Day 1: Wang Yu, China
Wang Yu is a 44-year-old prisoner in the country where the historic 1995 Beijing Conference was held: China. Wang’s activism was sparked in 2008, when employees at a train station refused to let her board a train with her ticket. After demanding the right to board, Wang was assaulted by several men and then – even though she was the one who had been beaten – convicted to two-and-a-half years in prison for assault. She later told a reporter, “After my miscarriage of justice… I wanted to improve China’s human rights system.” Wang did that by taking on the cases of clients who other lawyers feared to represent. For her work, Wang has been harassed, threatened, and smeared in the State-run media. On July 9, 2015, Wang herself was detained.
Please pray for Wang Yu, the other individuals highlighted in the Free the 20 campaign, and women and men held political prisoners around the world.
On September 1, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power launched the Free the 20 campaign to draw attention to the plight of women political prisoners and other prisoners of concern. Throughout September, the State Department will highlight 20 individual cases of women prisoners from around the world who are unjustly imprisoned, featuring one case per business day. And these women will be featured on social media accounts for Ambassador Power and the U.S. Mission to the UN and will be profiled on the Free the 20 page.