The authorities in China hold the feminist and activist LGBTQ + Guo Yi for more than three months after having stuck posters repeating the protest slogans hanging on a Beijing circulation viaduct in October by Peng Lifa, known as the demonstrator “Bridge Man”, reported a rights of rights.
Peng, who hung two protest banners – one of whom called for the abolition of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping – on an overview of Beijing on the eve of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was largely hailed as hero on social networks and by militants abroad.
“Guo Yi was arrested on October 20 or around 2022, when she took a bridge Man Peng Lifa that she had done in the toilet to publish it,” the Weiquanwang rights website reported. “Bridge Man’s posters were also found at her home, and we think she was [formally] Arrested now. “”
Guo, a graduate of the School of Economics and Management of the University of Tsinghua, is from the northwest region of Xinjiang, where she won a liberal arts scholarship to study in Beijing. It was involved in activism to promote women’s rights and other social issues. Guo, also known as Edith, had also written a script entitled “La Voie du Vagin,” said the group.
His apparent detention comes in the middle of an in progress repression on the demonstrations of the “white paper” at the end of November 2022, which were triggered by a deadly locking fire in the regional capital of Xinjiang Urumqi, with dozens of young activists, mainly women, detained through China in recent weeks.
“Citizens, not slaves”
The demonstration of Bridge Man sparked a series of demonstrations and gatherings on university campuses outside of China, although the participants said that they were risking getting trouble on their family’s heads at home if the police discovered that they had participated.
One of its banners said: “Remove the Xi Jinping traitor!” While another asked: “Food, not the COVVI-19 tests. Freedom, not locking. Reforms, not the cultural revolution. The elections and not the leaders,” adding: “Dignity, not a lie. Citizens, not slaves.”
In December 2022, WeIquanwang said the police arrested the artist based in Nanchang Xiao Liang after painting a portrait of Peng Lifa and published it on Twitter.
The activist for the rights of veterans, Zhou Fengsuo, who heads the New York Human Rights group in China, said that Guo had not committed any crime.
“Guo Yi’s actions should have been protected by her civil rights because she did nothing to express her mind,” Zhou told Radio Free Asia. “She did not commit any crime, and it was an entirely personal action.”
“The diet has already held her for 100 days, of which every day is a crime against her,” he said. “It should be released immediately.”
He called the elders of Tsinghua to express themselves in the name of Guo, in the hope of obtaining a release earlier.
New generation
He said that Guo’s voice represented a new generation that dared to denounce the Chinese Communist Party and, as such, was the main hope of change in China.
Guo was seen for the last time during a screening that she held at her home a film shortly after the national holiday on October 1, according to an article on January 31 on the Women4china Stack Exchange page signed by Wen Xin.
“Everyone felt that something was going to happen, but no one knew what Edith was going to do,” said the article, describing Guo as “thin with short red hair … appearing quite agile to wear the weight of the whole world”.
“After graduating, she continued to organize cultural activities for migrant workers,” said the article, adding that she had once hoped to live in the southern city of Shenzhen.
He declared that Guo had also written and staged his feminist scenario and had done everything possible to enlist a trans woman as one of the actors. He said that his link with the LGBTQ + community probably made it more vulnerable to the inconvenience by the authorities.
“When the police went to his apartment to find the posters of Bridge Man, they had to see the rainbow flag in the room,” said the article.
“It would have made the police even more sure that she was a” reactionary “- given the attentive attention that they gave to the rights of women and LGBT questions during the arrests and interrogations that followed the demonstrations of the White Paper.”
The article indicates that Guo’s family and lawyers have remained silent and that a bond request for them had failed.
“Edith did nothing wrong; she was a radius of red as the revolution spread. Continue to fight the right fight,” said the article, citing her Instagram signature.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.