‘Today, I received terrible news that our dream of reunion has once again been dashed.’
On 22 May 2023, Jin Bianling learnt that her husband Jiang Tianyong’s applications for a passport and a travel pass for Hong Kong and Macau had been turned down again. It had been ten years since the disbarred award-winning human rights lawyer was separated from his wife and daughter.
Being blocked from leaving China by the authorities has become common under Xi Jinping’s rule. Some have had their passport applications or renewals turned down, others have been stopped at the airport by police, such as the exiled activist Lin Shengliang’s 12-year-old daughter, while still others have had their boarding passes torn up by airport security guards. In the case of 80-year-old historian and writer Zhang Yihe, just a word from one of the government departments was enough to bar her from leaving China. She revealed on 8 June 2023 that she had become ‘a prisoner of the state’ as of the day before, unable to travel abroad.
Continue reading “‘Worse than physical torture’ – how China uses exit bans to inflict suffering on human rights defenders and their loved ones”
