Tao Hong (陶红) is a rights activist from Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province. More than a decade ago, her home in Zhangjiagang was forcibly demolished and her property destroyed, leaving her homeless for over ten years. She petitioned through official channels up to Beijing, and was repeatedly detained by local authorities, placed under surveillance, and subjected to long-term restrictions on her personal freedom.
As she pursued redress for her own case, Tao Hong also spoke out for other victims of abuse. She repeatedly raised her voice for the “chained woman” cases and other women who suffered unlawful confinement, and she worked to publicize the March 2022 death by fire of fellow rights activist Mao Lihui, publicly questioning the official account of that death.
Her last public social-media update was on September 9, 2022, in which she wrote that she would never take her own life. She then disappeared. According to rights-monitoring reports, she was seized by local police in Beijing that day and has been held ever since in a makeshift detention arrangement — reportedly six months of residential surveillance at a designated location, followed by successive periods of release on bail, confined to a small room under around-the-clock guard, cut off from outside contact, with even her husband unable to see her.
On April 28, 2025, when the procuratorate’s bail period expired, a prosecutor reportedly read out a non-prosecution decision, finding the evidence for a public-order charge insufficient. She was nonetheless not released, and the number of guards around her was reportedly increased. Her whereabouts and status after that date are not confirmed by available sources.
A note on identity: this profile concerns Tao Hong (陶红) of Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu. She is a different person from Tao Yonghong (陶永红) of Maoming, Guangdong — the names are not the same and the cases are unrelated.
Sources
- Weiquanwang (维权网, Chinese-language rights-monitoring outlet), April 5, 2023 — “江苏张家港市维权人士陶红女士遭强迫失踪近8个月仍音信全无”: https://wqw2010.blogspot.com/2023/04/8_5.html
- Quanli Yundong (权利运动 / chinahrc.org), April 5, 2023 — republication of the Weiquanwang report: https://www.chinahrc.org/content/30744/
- CHRD Political Prisoner Database (case record entered May 3, 2023) — case-record anchor: identity, disappearance date, confinement details, and the April 2025 non-prosecution update.
Further reading
Further records for this case are preserved in the Media Profile & Archive for Tao Hong (陶红).