On December 14, 2025, retired Shanghai University professor and human rights activist Gu Guoping was criminally detained the day after he and several petitioners pulled out a banner reading “Concern for Bad Human Rights” during a gathering at the Peninsula Hotel in the Huangpu District on December 10. The charge against him is allegedly “gathering to disturb public order in a public place.”
Following the news, many petitioners cried out for Gu’s innocence, angrily stating, “They speak of ruling the country according to law, but end up engaging in arbitrary behavior reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution.”
December 10 marked International Human Rights Day, coinciding with the weekly petition day at the Shanghai Appeals Office, where petitioners from various districts gather in a park across from the office after completing their registrations. It has become a customary practice to have lunch together. During the meal, the petitioners spontaneously decided to pull out a banner to commemorate the day. They took photos with banners reading “International Human Rights Day” and “Concern for Bad Human Rights,” which they uploaded to the internet.
On December 11, Gu Guoping was summoned and subsequently detained by the Changning Sub-bureau. The petitioners who participated were also summoned by their respective police stations for questioning.
Song Jiahong, a spokesperson for Shanghai’s Black Jail, told a reporter from Epoch Times that gathering for a meal after petitioning is an old practice among petitioners, especially on important dates like the “World Human Rights Day.” He stated that displaying a small banner during the meal as a gesture of remembrance is a very common behavior.
The Changning Sub-bureau of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau justified Gu Guoping’s criminal detention under Article 82 of the Criminal Procedure Law.
Song Jiahong found that under this law, “preliminary detention is permitted for current or major crimes if they meet certain conditions. Gu Guoping was detained preliminarily, although the conditions were not met, indicating a set-up and persecution!”
He further stated, “Considering the current human rights situation in China, bringing attention to the deplorable human rights conditions is essential for advancing Chinese society. We hope the Chinese government adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Taking photos to commemorate such occasions is commonplace. However, being labeled as ‘gathering to disturb public order in a public place’ is utterly ridiculous, indicating that the police arbitrarily determine crimes!”
According to a petitioner involved in displaying the banner, police during the interrogation mentioned that “foreign media reported on your photos,” suggesting that the government’s reputation might be tarnished. This implies that the legality of one’s actions is influenced by the government’s reputation rather than the law itself.
At 70 years old, Gu Guoping is terminally ill with cancer and also suffers from severe hypertension. He has been advocating for his family’s house demolition issue from middle age to old age, but instead of finding a resolution, he has faced repeated suppression, detention in black jails, and imprisonment, making his life like a flickering candle in the wind.
Shanghai human rights activist Yu Zhonghuan spoke with Gu Guoping’s wife over the phone on the 13th and learned that medication had been delivered to the detention center, but it would only last a few days. Some essential medicines like insulin and cancer drugs require Gu himself to go to the hospital for prescription refills and treatments.
Yu expressed, “Today is the third day of Gu’s detention. If he is not released, we will go to the police station, sub-bureau, and detention center to demand that Gu receive his medication, injections, and treatments in the hospital. Even if he is sent to the prison hospital from the detention center, he won’t have access to the necessary medication.”
After Gu Guoping’s arrest, the police took him for a health check. His blood pressure was measured at 219mmHg and 217mmHg during the first two readings, both indicative of extreme hypertension requiring urgent medical attention. Despite this, the investigating officers disregarded his critical condition and proceeded with the interrogation at the Changning Sub-bureau’s handling center, showing a predetermined intent to detain him.
Yu Zhonghuan emphasized that Gu and others merely held a small banner measuring over a meter long and about half a meter wide at their table during the gathering at the restaurant for only a few minutes. Taking a few photos and sharing them online had no impact on the restaurant’s order or spread any false information, thus not constituting criminal elements under the law or even administrative penalties.
He further explained that the banner reading “Concern for Bad Human Rights” reflects the reality faced by Gu Guoping and many other human rights activists in Shanghai and across China. Gu himself has been targeted for over twenty years, sentenced to one year and six months in prison, detained and abducted numerous times, assaulted by government-hired black security agents in black jails, sustaining severe injuries, including broken ribs on one occasion.
He stressed, “The Chinese Communist petitioning agency is the world’s largest terrorist organization, engaging in abductions, detention, torture, beatings, poisoning, theft, robbery, murder, denying medical treatment, rape, corruption, money laundering, and all sorts of atrocities! I have personally experienced the first ten of these fifteen offenses, narrowly escaping assassination attempts several times. The tyranny and fascist persecution suffered by Shanghai petitioners are beyond human imagination; it’s truly a horrendous situation!”
(Please complete the translation.)