Person profile: Liao Shihua / 廖世华 — Labor-Rights Organizer and China Democracy Party Member
This archive collects source chronology and reporting on Liao Shihua (廖世华), a veteran labour-rights organizer in Changsha, Hunan, a participant in the 1989 democracy movement, and a China Democracy Party member.
Documented chronology
- 1989 — Amnesty International records Liao as an activist during the 1989 democracy movement.
- October 1998 — Liao organized a factory protest against corruption and sought health-care and housing benefits for retired and laid-off workers.
- June 1999 — Liao organized a protest over corruption and cuts in housing and medical benefits. Amnesty reports that more than 100 laid-off workers demonstrated outside the Hunan provincial government headquarters. Liao was detained after the protest.
- December 1999 — Amnesty reports that Liao was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment with one year’s deprivation of political rights after conviction for “conspiring to subvert state power” and “assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic.” Amnesty considered him detained for the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression and association.
- Political publishing — Amnesty records that Liao helped produce the political journal Opposition Party. No verified issue-level bibliography or signed article by Liao has been located.
Release and later record
Amnesty’s April 2002 report stated that Liao was due for release in June 2005. The Free China research record gives a release date of 9 June 2005. No sufficiently reliable fresh source establishing his circumstances after release has been verified; present location and activity are not inferred.
Source
Evidentiary limitations
The public record summarized here rests substantially on the Amnesty International report. No independent trial record, verified issue-level bibliography for Opposition Party, or verified first-person quotation by Liao is claimed here.
Person profile: Liao Shihua / 廖世华 — Labor-Rights Organizer and China Democracy Party Member