Fu Changguo is a labor-rights advocate from Hunan who worked at a Shenzhen migrant workers’ support center and was detained for more than a year in connection with the 2018 Jasic workers’ movement. (The rights-defense roster lists him under the variant spelling “Fu Changuo”; all external sources use Fu Changguo / 付常国.)
Background
Fu was born on October 6, 1985, in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, and moved with his family to Qingyuan City, Guangdong. After working in factories, he joined the Shenzhen Dagongzhe Migrant Workers Centre (深圳打工者中心) in November 2015 as a staff member and labor-law consultant. The center, a non-governmental organization supporting migrant workers, worked closely with Worker Empowerment, a Hong Kong-based labor-rights group.
The Jasic movement and his detention
In May 2018, workers at the Jasic Technology plant in Shenzhen’s Pingshan District began collectively pressing for better working conditions and the right to form their own union — a dispute that drew attention across China. Fu visited one protest as an observer in his capacity as the center’s labor-law consultant and circulated news of the workers’ activities on social media.
Between July 25 and August 10, 2018, Pingshan police summoned him five times. On August 10, 2018, he was criminally detained at the Ailian police station on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事). On August 24, 2018, state media accused him of being a leader of the protests — a claim Worker Empowerment rejected, saying he had only shared news and observed one protest in his professional role.
On September 8, 2018, Fu was formally arrested, with the charge switched to “gathering a crowd to disturb public order” (聚众扰乱社会秩序). The family’s efforts to get him a lawyer were obstructed: the first lawyer received a call from the Guangdong Justice Department asking him to drop the case; the second quit out of fear; the third was allowed to meet Fu only once, on September 20, 2018, and was then denied further meetings before withdrawing in November.
On January 26, 2019, Fu was transferred out of the Shenzhen No. 2 Detention Center; his family was not told until March. In May 2019, police told the family by phone that he was under “residential surveillance at a designated location” — a form of incommunicado detention — but gave no written notice and never disclosed where he was held. On July 25, 2019, the family was asked to sign a notice that the surveillance period had ended, but Fu was still not released.
His mother became seriously ill in December 2018; a bail application was rejected on the grounds that he might “destroy or fabricate evidence.” She died on January 10, 2019, and Fu was not allowed to see her or attend her funeral.
International attention
On March 13, 2019, Chinese Human Rights Defenders filed a complaint with UN Special Procedures — including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the special rapporteurs on freedom of expression and on human-rights defenders — over the detention of Fu and four fellow labor activists. The UN experts issued a joint communication to China on May 1, 2019.
Worker Empowerment issued a public statement on the first anniversary of his detention (August 12, 2019), documenting the year of custody and the abuse of legal process. His case was also covered in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s 2019 annual report and the U.S. State Department’s 2019 country human-rights report on China.
Release
No trial or conviction of Fu Changguo has ever been reported. Scholarly research on the Jasic movement published in The China Review (Jenny Chan, February 2020) states that Fu was detained for more than a year beginning August 10, 2018 and was “finally released.” The exact date of his release has not been confirmed.
Current status
Fu is believed to have been released no later than early 2020. Details of the release and his current circumstances have not been independently confirmed.
Sources and further reading
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders, “Fu Changguo 付常国” — profile (July 18, 2019)
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders, submission to UN Special Procedures on Fu Changguo and four fellow Jasic detainees (published April 1, 2019)
- Worker Empowerment, “One Year of Incommunicado Detention of Labor Rights Advocate Fu Changguo 付常国” (August 12, 2019)
- Jenny Chan, “A Precarious Worker-Student Alliance in Xi’s China,” The China Review 20(1) (February 2020)