Huang Qi
| Huang Qi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 April 1963 |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Known for | Human rights activism |
| Spouse(s) | Zeng Li |
| Awards | Cyber-Freedom Prize |
| Website | http://www.64tianwang.com |
Huang Qi (Chinese: 黃琦; pinyin: Huáng Qí, born 1963) is a Chinese webmaster and human rights activist. He is the co-founder of Tianwang Center for Missing Persons (later renamed the Tianwang Human Rights Center), along with his wife Zeng Li. Initially the mission of the organization was to help counter human trafficking that had become a swelling problem in the late 1990s, but later it was expanded to include campaign against human rights abuse. Huang is also the owner and webmaster of 64tianwang.com, a website originally intended to release news about people who had disappeared in the People's Republic of China.
Huang was imprisoned by the government from June 2000 to June 2005 and again arrested in July 2008 for "illegal possession of state secrets" after he helped the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. In November 2009 he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment. He was subsequently described as a political prisoner;Amnesty International described him as a victim of vague state secrets laws.
Huang and his wife, Zeng Li, from Chengdu in Sichuan, set up the website www.64tianwang.com in June 1998 to track cases of human trafficking by posting information about missing people. Huang managed the site, helped to decide on its content, and actively investigated cases, ultimately aiding in the rescue of several trafficked girls. He continued to post articles exposing cases of people exploited by government officials until late 2000; this included the custodial death of a 15-year-old boy and another case of a follower of Falun Gong. The police tried to shut down his website, but Huang moved his website to servers in the United States.
Huang was arrested in late 2000 under the charges of "inciting subversion" and sentenced to five years in prison. Soon after his release in 2005, he resumed posting similar content on his website as he did before the arrest, until June 2008, when he was arrested again under the charges of "illegal possession of state secrets" after he posted an article on behalf of parents of school children who had died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, demanding an investigation into the schools’ construction.
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