Lawyers' Database
From 1997 to 2005, Tang Jitian engaged in criminal prosecution work at the Procuratorate of the Yanbian County in Jilin Province. In pursuit of work more suited to his interests, he began practicing law in Beijing in July 2007. He took on a lot of human rights cases, including those related to the rights of AIDS patients, the labour camp system, peasants’ property rights, and cases of Falun Gong practitioners.
He has been active in advocating for law reform and supporting other lawyers in China. Towards the end of 2007, he signed and published an open letter together with 69 Chinese scholars and legal professionals calling for the abolition of the labour camp system.
Tang is also one of the signatories to Charter 08, a manifesto cosigned by 303 human rights activists and dissident intellectuals in China. On 12th January 2009, Tang, along with 21 scholars and lawyers, published an online petition titled “Boycott CCTV; Refuse to be brainwashed”, to protest against the news blackout.
Tang has been prohibited from leaving mainland China several times, including being barred from travelling to Hong Kong for medical treatment in 2017.
In 2018, he was awarded the “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Human Rights Prize of the French Republic for his dedication to human rights in China.
Tang has been prohibited from leaving mainland China several times, including being barred from travelling to Hong Kong for medical treatment in 2017.
On 2 June 2021, when he was about to travel to Japan to take care of his daughter who is paralysed in hospital due to severe tuberculosis, he was once again prohibited to leave the country by the police at Fuzhou airport on the grounds of “endangering national security”.
On 10 December 2021, Tang was taken by the police before he had been planning to attend an event hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to China on Human Rights Day. He has been held incommunicado and is believed to have been forcibly disappeared since then.
His situation has raised grave concerns in the Chinese human rights sector. On 9 June 2022, around 35 Chinese human rights defenders and international legal scholars launched a petition calling for his release and urged the Chinese government to allow Tang to visit his daughter in Japan.
On 20 February 2024, Tang Zhengqi, daughter of Chinese human rights Tang Jitian, passed away due to illness in Tokyo at the age of 27. Following her death, the “Lawyer Tang Jitian Concern Group” issued a public statement urging the authorities to allow Tang Jitian to leave the country to attend to his daughter’s funeral affairs. Yet, as Tang Zhengqi's memorial service was held in Tokyo on 2 March 2024, the Chinese authorities inisisted the prohibition against Tang Jitian, preventing him from leaving the country.
In October 2013, Tang was detained and tortured for 5 days after attempting to help the Falun Gong practitioners who were detained in the northern province of Heilongjiang. He had more than 10 ribs broken and suffered lumbar spinal tuberculosis after his torture.
On 3 June 2022, he suddenly collapsed and was in a coma while he was detained in secret in Jilin province. It is believed that he had been tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment during detention. His physical condition is very concerning since he cannot receive any medical examination or treatment for his lumbar spinal tuberculosis and other old injuries on his thighs and elbows caused by earlier torture.
Hu Xingdou case
Multiple Falun Gong practitioners' cases