sichuan province, and that she had often been placed in solitary confinement there. CPJ was unable to contact that person again in 2021.
CPJ emailed the prison in late 2021 but did not receive any reply. CPJ called the Ya’an Security Bureau for comment on Wang’s case in late 2019, but no one answered. CPJ called that bureau again in late 2021, but the number was out of service.