A plea for help allegedly from Chinese dissident Yi Haihua, who claims to have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for a long time, recently appeared on overseas social media platforms. In the letter, he stated that he is in hiding in Dubai, UAE, and is currently being pursued by the Chinese police across borders. According to the preset time mentioned in the letter, he may have already been arrested. The situation described in the letter is yet to be confirmed.
On April 16, former lawyer Zhou Junhong forwarded an urgent plea for help letter, which started with: “By the time you receive this letter, I may have already been detained by the CCP’s secret police stationed in Dubai, heading back to China on a plane or undergoing torture in a black prison in Dubai, or even facing disappearance.” The letter indicated that he had set up an automatic email send function, and if he was safe within five days, he would set up the next scheduled email for international rescue. Therefore, by the time you receive this plea for help email, he would have already lost his freedom in Dubai. He urged to contact Dubai authorities, Chinese embassy, the police station in Shatou, Panyu, Guangzhou, and demanded to “see the body if dead; see the person if alive.”
The person leaving the letter is Yi Haihua, and he left contact information: WhatsApp: +971 55172 8868 (mobile) +86 13631393829, Email: DubaiBuildNext@gmail.com.
Additionally, his X account is @SMTXWZM, with the note: “Currently locked, if not opened after April 20, 2026, consider that I have been persecuted or ‘disappeared’.”
According to Yi Haihua’s self-introduction: He is 45 years old, with the pen name Zhezhong, named Mantian Jushi, known as Shuimantianxia Wuzhiming on the internet. He is from Dong’an County, Hunan, a businessman, scholar, serial entrepreneur, emerging writer, and private entrepreneur. He focuses on Chinese political structure, social change, and issues of freedom of thought. For the past 15 years, he has advocated for democracy, freedom, human rights, and universal values on various platforms with moderate language, aiming to enlighten his compatriots and call for constitutionalism.
Yi Haihua has been working and living in Guangzhou for years. He stated that he has been systematically persecuted by the Guangzhou authorities of the CCP for 15 years due to his moderate and firm dissemination of democracy, freedom, human rights, and universal values on platforms like Weibo, X, and Douyin. He has been under real-time surveillance, summoned repeatedly, administratively detained, violently arrested, privacy violated, lawyers intimidated, deprived of lawsuits, account shut down, speech banned, works destroyed, relatives harassed, landlords pressured, clients disturbed, and family relationships manipulated. (During the 12 years from 2013 to 2025, he was verbally summoned 5 times, received one threatening phone call, two written summons, detained once, and forced to write five guarantee letters.)
On the night of May 4, 2025, more than ten plainclothes policemen raided Yi Haihua’s residence, violently arrested and pressed him to the ground, pressing his head and chest against the ground for several minutes until he started bleeding, his knee bone damaged, nearly suffocating and dying abruptly. He was interrogated intensively, forced to write a guarantee letter renouncing administrative litigation before being released. The authorities alienated his relationship with his family, with National Security officers from Shatou Police Station in Panyu District, Guangzhou frequently visiting him for “conversations” and taking photos, twice a week from May 5 to June 5, 2025, pressuring the landlord to evict him. (Attached: The plea for help letter from Yi Haihua forwarded by Zhou Junhong, click here for the link.)
On May 4, 2025, a video of Yi Haihua publicly apologizing was posted on X. (Link)
Yi Haihua stated that he is currently forced into exile overseas and is still threatened with cross-border pursuit and death.
According to his introduction, on November 23, 2025, he flew from Hong Kong to Serbia and was denied boarding at Dubai Airport when transferring, staying stranded in Dubai for five months. During this time, he registered a company in Dubai and planned to start a business there. His visa expires on April 17, 2026, and he lives in extreme fear and severe depression every day. (This is his personal website created while in Dubai: https://smtxwzm.com.)
Chen Liqun, vice chairman of the China Democratic Party Full Committee, reposted related news on X on April 17, stating, “It can now be confirmed that Mr. Yi Haihua has disappeared in Dubai.”
The Epoch Times reporter was unable to contact Yi Haihua and no one familiar with his current situation was found. The circumstances mentioned in the plea for help letter are still awaiting verification and understanding.