Research status: canonical baseline established; additional primary-source/media recovery continues.
Lu Siwei is a Sichuan rights lawyer disbarred after politically sensitive defense work. Following his 2023 detention and forcible return from Laos, a Chengdu court sentenced him on 18 April 2025 to 11 months for illegally crossing the border.
709 / rights-defense reconciliation update — 2026-09-14
Current-status evidence: 2025 CONVICTION; sentence expected to run through 2025-08-09 according to contemporaneous reporting; current 2026 custody must not be inferred
Lu Siwei is a Sichuan rights lawyer disbarred after politically sensitive defense work. Following his 2023 detention and forcible return from Laos, a Chengdu court sentenced him on 18 April 2025 to 11 months for illegally crossing the border.
Source: verified/corroborating record.
Evidence rule: FreeChina.live does not infer present custody, release dates, or the end of post-release restrictions from sentence arithmetic. Where current status remains uncertain, the record remains open for source recovery.
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Current-status update — September 14, 2026
Status: Released on August 5, 2025 after serving the 11-month sentence; not currently classified as imprisoned. Front Line Defenders and Dui Hua independently corroborate the release. Human Rights Watch later reported continuing foreign-travel restrictions and serious health concerns. Exact 2026 surveillance, travel and medical conditions remain under verification.
Evidence rule: This status uses reported actual release evidence rather than calculating a release date from the sentence.