Zhu Huilai (朱惠来)
Zhu Huilai (朱惠来) is a villager from Donghai Island, Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, who received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve after a confrontation with police and demolition officials in 2012. Human-rights monitors describe him as a land-rights defender; local residents reportedly called him the "Donghai Island hero."
Zhu, whose date of birth has not been reported, lived in Diaobeiyuan, Beiyuan Village, Dongshan Township on Donghai Island. Beginning in 2008, authorities in Zhanjiang carried out large-scale demolitions in the area in connection with a steel-base project, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) prisoner database and the monitoring group China Political Prisoner Concern (CPPC).
On May 22, 2012, after Zhu's family refused to sign demolition papers, officials and police destroyed crops and structures on the family's land, according to the monitoring reports. Zhu's son, Zhu Peiren, intervened when he found his father being beaten; a confrontation between the father and son on one side and police and officials on the other left one person dead and several injured. Both were arrested.
The courts handled the case over six years. The Chikan District People's Court in Zhanjiang sentenced Zhu to death on January 17, 2013, for intentional homicide and intentional injury. On appeal, the Zhanjiang Intermediate People's Court changed the sentence in December 2013 to death with a two-year reprieve. In June 2014, the Guangdong High People's Court set the verdict aside for unclear facts and insufficient evidence and ordered a retrial; the case was retried at the Zhanjiang Intermediate People's Court in January 2015. On December 11, 2019, the Guangdong High People's Court issued its final ruling: death with a two-year reprieve and deprivation of political rights for life.
Zhu was previously held at the Zhanjiang No. 2 Detention Center. CPPC reports that he is serving his sentence at Zhaoqing Prison in Guangdong; the CHRD record states that the serving prison is unknown. The Rights Defense Network's monthly report on political prisoners (Issue 131, August 31, 2026) lists Zhu among those in custody.
Sources: Chinese Human Rights Defenders prisoner-of-conscience database; China Political Prisoner Concern, March 10, 2015 (updated); Rights Defense Network, Monthly Report on Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Conscience in Custody in Mainland China, Issue 131.
Further reporting, source chronology, and source verification for this case are collected in the Media Profile & Archive.