Research status: canonical baseline established; additional primary-source/media recovery continues.
Wen Donghai is a Hunan rights lawyer who represented Wang Yu and other politically sensitive clients. Human Rights Watch documented the revocation of his law license in June 2018; he subsequently announced his resignation from the Chinese Communist Party amid continued pressure.
709 / rights-defense reconciliation update — 2026-09-14
Current-status evidence: DISBARRED RIGHTS LAWYER
Wen Donghai is a Hunan rights lawyer who represented Wang Yu and other politically sensitive clients. Human Rights Watch documented the revocation of his law license in June 2018; he subsequently announced his resignation from the Chinese Communist Party amid continued pressure.
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 July 10, 2026 after approximately two hours of court-bailiff control; not currently classified as disappeared or imprisoned. The initial same-day loss-of-contact alert is retained as event chronology but is superseded for current-status purposes by follow-up release reporting.
His 2018 law-license revocation remains documented. Original court, police, security-video and complaint records for the July 2026 episode remain in the source-recovery queue.