Wang Xiaodong

A new petition by nearly 600 farmers in Hebei Province seeks the release of fellow villager and Falun Gong practitioner Wang Xiaodong.

The Wang Xiaodong petition indicates a level of grassroots resistance to a mass campaign unprecedented in Chinese communist history.

One of the first thing communist judicial authorities did was fire his lawyers and appoint him their own.

Amnesty International is urgently appealing for the release of two Falun Gong practitioners, Wang Xiaodong and Wang Junling, who have recently been detained by the Chinese authorities and are now at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Chinese lawyers and the public are increasingly more willing to oppose cases of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted by authorities, after an incident in Hebei Province where 300 villagers signed their names on a public petition calling for the release of a detained fellow villager.

Inspired by the Brave 300, Chinese intellectuals stand up for Falun Gong.