In July, Beijing lawyer Wang Yu, whose detention on 9 July 2015 marked the beginning of the crackdown, wrote in an article published online that she was illtreated during detention. She was released on bail in mid-2016 but remained under close surveillance. Lawyers Li Shuyun, Ren Quanniu and Li Chunfu, and activist Gou Hongguo, reported that they were drugged during detention.4 In addition to the 250 targeted individuals, activist Wu Gan, who worked in a law firm later targeted by the authorities in the crackdown, was tried in August in a closed hearing for “subverting state power” after nearly 27 months’ pre-trial detention. On 26 December, he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. In March, Guangdong activist Su Changlan was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power” for her online criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese socialist system. She was detained in 2014 after expressing support for Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. She was released in October after serving the full sentence but with health concerns aggravated by poor conditions in detention. On 19 March, Lee Ming-Cheh, manager of a Taiwan NGO, was detained by state security officers when he entered mainland China from Macao. In September, he was tried in Hunan Province for “subverting state power” and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in November.5 At least 11 activists were detained in June for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown; most were accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. Li Xiaoling and Shi Tingfu remained in detention, and Ding Yajun was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in September. In August, lawyer Gao Zhisheng went missing from an isolated village in Shaanxi province, where he had lived under tight surveillance since his release from prison in 2014. The family later learned he was in authorities’ custody but his location and condition remained unknown. Amnesty International Report 2017/18 Lawyer Li Yuhan was detained in October and claimed she was tortured and ill-treated during detention. WORKERS’ RIGHTS In May, labour activists Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng were detained in Jiangxi province while investigating work conditions at Huajian shoe factories. The activists were released on bail in June but remained under close surveillance. In July, a Guangzhou court sentenced labour activist Liu Shaoming to four and a half years’ imprisonment for publishing his reflections about joining the pro-democracy movement and becoming a member of China’s first independent trade union in 1989, and experiences during the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION – INTERNET Thousands of websites and social media services remained blocked, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On 1 June, the Cybersecurity Law came into effect, making it obligatory for internet companies operating in China to censor users’ content. In August, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Guangdong Provincial Cyberspace Administration launched an investigation into internet service providers Tencent’s WeChat, Sina Weibo and Baidu’s Tieba because their platforms contained user accounts which “spread information that endangers national security, public security and social order, including violence and terror, false information and rumours and pornography”. In September, China’s dominant messaging service WeChat introduced new terms of service to collect a wide range of personal information, and made data on its over 900 million users available to the government. Huang Qi, co-founder of 64tianwang.com, a website that reports on and documents protests in China, was accused of “leaking state secrets”. He was allowed to meet his lawyer only eight months after he was detained and claimed that he was ill-treated in detention. At the end of 2017, 10 127