Dutizen, China
Dutizen is a Chinese media professional, blogger and digital archivist who has spent more than a decade working where independent and social media meet human rights. His work spans online commentary, reports, digital archiving and the documentation of high-profile social issues in China. Through it, he records voices that have been censored or silenced, and strives to keep them in the public memory. His blog won Best Chinese Blog at Deutsche Welle's BOBs awards.
His commitment to this work took root at a state media outlet in China, where he saw how much could never be reported or told. Petitioners came with grievances and hopes, bearing heartbreaking stories that would never see print. The experience showed him how narrow the space for free expression was, and how easily ordinary voices could be silenced. He began recording those voices, publishing most of them online. Caught between the system he served and the stories it buried, he found the job increasingly meaningless, and eventually chose to leave state media.
Since then, he has pursued this work independently, while remaining strictly anonymous. He continues to document and write about internet censorship, freedom of expression and social injustice in China, publishing through digital and social media and online video. He has also tracked and shared tools and techniques for getting around the Great Firewall. In recent years he has turned to AI and begun working anonymously with like-minded people, seeking more efficient, creative and far-reaching ways to break through what he sees as China's digital iron curtain.
Yet in China, those doing similar work have often paid a heavy price. Former journalist Zhang Jialong, who published censorship directives from the Central Propaganda Department and called for internet freedom, was sentenced in 2021 to 18 months in prison for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". Lu Yuyu, who chronicled protests nationwide on his blog, was sentenced in 2017 to four years on the same charge. For over ten years, Ruan Xiaohuan used his anonymous blog, Program-Think, to teach readers how to circumvent censorship and to openly criticise the Communist Party's top leadership. He was eventually identified and, in 2023, sentenced to seven years for "inciting subversion of state power"; he remains in prison. Aware of these risks, Dutizen has worked alone and anonymously for many years, seldom in contact with other human rights defenders. Still, he remains committed to the work, and convinced of its worth.
At CAHR, Dutizen hopes to share what he has learned from sustaining his work and projects under intense pressure, to draw on the experience of other defenders, and to build lasting connections with them. He has come to see human rights work, and its mission of positive change, as a global endeavour, one that can no longer be pursued within the confines of a single country. The fellowship also gives him space to rebuild his resilience, recharge intellectually and reflect on how best to continue on this path. The warm support, openness and global solidarity he has found at CAHR have renewed his strength.
In the age of AI, China is perhaps becoming the world's most dangerous and entrenched stronghold of digital authoritarianism. Built in the name of "cyber sovereignty", this cyber-Leviathan now reaches far beyond China's borders and is increasingly a global threat. No single group of defenders, nor any single country, can confront it alone. The answer lies in what hubs like CAHR embody: a solidarity that transcends borders, that attends to the rights of every individual, and that stands unwavering in defence of the red lines of human dignity no state may cross.