Wu Qiang (吴强)
Wu Qiang (吴强) is a citizen of Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, known locally for reporting environmental and food-safety issues on social media. In 2025 he was criminally detained after posting a pollution report, and in 2026 he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in the first instance; he appealed.
On April 9, 2025, Wu posted on Weibo that a stretch of the Xinghai River in the Ganyu High-Tech Zone of Lianyungang had turned black, resembling an oil spill, with a foul smell, and called on local authorities to investigate. Two days later, on April 11, 2025, the Haizhou Branch of the Lianyungang Public Security Bureau criminally detained him on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事); he was held at the Lianyungang City Detention Center.
Wu had previously pursued public-interest reporting for years: beginning in 2018 he campaigned for four years over a case of counterfeit beverages (32 tons of fake drinks), during which, he says, he was beaten by unidentified men and at one point wrote a plea for justice in his own blood. He also reported on a polluted ditch in Guanyun County (April 2025) and on school-fee and food-safety issues in Lianyungang.
After his detention, a Beijing lawyer publicly offered to assist Wu’s case; according to the rights-monitoring outlet 民生观察 (Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch), police then contacted people who had shared the lawyer’s offer, asked a supporter to delete his posts, and pressed the lawyer through an intermediary not to take the case.
On March 20, 2026, the Haizhou District Court sentenced Wu Qiang to one year’s imprisonment in the first instance. Wu appealed to the Lianyungang Intermediate Court; in April 2026 the intermediate court placed him under residential surveillance, and a second-instance hearing was scheduled for June 2026. The outcome of the appeal has not been publicly confirmed. Wu has said that he was subjected to torture while in the detention center; that account is his own and has not been independently verified.
Sources: Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) individual record on 吴强 (record entry 2025-05-07, updated); 民生观察, “吴强因举报河道被污染遭警方刑拘” (2025-04-13); 民生观察, “吴强案律师被要求不得代理关注者遭跨省骚扰” (2025-04-16).
Name note: 吴强 is a very common name; this page documents the Lianyungang environmental-reporter case only. Do not merge with any other person named Wu Qiang.