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Lu Yuyu (卢昱宇) — Citizen journalist who documented protests as “Not the News”

Lu Yuyu (卢昱宇) — Citizen journalist who documented protests as “Not the News”

Status: Released — completed a four-year sentence in June 2020; left the PRC (Mainland) in May 2023 and lives in Canada. Status as of 17 October 2026, based on The Reporter (December 2025).

Summary

Lu Yuyu (卢昱宇) is a citizen journalist from Guizhou province who, from 2012 to 2016, gathered and posted daily records of strikes, land disputes and other protests across the PRC (Mainland) under the name “Not the News” (非新闻). He and his partner, Li Tingyu (李婷玉), were detained in Dali, Yunnan, in June 2016. In August 2017 the Dali City People’s Court sentenced him to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” An appeal court upheld the sentence. He was released in June 2020 after serving his full term. After years of reported police harassment and a blocked passport, he left the PRC (Mainland) in May 2023 and was resettled in Canada. There he runs a new protest-documentation project, “Yesterday” (昨天).

Background

Lu was born in 1977 in Zunyi, Guizhou, according to the Independent Chinese PEN Center (Chinese Human Rights Defenders gives 1979). He is a former migrant worker who left university without finishing. After short detentions in 2012 for taking part in street protests, including one calling for officials to disclose their assets, he began collecting reports of “mass incidents” from social media in the PRC (Mainland). He verified photos, videos and text, then published daily lists on Twitter (@wickedonnaa), Blogspot and other platforms. Li Tingyu, a Sun Yat-sen University student from Foshan, joined him in 2013 and gave the project its name. Rights groups and researchers relied on the archive because the PRC government had stopped publishing figures on such incidents. In 2015 alone they recorded close to 30,000 incidents. Over four years the archive reached more than 70,000. In 2016 RSF gave Lu and Li its Press Freedom Prize in the citizen-journalist category.

Case timeline

  • 2012: Lu begins compiling records of protests online after brief detentions for street activism (CHRD; CPJ).
  • 2013: Li Tingyu joins; the project is named “Not the News” (The Reporter).
  • 2014: The couple move to Dali, Yunnan, after harassment by police in Zhuhai (The Reporter; Amnesty).
  • 15–16 June 2016: Police in Dali take Lu and Li into custody. They are placed under criminal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (Amnesty; CHRD).
  • 6 July 2016: Lawyers meet Lu for the first time, at the Dali Prefecture Detention Centre (Amnesty; CHRD).
  • July 2016: Formal arrest approved (CHRD; ICPC).
  • Late August 2016: Lu tells his lawyer he was beaten by guards. He goes on hunger strike. His lawyers file a torture complaint on 5 September 2016 (CHRD; CPJ).
  • 8 November 2016: RSF Press Freedom Prize awarded to Lu and Li in absentia (RSF).
  • 20 April 2017: Li Tingyu is tried separately in a closed hearing and later released. Amnesty reports a two-year sentence suspended for three years (RFA; Amnesty).
  • 23 June 2017: Lu is tried at the Dali City People’s Court (CHRD; RFA).
  • 3 August 2017: He is sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” According to Amnesty, the conviction rested on eight of roughly 70,000 posts. He appeals (RFA; CPJ; Amnesty).
  • 13 September 2017: The Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court hears the appeal and later upholds the sentence (HKFP; ICPC).
  • December 2019: RSF reports that Lu has severe depression in prison and is denied medical care and access to his lawyer (RSF).
  • Mid-June 2020: He is released after completing the sentence (CHRD; ICPC).
  • 9 March 2021: According to CPJ, state security officers break into his apartment in Guangzhou, force him to leave the city, and demand he close his Twitter account (CPJ).
  • 2021–2022: His passport application is blocked and he lives under monitoring in Dandong, Liaoning (Guardian; The Reporter; CECC).
  • May 2023: He leaves the PRC (Mainland) clandestinely via Laos and reaches Thailand. The Reporter dates the border crossing to 10 May 2023 (The Reporter; CECC; Guardian).
  • 27 September 2023: He announces his arrival in Canada (RFA).
  • 2023–present: From Calgary he runs “Yesterday,” a daily record of protests in the PRC (Mainland), which he began on 1 January 2023 (The Reporter; WOMEN).

Current status (as of 17 October 2026)

Lu Yuyu is not in custody. He completed his sentence in June 2020, left the PRC (Mainland) in May 2023, and lives in Calgary, Canada. The most recent detailed independent account, The Reporter (December 2025), describes him running the “Yesterday” project there; a WOMEN feature published in August 2026, consulted in a repost, also profiles the project. No source found reports any new detention or criminal case against him since his release.

Media Profile & Archive: Lu Yuyu — Media Profile & Archive

Sources