HRIC Weekly Brief
April 7, 2026
Top News 头条
This week, Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat app was pulled from China’s app store on the orders of the Cyberspace Administration of China due to its capability for “social mobilization.” Meanwhile, in March, WeChat announced that since the beginning of 2026, it had permanently banned 1,209 accounts and sanctioned more than 60,000 accounts for various violations. Many WeChat bloggers have published articles explaining to their readers why certain posts were blocked or deleted.
In an exclusive interview with Human Rights in China, Cheuk Kwan, Co-Chair of Toronto Association for Democracy in China, shared his experiences as a member of the Chinese Canadian diaspora community. He described joining the June 4th protests in Tiananmen Square, serving as a decades-long advocate for Chinese human rights, and the difficulties of facing transnational repression.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
NPC Calendar: April 2026: The 14th National People’s Congress Standing Committee will convene for its 22nd session in late April. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-April to decide on the agenda and the dates of the session. Laws of interest that may be reviewed include the draft revision to the Prisons Law [监狱法] and the draft Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation Law [检察公益诉讼法].
China moves to regulate digital humans, bans addictive services for children: The Cyberspace Administration of China’s proposed rules, published for public comment until May 6, would require prominent “digital human” labels on all virtual human content. It will also ban the use of digital humans to circumvent real-name registration rules and prohibit “disseminating content that endangers national security, inciting subversion of state power, promoting secession or undermining national unity.”
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
AI for Human Propaganda: The theme of the Cyberspace Administration of China’s yearly Internet Media Forum was the “2026 Digital Intelligence Empowerment: Positive Energy Production and Dissemination Conference.” The discussion emphasized how the Party sees AI as a tool to “revolutionize journalism and media to serve its interests by emphasizing positives and suppressing critical coverage.”
Translations: Reflections on the Controversial Legacy of Educational Influencer Zhang Xuefeng: Zhang Xuefeng, a popular education content creator whose unexpected death at age 41 sparked widespread mourning, was one of a number of online influencers hit with multiplatform bans last October, amid a Cyberspace Administration of China campaign to clean up internet content that might “maliciously incite” polarization, pessimism, anxiety, and other negative sentiments.
Submission from Hong Kong Watch to Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ‘Call for Inputs: Protection of human rights defenders in the digital age’ March 2026: This UN submission by Hong Kong Watch states that Hong Kong human rights defenders and pro‑democracy activists face a complex array of technology‑facilitated attacks on social media platforms and digital communication services, and these digital harms often carry offline consequences that extend both inside Hong Kong and into diaspora communities abroad.
China says it supports law-abiding transnational deals after reports of Meta deal review: After barring two co-founders of Manus from leaving the country as regulators review Meta’s $2 billion purchase of the firm, China stated that it supports transnational companies “according to needs and the law.”
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
HRIC on Twitter/X: Over the past four months, diaspora groups China Action and the All-People Resistance Movement projected five projections on the walls of Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, evolving from one-off expressions to a coordinated and global nonviolent public protest movement.
Related: Fengsuo Zhou on Twitter/X. Last Wednesday, HRIC Executive Director Fengsuo Zhou attended the projection protest outside the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. He was physically shoved by a member of Consulate staff, who crossed the street to initiate an aggressive confrontation with protestors and attempted to grab protestors’ projection equipment and phones.
HRIC on Twitter/X: HRIC Executive Director Fengsuo Zhou recently gave a speech at George Washington University on the Tiananmen Massacre, the development of the overseas democracy movement, and the increasingly strengthened digital totalitarian rule of the Party, while also exploring possible paths for China’s future democratization.
HRIC on Twitter/X: A statue of Gao Zhisheng was unveiled at the Los Angeles Freedom Sculpture Park on April 4. Gao is one of China’s renowned human rights lawyers and the completion of the statue is not only a tribute to his character and spirit but also a symbol of steadfast commitment to the rule of law, justice, and faith.
Uyghur Refugee’s Testimony Challenges Canada’s China Policy: Sulayman, a Uyghur refugee, delivered a powerful first-hand account of forced labor, trafficking, and torture, a testimony that directly challenges Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pursuit of a Chinese electric vehicle deal and Liberal MP Michael Ma’s parliamentary denial of Uyghur forced labor.
Nepal International Film Festival faces backlash over Chinese propaganda segment “Xizang Panorama”: The controversy centers on the use of the term “Xizang,” widely regarded as a colonial term imposed by the Chinese government for Tibet. Scholars and activists argue that this shift forms part of a calculated, long-term strategy to reinforce Beijing’s sovereignty claims over the region. They further describe the renaming as a deliberate effort to accelerate the Sinicization of Tibetan culture, language, and religion.
Over 60 Tibetan activists call on China to stop force assimilation in Tibet: The Tibetan Youth Congress organized a peace march titled the “Black Hat March,” setting out from Dharamsala, and called upon the Chinese government to put an end to the policies of forced assimilation in Tibet, carried out under the “Law on Ethnic Unity.”
‘Escalating threats:’ Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre cancels 5 remaining Shen Yun performances: Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts explained that the performances were canceled over a “escalating series of threatening messages,” which local police confirmed included an unfounded bomb threat.
HRIC on Twitter/X: After a lengthy five-year legal battle, the Oakland District Court in California ruled that the personal archives of Li Rui, former Secretary to Mao Zedong, shall be permanently preserved at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
The Tibetan exile community unveiled its first modern Tibetan language center, aiming to improve mother tongue teaching capabilities.: The Sangpo Tsering Demonstration School in Dharamshala, northern India, officially inaugurated the first fully equipped Tibetan Language Center and a brand-new Mathematics Laboratory in the exile community.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
HRIC on Twitter/X: Well-known citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to an additional 4 years in prison on September 19, 2025, has had her lawyer’s requests for visits repeatedly rejected, obstructed, and met with intimidation by authorities.
HRIC on Twitter/X: Jing Shuren was criminally detained by Lanzhou police on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” simply for reposting on Weibo about wage disputes involving migrant workers. He has been imprisoned for over 2 years to date. Jing Shuren’s case is now scheduled for a pre-trial conference from April 8 to 10, 2026.
RFA: Uyghur Detainee Bahtiyar Omer Dies Shortly After Release from Camp: A Uyghur man who had previously been detained in a so-called “re-education camp” died under unclear circumstances shortly after his release, according to information obtained by family members and confirmed in part by local authorities.
Senior Tibetan monk secretly sentenced to 7 years in Lhasa after years of enforced disappearance: Dhargye, a 64-year-old Tibetan monk, has reportedly been sentenced in secret to seven years in prison following his arbitrary detention in August 2021 in Lhasa. Dhargye’s family only became aware of the sentence in late January this year.
Hong Kong applies to seize Jimmy Lai’s ‘offence-related’ properties on national security grounds: The government statement alleged that the application to the High Court was filed on Thursday “in order to achieve the important objectives of preventing and suppressing acts and activities endangering national security.”
Hong Kong businessman Jason Poon jailed for 1 month for contempt of court: Poon, who is known for his activism around construction industry corruption and cost-cutting, had been charged in November 2024 after saying in a YouTube livestream that a Labour Tribunal judge was “bottom-tier” and “garbage.”
Closing statements in Tiananmen vigil group trial set for May, as activist again barred from referring to 1989 ‘massacre’: When Chow Hang-tung, who represented herself, referred to the crackdown as the “June 4 massacre,” Judge Alex Lee told her this was not accurate.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
China executes Frenchman convicted in 2010 for drug trafficking: Chan Thao Phoumy, a 62-year-old Frenchman born in Laos, was executed “despite the efforts of the French authorities, including efforts to obtain a pardon on humanitarian grounds for our compatriot,” according to the statement of the French foreign ministry.
China Launches New Wave of Uyghur Cultural Erasure After “Ethnic Unity Law”: Since late March, new measures appear to intensify these policies. For instance, multiple videos from Urumqi and Kashgar showed city management workers removing Uyghur-language signs from shops, restaurants, supermarkets, and even private businesses. In many cases, only Chinese-language signage was left behind.
Related: One of Urumqi’s Iconic Uyghur Structures Demolished Amid Escalating “Ethnic Unity” Campaign. The Urumqi Uchtash Qatnash Bikiti has long been recognized as a prominent landmark in Ürümqi and featured distinctive Uyghur architectural elements. Its destruction marks a significant loss of visible Uyghur cultural presence in the city.
Chinese soldiers patrolling Lhasa with guns to intimidate Tibetans has been described as a routine tactic for maintaining Chinese rule.: A video from Tibet has recently gone viral online, showing a group of Chinese soldiers carrying shields and rifles, wearing bulletproof vests, patrolling the streets of Lhasa, surrounded by Tibetans holding prayer beads and turning prayer wheels.
The ‘Third Front’: China resurrects Mao’s military capabilities: As relations between Beijing and Washington sour, China is once again turning to its Third Front heartlands to build a national defense program.
International Responses 国际反应
India to effectively ban Chinese CCTV cameras due to security concerns: India decided to block several Chinese manufacturers from selling internet-connected CCTV cameras in the country starting April 1, 2026, as part of a major push to strengthen digital security and reduce dependence on foreign surveillance technology.