Yang Tongyan (杨同彦, 1961–2017), who wrote under the pen name Yang Tianshui (杨天水), was a Jiangsu writer and democracy activist who spent many years imprisoned for political activity.
In 2006 he received a twelve-year prison sentence for subversion. Human Rights Watch, PEN America and Amnesty International reported that he was diagnosed with a serious brain tumor in August 2017 and released on medical parole later that month after earlier parole requests had been denied. He died in November 2017, less than three months after release.
Date and medical-record note
Most contemporary human-rights sources reviewed for this record report November 7, 2017 as the date of death. A later Congressional-Executive Commission on China report lists November 5. This memorial preserves that discrepancy rather than silently resolving it. Public reporting identifies a brain tumor or brain cancer, but no underlying clinical record is reproduced here.
Related records
Person record: Yang Tongyan / Yang Tianshui