Zhu Yufu / 朱虞夫
Classification: Democracy activist, poet, China Democracy Party organizer, former political prisoner.
Zhu Yufu (born 13 February 1953) is a veteran Zhejiang democracy activist whose public activity reaches back to the Democracy Wall era. He later participated in the effort to organize the China Democracy Party in Zhejiang and published the magazine Opposition Party (《在野党》).
Political activity and imprisonment
Chinese Human Rights Defenders documents multiple imprisonment episodes. Zhu was convicted in 1999 in connection with his political organizing and publishing. After his release, he continued public advocacy. In 2011 he was detained amid the crackdown surrounding calls for “Jasmine” protests. Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court sentenced him on 10 February 2012 to seven years for “inciting subversion of state power”; the Zhejiang High People’s Court upheld the judgment on appeal. CHRD records his release on 4 March 2018 after completion of that sentence.
Radio Free Asia reported in April 2023 that authorities prevented Zhu from traveling to Japan to visit his terminally ill sister. Later reporting and public appearances place him outside mainland China: a December 2024 report described him participating from North America in assistance for political prisoners and their families, and an April 2025 report described him as having reached the United States in 2024. This profile therefore records him as a former political prisoner, not a current prisoner.
Writing and public expression
Zhu is also known as a poet. His poem It Is Time (《是时候了》) figured in the evidence surrounding his 2012 conviction. Radio Free Asia quoted the poem in its February 10, 2012 report. Representative short quotation: “It is time, people of China! It is time.” — It Is Time, as quoted by Radio Free Asia, 10 February 2012.
Sources
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders, “Zhu Yufu (朱虞夫),” prisoner-of-conscience profile, updated to record release on 4 March 2018.
- Radio Free Asia, “Seven Years in Jail For a Poem,” 10 February 2012.
- Radio Free Asia, “Police in China’s Zhejiang slap travel ban on veteran democracy campaigner,” 7 April 2023.
- Independent Chinese PEN Center, 2017 Imprisoned Writers Day announcement, 15 November 2017.
Status/uncertainty note: The sources establish release from the 2012 sentence in March 2018 and later overseas activity. This page does not infer unverified present organizational office, residence, health status, or other affiliations.