to restrictions on their rights to freedom of movement, expression and association for one year and remained at risk of prosecution. On 2 August, activist Zhai Yanmin was convicted of “subverting state power” and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for four years. Hu Shigen and lawyer Zhou Shifeng were convicted of the same charge and sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment and seven years’ imprisonment respectively on 3 and 4 August. Lawyer Jiang Tianyong went missing on 21 November. His family was notified on 23 December that he had been placed under “residential surveillance in a designated location” under suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu Feiyue and Huang Qi, both human rights defenders and website founders, were detained in November, accused respectively of “inciting subversion” and “leaking state secrets”. The authorities in Guangdong province, where labour disputes and strikes were on the rise, continued their crackdown on workers and labour rights activists which began in December 2015. At least 33 individuals were targeted; 31 were later released. Labour activist Zeng Feiyang was denied access to lawyers and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for four years, in early October. Labour activist Meng Han was sentenced to one year and nine months’ imprisonment on 3 November. In many cases the detention centres initially denied access to lawyers on the grounds that the cases involved “endangering national security”. Six of the more than 100 people in mainland China detained for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in late 2014 were sentenced to prison terms. They included Xie Wenfei and Wang Mo, leaders of the Southern Street Movement, who were sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment on charges of “inciting subversion”. Two others, women’s rights activist Su Changlan and Chen Qitang, remained in detention with no dates set for their trials. Zhang Shengyu, who was among 120 those detained for supporting the Hong Kong protests, reported that he was beaten and Su Changlan reported she was denied adequate medical treatment in detention. The number of carefully choreographed televised “confessions” increased during the year. They included interviews with detained human rights defenders conducted by Chinese state media and, in two cases, by pro-Beijing media outlets in Hong Kong. Although such “confessions” had no legal validity, they undermined the right to a fair trial. Those shown “confessing” on television included lawyers Zhou Shifeng and Wang Yu, activist Zhai Yanmin, Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai and Swedish NGO worker Peter Dahlin, who was detained and later deported. Zhao Wei and her lawyer, Ren Quanniu, posted confessions on their social media after they were reportedly released on bail. Several journalists and activists who went missing outside mainland China were detained or feared to be detained in China. Journalist Li Xin, who revealed in media interviews that Chinese state security officials had put him under intense pressure to act as an informant against his colleagues and friends before he fled China in 2015, went missing in Thailand in January 2016. He telephoned his partner in February and said he had voluntarily returned to China to assist with an investigation. He was not heard from again and his whereabouts were undisclosed at the end of the year. Tang Zhishun and Xing Qingxian went missing in Myanmar in 2015 while helping the son of two detained Chinese lawyers. Without providing any explanation for the time lag, the authorities charged them with “making arrangements for another person to illegally cross the national border” in notices dated May 2016. In May, pro-democracy activists Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping were confirmed to have been detained on suspicion of “subverting state power” and “making arrangements for another person to illegally cross the national border”. They had been granted refugee status by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, but were repatriated from Thailand to China in 2015. Neither had access to family or Amnesty International Report 2016/17