Research status: canonical baseline established; additional primary-source/media recovery continues.
Yang Jinzhu is a Hunan lawyer who represented Zhou Shifeng after the 709 crackdown. Human Rights Watch documented that Hunan authorities revoked his law license in June 2018, together with Wen Donghai’s.
709 / rights-defense reconciliation update — 2026-09-14
Current-status evidence: DISBARRED RIGHTS LAWYER
Yang Jinzhu is a Hunan lawyer who represented Zhou Shifeng after the 709 crackdown. Human Rights Watch documented that Hunan authorities revoked his law license in June 2018, together with Wen Donghai’s.
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.
709 Crackdown archive · Rights-Defense Lawyers hub · People Directory
Identity and current-status control — September 14, 2026
Human Rights Watch documents the 2018 revocation of the Hunan rights lawyer Yang Jinzhu’s law license after his defense work for Zhou Shifeng. His exact current 2026 professional and custody status remains under verification.
Identity safeguard: Current searches also return other active lawyers named 杨金柱. Those records are not attributed to this rights-defense lawyer without independent identity anchors such as prior firm, location or biographical details.