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一、生平与成为律师1. Early Life and Becoming a Lawyer

余文生1967年11月11日出生于北京，在北京语言学院（今北京语言大学）的机关大院里长大。他的父亲原是空军技术军官，后来在中国旅行社负责接待外宾，工作之便能把境外报纸和内部参考资料带回家。还在读小学的余文生，就着手电筒的光读那些一般中国人读不到的香港报纸和「内参」——用他自己的话说，他很早就知道什么叫民主，少年时甚至向父亲预言苏联共产党会解体。这种成长环境，解释了他后来与周围许多人的不同。Yu Wensheng was born on November 11, 1967, in Beijing, and grew up in the institutional compound of the Beijing Language Institute (now Beijing Language and Culture University). His father, originally an air force technical officer, later worked for the China Travel Service receiving foreign guests, a job that let him bring home overseas newspapers and internal reference materials. Still in primary school, Yu read those Hong Kong newspapers and 'internal reference' documents — things ordinary Chinese could not see — by flashlight. In his own account, he knew from an early age what democracy meant, and as a boy he even predicted to his father that the Soviet Communist Party would collapse. That upbringing explains much of what later set him apart.

余文生取得北京大学法律学历，1999年通过律师考试，2002年起正式执业，此后十多年主要做商业诉讼，先后任职于北京隆聚律师事务所、道衡律师事务所。他自称是一个改良思想很重的人，不愿意和制度硬碰，只在当局实在违法时才对抗。但商业律师的安稳日子在他代理敏感案件之后结束了：他代理访民、拆迁户和维权人士的案件，为法轮功学员作无罪辩护，加入「中国人权律师团」。他说过，法轮功群体遭受的迫害是当下中国最需要关注的人权问题，而这一群体从未以暴易暴。Yu earned a law degree from Peking University, passed the bar examination in 1999, and began practicing in 2002, working for over a decade mainly in commercial litigation at Beijing firms including Longju and Daoheng. He describes himself as a man of strong reformist leanings who did not want head-on confrontation with the system and resisted only when the authorities plainly broke the law. But the quiet life of a commercial lawyer ended once he took on sensitive cases: he represented petitioners, victims of forced demolition, and rights defenders; he defended Falun Gong practitioners, arguing their innocence; and he joined the China Human Rights Lawyers Group. He said the persecution of Falun Gong was the human-rights issue in China most in need of attention, and that this community had never answered violence with violence.

二、2014年：羁押99天2. 2014: Ninety-Nine Days in Detention

2014年，余文生的当事人之一因声援香港「占领中环」运动被关押，狱政官员拒绝安排他会见。余文生为此公开抗议。2014年10月13日，他被北京市公安局大兴分局抓捕。他后来向国际特赦组织讲述，他被羁押了99天，其中61天与死刑犯关在一起，被提讯近200次：十名警察分三班轮流审讯，起初是辱骂，后来把他的双手铐在铁椅背后拉扯，每拉一次他都惨叫；他不能会见律师，被迫签下「不要律师辩护」的声明，但他拒绝按警察的要求去指证别人。长达17小时的审讯和身体虐待使他患上小肠疝气。获释后，余文生向最高人民检察院、最高人民法院等部门控告大兴公安分局违法——一个律师能使用的武器，只剩下法律本身。In 2014, one of Yu's clients was detained for supporting Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement, and prison officials refused to let Yu meet him. Yu protested publicly. On October 13, 2014, he was seized by the Daxing District branch of the Beijing Public Security Bureau. He later told Amnesty International that he was held for 99 days, 61 of them confined together with death-row prisoners, and interrogated nearly 200 times: ten officers worked in three shifts, first abusing him verbally, then cuffing his hands behind an iron chair and yanking the cuffs so that he screamed with each pull; he was denied access to a lawyer and forced to sign a statement 'declining' legal representation, but he refused the police demand to incriminate others. Interrogations of up to seventeen hours and physical abuse left him with an intestinal hernia. After his release, Yu filed complaints against the Daxing police with the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Supreme People's Court, and other bodies — a lawyer's only remaining weapon being the law itself.

这99天是余文生的分水岭。2015年「709大抓捕」之后，他没有选择离开中国，而是接手了709案中最难的辩护之一：为被控「颠覆国家政权」、长期秘密关押的王全璋律师辩护。他一次次申请会见，一次次被拒绝；当局给的回应是层层加码的报复。2017年7月，在官方压力下，道衡律师事务所将他辞退；他与律所主任梁小军的律师年度考核被司法局卡住。2017年10月，他在中共十九大召开前夕发表公开信，批评习近平的执政强化极权统治、不适合继续留任，随即被短暂拘押。Those ninety-nine days were Yu Wensheng's watershed. After the '709' crackdown of 2015, he chose not to leave China; instead he took on one of the hardest defenses of the 709 cases — representing Wang Quanzhang, the lawyer charged with 'subversion of state power' and held in secret detention for years. He applied again and again for meetings and was refused again and again; the authorities answered with escalating reprisals. In July 2017, under official pressure, the Daoheng firm dismissed him, and the Justice Bureau blocked the annual license review for both him and the firm's director, Liang Xiaojun. In October 2017, on the eve of the CCP's 19th Congress, he published an open letter criticizing Xi Jinping's rule as reinforced authoritarianism and arguing that Xi was unfit to remain in office; he was briefly detained.

三、吊销执照与修宪公开信（2018年1月）3. Disbarment and the Constitutional-Reform Letter (January 2018)

2018年1月，打压在四天内完成收网。1月12日，北京市司法局致函余文生，拒绝他开办新律师事务所的申请，理由直言不讳：他曾多次发表反对共产党统治、攻击「社会主义法治」体系的言论。1月15日，他又收到司法局的信，通知他的律师执业证已被注销，表面理由是他已有六个月未受雇于任何注册律师事务所——而恰恰是当局先逼律所辞退了他，再以他「无律所接收」为由注销执照。1月16日，注销正式生效。与此同时，他还被以「国家安全」为由禁止出境。In January 2018 the net closed within four days. On January 12, the Beijing Municipal Justice Bureau wrote to Yu rejecting his application to open a new law firm, stating bluntly that he had repeatedly published statements opposing Communist Party rule and attacking the 'socialist rule of law' system. On January 15 he received another letter from the bureau notifying him that his practicing certificate had been cancelled, ostensibly because he had not been employed by any registered firm for six months — when it was the authorities who had first forced his firm to dismiss him, and then used his resulting lack of a firm to cancel his license. The cancellation took effect on January 16. At the same time he was barred from leaving China on 'national security' grounds.

1月18日，余文生发表致全国人大等机构的公开信，提出修宪改革建议：国家主席实行差额选举；删除宪法序言中关于「坚持共产党领导」的表述；建立对中共的监督机制；并要求习近平辞职。1月19日一早，他在送儿子上学的路上被十余名特警带走。最初的罪名是「妨害公务」。1月27日，他的妻子许艳被警方传唤后得知，罪名已经加重为「煽动颠覆国家政权」，余文生被「指定居所监视居住」，人已被转往江苏徐州。2018年4月19日，徐州市公安局正式以涉嫌「煽动颠覆国家政权罪」和「妨害公务罪」逮捕他。一封建议修宪的公开信，就这样走完了从言论到「颠覆」的全部司法路程。On January 18, Yu published an open letter to the National People's Congress and other bodies proposing constitutional reform: multi-candidate elections for the state presidency; deletion of the preamble's language on 'upholding Communist Party leadership'; a mechanism of oversight over the Party; and a call for Xi Jinping to resign. Early the next morning, January 19, he was seized by more than a dozen SWAT officers while walking his son to school. The initial charge was 'obstructing official business.' On January 27, his wife Xu Yan was summoned by police and learned the charge had been escalated to 'inciting subversion of state power'; Yu was under designated-location residential surveillance and had been transferred to Xuzhou, Jiangsu. On April 19, 2018, the Xuzhou police formally arrested him on suspicion of 'inciting subversion' and 'obstructing official business.' An open letter proposing constitutional amendments had thus traveled the entire judicial road from speech to 'subversion.'

四、秘密审判与第一次判刑（2019—2022）4. Secret Trial and First Sentence (2019–2022)

被捕后的两年多里，余文生与外界完全隔绝。他的妻子许艳和家人聘请的律师至少25次申请会见，无一获准；律师连起诉书这样的基本法律文书都拿不到。2019年2月1日，检方向徐州市中级人民法院提起公诉，家属和律师没有收到正式通知。2019年5月，徐州中院对余文生秘密开庭，家人和自聘律师事先毫不知情。庭审结束后又是一年多的沉默。2020年6月17日，徐州市检察院打来一个电话，通知家属判决结果：余文生以「煽动颠覆国家政权罪」被判处有期徒刑四年，剥夺政治权利三年。一个律师的四年刑期，是用一通电话宣布的。For more than two years after his arrest, Yu was cut off from the outside world entirely. His wife Xu Yan and the family's lawyers applied to visit him at least twenty-five times; not one application was granted, and the lawyers could not even obtain basic legal documents such as the indictment. On February 1, 2019, prosecutors filed the case with the Xuzhou Intermediate People's Court, without formal notice to the family or lawyers. In May 2019 the Xuzhou court tried Yu in secret; his family and chosen lawyers knew nothing of it beforehand. More than a year of silence followed the hearing. On June 17, 2020, the family received a telephone call from the Xuzhou Procuratorate informing them of the result: Yu had been sentenced to four years in prison for 'inciting subversion of state power,' plus three years' deprivation of political rights. A lawyer's four-year sentence was announced by a phone call.

余文生不服判决，提出上诉。2020年12月27日，江苏省高级人民法院驳回上诉，维持原判。服刑期间，他的健康明显恶化：牙齿脱落，却一直没有得到补牙治疗。2019年，联合国任意拘留问题工作组就他的案件发表意见，认定这次羁押属于任意拘留，要求当局给予补救和赔偿——没有下文。2022年3月1日，余文生刑满出狱，与妻子团聚。从2018年1月被特警在儿子面前带走，到2022年3月走出监狱，四年零两个月里，他的家人没能探视他一次。Yu maintained his innocence and appealed. On December 27, 2020, the Jiangsu Provincial High Court rejected the appeal and upheld the verdict. During his imprisonment his health visibly deteriorated: teeth fell out, and he was never given replacement dentures. In 2019 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion on his case, finding the detention arbitrary and calling on the authorities to provide remedy and compensation — nothing came of it. On March 1, 2022, Yu completed his sentence and was released, reuniting with his wife. From the morning in January 2018 when SWAT officers took him in front of his son, to his release in March 2022 — four years and two months — his family had not been allowed to visit him once.

五、出狱后的十三个月（2022.3—2023.4）5. Thirteen Months of Freedom (March 2022 – April 2023)

出狱不是自由的恢复，而是另一种管控的开始。2022年4月1日，余文生和许艳打算自驾出游七到十天，他们的车在高速公路入口被拦下，被迫返回北京——在多大程度上是防疫限制所致，外界无法确认，但此后他们始终处于监控之下。余文生没有沉默：他继续在网上发言，与国内外的律师和人权机构保持联系。他很清楚这样做的代价——2021年他在狱中获得马丁·恩纳尔斯奖时，颁奖词就同时表彰了许艳为营救他所做的不懈努力；这个家庭早已上了当局的名单。Release did not mean restored freedom, but the start of a different kind of control. On April 1, 2022, Yu and Xu Yan set out on a seven-to-ten-day driving holiday; their car was stopped at a highway entrance and they were forced back to Beijing. To what extent this was due to pandemic restrictions could not be confirmed, but they remained under surveillance thereafter. Yu did not fall silent: he continued to speak online and kept in contact with lawyers and rights organizations at home and abroad. He knew the price full well — when he received the Martin Ennals Award in prison in 2021, the citation had also honored Xu Yan's tireless campaigning for his release; this family was long since on the authorities' list.

六、第二次被捕：去见欧盟代表团的路上（2023年4月）6. The Second Arrest: On the Way to Meet the EU Delegation (April 2023)

2023年4月13日下午4时左右，余文生和许艳从北京家中出发，乘地铁前往欧盟驻华代表团，应邀与欧盟驻华大使庹尧诲和另一位欧盟高级官员会面。两人在地铁站被四名便衣警察拦住，其中一名国保警察通知他们被传唤去派出所。余文生在推特上发出了两人被带走的消息。随后他们被带往石景山区八角派出所。欧盟驻华代表团当天即发表声明，要求立即无条件释放两人，并表示已就这种不可接受的对待向中国外交部提出交涉。At about 4 p.m. on April 13, 2023, Yu and Xu Yan left their Beijing home by subway for the EU Delegation to China, where they had been invited to meet EU Ambassador Jorge Toledo Albiñana and another senior EU official. Four plainclothes officers stopped them at the subway station; one, a state-security officer, told them they were being summoned to a police station. Yu managed to post news of their detention on Twitter. They were taken to the Bajiao police station in Shijingshan District. The EU Delegation issued a statement the same day demanding their immediate and unconditional release and announcing that it had lodged a protest with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs over this unacceptable treatment.

4月14日，两人被以「寻衅滋事」刑事拘留，关押在北京市石景山区看守所。4月15日晚，七名警察来到他们家中，向刚满18岁的儿子口头宣读刑事拘留通知，不许拍照，也不把通知书留给这个独自在家的少年；警察在没有出示搜查证的情况下搜查了住所，带走多件物品。5月21日，警方通知家属，两人已因「寻衅滋事」被正式逮捕。2023年10月，两人被起诉，罪名除了「寻衅滋事」，还加上了更重的「煽动颠覆国家政权」。仅仅因为在去见外国外交官的路上被拦截，这个家庭的第二次牢狱之灾就此成型。On April 14 the couple were criminally detained for 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble' and held at the Shijingshan District Detention Center in Beijing. On the evening of April 15, seven police officers came to their home and read the detention notice aloud to their son, who had just turned eighteen; he was not allowed to photograph it, and the officers did not leave the notice with the teenager now alone at home. Without showing a search warrant, the police searched the home and carried away many items. On May 21 police informed the family that the couple had been formally arrested for 'picking quarrels.' In October 2023 they were indicted — the charge sheet adding the far graver 'inciting subversion of state power' alongside 'picking quarrels.' Merely for being intercepted on their way to meet foreign diplomats, this family's second imprisonment had taken shape.

七、异地关押与苏州审判（2024）7. Remote Detention and the Suzhou Trial (2024)

2024年1月至2月间，余文生和许艳被转移到约一千公里外的江苏省苏州市：余文生关押在苏州市第一看守所，许艳关押在苏州市第四看守所。异地关押使律师会见和家属探视几乎不可能——他们的儿子独自留在北京，在公安的严密监视下生活。2024年4月13日、两人被捕一周年之际，包括国际特赦组织、自由之家、人权观察在内的32家公民社会组织发表联合声明，要求立即释放两人，指出他们只是因为和平行使包括言论自由在内的人权而被关押。Between January and February 2024, Yu and Xu Yan were transferred some one thousand kilometers away, to Suzhou in Jiangsu Province: Yu to the Suzhou No. 1 Detention Center, Xu Yan to the Suzhou No. 4 Detention Center. Detention so far from home made lawyer meetings and family visits all but impossible — their son remained alone in Beijing, living under tight police surveillance. On April 13, 2024, the first anniversary of the arrests, thirty-two civil-society organizations including Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement demanding the couple's immediate release, noting that they were detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their human rights, including freedom of expression.

2024年8月30日，苏州市中级人民法院开庭审理此案。多个外国使团的外交官申请旁听被拒，其他前往声援的活动人士也被挡在法庭之外；欧盟对外行动署发言人公开表示，欧盟驻华代表被拒绝进入法庭「令人深感遗憾」，这破坏了人们对中国司法正当程序的信任。2024年10月29日，苏州中院宣判：余文生以「煽动颠覆国家政权罪」判处有期徒刑三年，许艳以同罪判处一年九个月，两人另被处剥夺政治权利的附加刑。宣判两天后，美国国务院发言人马修·米勒发表声明，要求无条件释放两人，并指出审判时包括美国外交官在内的外国外交官被禁止旁听。2025年1月，余文生的上诉被驳回；欧盟对外行动署发言人在同一天发表声明，重申释放两人的要求。On August 30, 2024, the case was heard at the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court. Diplomats from several foreign missions who sought to observe were refused entry, and other activists who came to show support were kept outside the court; a spokesperson for the European External Action Service stated publicly that it was deeply regrettable that the EU representative had been denied entry, and that this undermined trust in China's judicial due process. On October 29, 2024, the Suzhou court delivered its verdict: Yu was sentenced to three years in prison for 'inciting subversion of state power,' and Xu Yan to one year and nine months on the same charge, both with the additional penalty of deprivation of political rights. Two days later, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller issued a statement calling for their unconditional release and noting that foreign diplomats, including Americans, had been barred from the trial. In January 2025 Yu's appeal was rejected; the EU External Action Service spokesperson issued a statement the same day reiterating the call for their release.

据海外中文媒体报道，2024年8月此案在苏州开庭前后，人权律师王宇专程前往试图旁听，被当地警方带走。法庭之外的这道防线——把外交官挡在门外、把声援者带走、把家属的儿子留在北京监视——与法庭之内的闭门审理是同一套安排的两面：这场审判从设计上就不打算让任何人看见。According to overseas Chinese-language media reports, around the time of the August 2024 hearing in Suzhou, human rights lawyer Wang Yu traveled there hoping to observe the trial and was taken away by local police. The cordon outside the courtroom — diplomats kept at the door, supporters taken away, the couple's son left under surveillance in Beijing — is the other face of the closed hearing inside: this trial was designed not to be seen by anyone.

八、家属：许艳与儿子8. The Family: Xu Yan and Their Son

许艳既是家属，也是这桩案件的另一名主角。余文生第一次坐牢的四年里，她是那个不肯安静的人：她和律师二十多次申请会见、二十多次被拒；她在法院外要求见法官；她长期处于监控之下，屡遭骚扰、传唤和拘留，有时被限制离开住所。2018年5月，德国总理梅克尔访华期间专门会见了她。余文生2018年获得的法德人权与法治奖、2021年获得的马丁·恩纳尔斯奖，国际社会都把荣誉的一部分给了这个在外面奔走的妻子。2023年4月，当局索性把她也抓了进去——从此这个家庭的「家属」只剩下一个刚满18岁的少年。Xu Yan is both family member and a protagonist of this case in her own right. During Yu's first four years in prison she was the one who refused to be quiet: she and the lawyers applied more than twenty-five times to visit him and were refused every time; she demanded to see the judge outside the courthouse; she lived under long-term surveillance, repeatedly harassed, summoned, and detained, at times confined to her home. In May 2018 Chancellor Angela Merkel met with her during Merkel's visit to China. Of the honors Yu received — the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in 2018 and the Martin Ennals Award in 2021 — the international community credited a share to the wife campaigning outside. In April 2023 the authorities simply arrested her too — leaving as the family's only 'family member' a boy who had just turned eighteen.

第二次关押中，许艳的处境据报道极为恶劣：体重下降14公斤；被褥不足以保暖；长时间坐姿导致腿部肿胀、腰部病痛；遭受其他在押人员的欺凌殴打；自被捕后只接受过一次体检。2023年11月下旬，她以绝食抗议待遇和权利被剥夺。警察辱骂恐吓她，威胁说如果她的儿子在外面为父母的案子发声，就把他也抓起来。他们的儿子在父母被抓后独自生活，处于公安严密监视之下，精神健康严重恶化、患上抑郁症；2023年11月，民间组织报告称他曾服药过量被紧急送医。父母被转移到苏州后，他连申请探视的现实可能都被剥夺了。In the second detention, Xu Yan's conditions were reported to be appalling: she lost fourteen kilograms; she was not given enough bedding to keep warm; prolonged sitting left her legs swollen and caused lower-back disease; she was bullied and beaten by other detainees; and she received only one medical examination after her arrest. In late November 2023 she went on hunger strike to protest her treatment and the denial of her rights. Police abused and threatened her, warning that if her son campaigned outside for his parents' case, he would be arrested too. Their son, left to live alone after his parents were taken, lived under intense police surveillance; his mental health deteriorated severely and he developed depression; in November 2023 civil groups reported that he had overdosed on medication and been rushed to hospital. Once his parents were transferred to Suzhou, even the practical possibility of applying for a visit was taken from him.

九、第二次出狱与现状（2025—2026）9. Second Release and Current Status (2025–2026)

2025年1月13日，许艳刑满出狱。2026年4月13日，余文生服满三年刑期出狱——从2023年4月13日被拦截的那天下午算起，整整三年。这个家庭终于团聚。但团聚不等于自由：据国际特赦组织2026年7月发布的紧急行动更新，两人出狱后据报仍持续遭到当局的限制和监控，两人还背着「剥夺政治权利」的附加刑；许艳和儿子近日尝试出境时被边检人员拦下，理由是「危害国家安全」——国际特赦组织指出，当局没有任何法律依据禁止许艳或他们的儿子出境。2026年4月，二十多家人权组织发表联合声明，敦促当局确保余文生在刑满后能与家人在北京团聚、不受额外限制，停止针对余文生、许艳及其家人朋友的一切非法监视和骚扰。声明还引述联合国法官和律师独立性问题特别报告员2025年7月的信函：对法律专业人员的镇压和刑事定罪模式仍未停止。On January 13, 2025, Xu Yan completed her sentence and was released. On April 13, 2026, Yu Wensheng was released after completing his three-year sentence — exactly three years from the afternoon they were intercepted in April 2023. The family was finally reunited. But reunification is not freedom: according to Amnesty International's urgent-action update of July 2026, the couple reportedly remain subject to official restrictions and surveillance after release, and both still carry the additional penalty of deprivation of political rights; when Xu Yan and her son recently attempted to leave the country, border officers stopped them on the grounds of 'endangering national security' — and Amnesty pointed out that the authorities have no legal basis whatsoever to bar Xu Yan or their son from leaving. In April 2026 more than twenty rights organizations issued a joint statement urging the authorities to ensure that Yu, having completed his sentence, could reunite with his family in Beijing free of additional restrictions, and to end all unlawful surveillance and harassment of Yu, Xu Yan, and their family and friends. The statement also cited a July 2025 letter from the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers: the pattern of repression and criminal conviction of legal professionals has not stopped.

把余文生近十二年的遭遇排成一条时间线，形状是清楚的：2014年羁押99天，2018年至2022年坐牢四年，出狱十三个月，2023年至2026年再坐牢三年。累计被剥夺自由超过七年，罪名始终是同一类——言论。他今年59岁。截至2026年10月，他与许艳在北京的家中生活，处于剥夺政治权利附加刑和持续监控之下，其行动与出境自由受到限制。这是本页所能记录的最新状态。Arranged on a single timeline, the shape of Yu Wensheng's last twelve years is clear: ninety-nine days detained in 2014; four years in prison from 2018 to 2022; thirteen months out; three more years in prison from 2023 to 2026. In total he has been deprived of liberty for over seven years, and the charge has always been of the same kind — speech. He is fifty-nine this year. As of October 2026 he and Xu Yan are living at their home in Beijing, under the additional penalty of deprivation of political rights and continuing surveillance, with his freedom of movement and of exit from the country restricted. That is the latest status this page can record.

十、国际反应10. International Response

余文生是国际人权界最熟悉的中国律师之一。2018年，他在被捕当年获得法德人权与法治奖；2021年，他在狱中获得马丁·恩纳尔斯奖——该奖由全球十家人权组织组成的评审团评选，被称为人权界的诺贝尔奖。联合国任意拘留问题工作组2019年认定他第一次被羁押属于任意拘留；联合国专家多次呼吁中国废除刑法第105条第2款「煽动颠覆国家政权罪」，并指出「寻衅滋事」罪违反正当程序与合法性原则。2020年6月第一次判刑时，国际特赦组织称他是只因和平行使言论自由权而被囚的良心犯。2023年第二次被捕后，欧盟驻华代表团在抓捕当天即提出交涉，此后欧盟、美国国务院多次发表声明要求放人；2024年10月第二次判刑后，数十家人权组织联署谴责，指出这项判决对中国人权捍卫者的工作、以及捍卫者与各国驻华外交代表之间正当交往产生了寒蝉效应。Yu Wensheng is one of the Chinese lawyers best known to the international human-rights community. In 2018, the year of his arrest, he received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law; in 2021, from prison, he received the Martin Ennals Award — chosen by a jury of ten global rights organizations and often called the Nobel Prize of human rights. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his first imprisonment arbitrary in 2019; UN experts have repeatedly called on China to repeal Article 105(2) of the Criminal Law, 'inciting subversion of state power,' and have found the 'picking quarrels' offense incompatible with due process and the principle of legality. At his first sentencing in June 2020, Amnesty International called him a prisoner of conscience jailed solely for peacefully exercising his freedom of expression. After his second arrest in 2023, the EU Delegation protested on the very day of the arrest, and the EU and the U.S. State Department repeatedly demanded the couple's release; after the second sentencing in October 2024, dozens of rights organizations signed condemnations noting the verdict's chilling effect on the work of Chinese rights defenders and on their legitimate contact with foreign diplomatic missions in China.

值得一书记的是国际奖项与他的牢狱始终同步：2018年法德人权与法治奖宣布时，他正被秘密关押，无法领奖；2021年马丁·恩纳尔斯奖在日内瓦公布时，他还在江苏的监狱里服刑，奖项由许艳代为接受并致谢。颁奖机构在2021年的引言中特别提到，这个奖项既表彰余文生在中国人权领域的作用，也表彰许艳为呼吁释放丈夫所做的不懈努力——这也是后来当局把许艳本人也送进监狱时，国际社会反应格外强烈的原因之一。It is worth recording that the international honors kept pace with his imprisonment: when the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law was announced in 2018, he was in secret detention and could not receive it; when the Martin Ennals Award was announced in Geneva in 2021, he was still serving his sentence in Jiangsu, and Xu Yan accepted and acknowledged it on his behalf. The award's 2021 citation noted expressly that it honored both Yu's role in China's human-rights field and Xu Yan's tireless efforts campaigning for her husband's release — one reason the international reaction was especially strong when the authorities later sent Xu Yan herself to prison.

本站点评Our Take

余文生案最能说明问题的一个细节是：他第一次出狱后只自由了十三个月，第二次被抓的地点，是去见欧盟外交官的地铁站。他的「罪行」两次都是言论——一封建议修宪的公开信、一些网络评论、几次与外国人的会面——而当局的回应两次都是同一套程序：秘密关押、不许见律师、秘密审判、用电话或闭门宣判了结。更能说明问题的是株连的范围：妻子从呼吁者变成同案被告，刚成年的儿子被警察堵在家里听宣读通知、被威胁、被监视到抑郁。这个案子惩罚的不是某个行为，而是一个家庭的存在方式：不许你说话，不许你见人，不许你的家人为你说话。当一个律师仅仅因为做律师、写文章、见外交官就被两次送进监狱，这个国家的法律职业本身就已经被宣判了。The most telling detail of Yu Wensheng's case is that after his first release he was free for only thirteen months, and that he was seized the second time at a subway station, on his way to meet EU diplomats. His 'crime' was speech both times — an open letter proposing constitutional amendments, online comments, meetings with foreigners — and the authorities' answer was the same procedure both times: secret detention, no access to lawyers, a secret trial, and a verdict delivered by telephone or behind closed doors. Even more telling is the reach of the collective punishment: his wife was converted from campaigner into co-defendant, and their just-adult son was cornered at home to hear the detention notice read aloud, threatened, and surveilled into depression. What this case punishes is not an act but a family's way of existing: you may not speak, you may not meet people, your family may not speak for you. When a lawyer is sent to prison twice merely for being a lawyer, writing essays, and meeting diplomats, the legal profession of that country has itself been sentenced.

资料来源：国际特赦组织（含2026年4月、7月紧急行动更新）、联合国任意拘留问题工作组意见、中国人权捍卫者网络（CHRD）、国际人权服务社（ISHR）、前线卫士、美国国务院与欧盟对外行动署声明、家属（许艳）及辩护律师公开陈述。两次判决均无公开判决书。Sources: Amnesty International (including its April and July 2026 urgent-action updates); UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention opinions; Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD); International Service for Human Rights (ISHR); Front Line Defenders; statements of the U.S. Department of State and the European External Action Service; public statements by the family (Xu Yan) and defense lawyers. No judgment document has been made public in either case.