Zhang Shengyu: From factory worker to dissident

Rebels of China
Sep 8, 2018 · 5 min read

Entering the cell, the first words spoken by Zhang Shengyu was, “Down with the Communist Party!”

This was not the first time he was sent to a detention centre, nor the first time that he expressed his political opposition in front of police and others. During his detention, “Down with the Communist Party, abolish one party rule, eradicate dictatorship, build a democratic China” were slogans that he shouted when he was let out to the yard, when he was showering, and even when he was being questioned.

The guards was angry with his impertinence, and punished him by chaining him to a bed, shackled and handcuffed, for 15 days. During that time, he had to have his meal, urinated and defecated while lying on the bed.

That was 2014. Just 4 years before that, Zhang Shengyu was still an ordinary factory worker. He never could have imagined then that he would become an enemy of the state in a few years.


Zhang Shengyu was born in a rural village in Hunan Province in 1969. Since his father has “landlord” status (a heavily discriminated and persecuted group during Mao’s era) , he had suffered a lot since when he was young, and his mother left the family when he was only 3 years old. When he was 20, he saw the Tiananmen protest on TV. Although he could not join the students in Beijing, those scenes of protest had planted in him the ideas of freedom and democracy, and he felt excited by them. Yet the Tiananmen protest ended abruptly, and Zhang, not knowing the reason why, felt lost. He returned to his daily struggle at the bottom of the society, taking odd jobs and working in factories, barely sustaining himself.

However, the Internet age has opened a new window for him. He started surfing the internet since 2010. At first he was simply a reader of various news and analysis, and slowly he began to share, comment, and write his own articles on his QQ space. He expressed dissatisfaction with the current political system and governmental policies, promoted the ideas of multiparty democracy, and built a QQ group called “Justice League”, calling for netizens to join him in promoting democratic ideas through online posts and offline leaflets.

His online speeches quickly caught the attention of the authorities. The National Security found him and told him to stop writing online. They forced the clothing factory where he was employed at to fire him. However apart from the authorities, his posts also caught the attention of people of similar minds; coming together, they began to express their political opinion on the streets by displaying banners and placards. Their action later grew into the “Southern Street Movement”. Having lost his job, Zhang ended up with more freedom to travel the country in support of various protests and rights-defending incidents, including the case of Gao Zhisheng, the protest at Southern Weekly, the case of Liu Ping, the case of little Anni being denied schooling, the case of Xue Fushun at Qufu, the incident at JiangSanjiang, the memorial of Lin Zhao, and the case of the Zhengzhou Ten.

“We are just human being; we resisted, and did not live like pigs.”

On 1 May 2012, he printed 200 leaflets titled “I am not a pig”, and wrote that “Stand up and fight! Only by abolishing this corrupt system and implementing democracy, can we live in dignity.” He planned to distribute those leaflets at Guangzhou University City. Yet he was arrested even before he arrived at his destination, and was only released after more than a month. This was the first time he was imprisoned for street protest.

In the next two years, he had been detained for at least 10 times for participating in street protests. The last time he was arrested was for supporting the Occupy Central protest in October 2014; he was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. He never backed down even when in jail; he persisted in resisting, shouting slogans, protesting the mistreatment of fellow detainees, and was thus repeatedly beaten and tortured. The Prosecution told him as long as he pleaded guilty, he would be given a light sentence. He said, “I don’t want you to give me a light sentence; sentence me harshly if you will. Not only am I not guilty, I should be given credit for what I have done.”

He does not think that the path he has chosen is anything out of the ordinary, “We are just human being; we resisted, and did not live like pigs.” But his family cannot understand him, and cut all ties with him. Every time he was arrested, concerned friends could never reach his family to handle his legal procedures, and often time has no channel to ascertain his whereabouts. When he was last arrested, his friends only learnt of where he was detained after two months, when he asked fellow inmates to bring out the news of his detention.

Fortunately, he met his girlfriend Ma Shengfen on his journey of resistance. Ma was a. working girl who has been beaten and injured by her superior while at work. Zhang Shengyu helped her a lot in her attempt to defend her rights, and the two became each other’s pillars, participating in street protests together. Zhang loves her dearly, and once told his friends, “If I’m jailed, give all my possession to Ma Shengfen. If friends want to donate, donate to Ma Shengfen, I don’t want any.” When Zhang disappeared in October 2014, Ma frantically looked for him in every detention centres, fallen ill in a month and was sent to a hospital. Later, she was abducted by the authorities to her hometown in Guizhou Province. Friends only located her much later, and found out that she is being held in a mental institution in Tongren City, Guizhou. No one is allowed to visit her.


Zhang Shengyu was released from prison on 25 August 2018. He was escorted back to his hometown in Hunan Province, and placed under tight surveillance. There still seems to be little hope that this couple from the Southern Streets could be reunited.

(中文版)

Rebels of China

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Stories of activists in China 中国不是没有抗争者,只是,他们的故事很少被看见。 这个专页,就是这样一个小小的努力,希望大家能看见中国的抗争者们。 每周,我们会给大家带来一位抗争者的故事。

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