33 years after Tiananmen, China crushes movements before they can start

Once a week, Chinese activists Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing gathered friends and acquaintances together, mostly just to talk.

In Wang’s single-bedroom apartment in downtown Guangzhou, attendees would share experiences about work in China’s embattled nonprofit sector, about being LGBTQ or about preserving mental health when marginalized by the Chinese Communist Party’s vision of society.

Sometimes the group just watched a film, went hiking or played mah-jongg or a board game. It was meant to be a safe and inclusive space to support one another or speak openly about ideas banned from public discourse by state censors.

Now, in part because of these gatherings, Huang and Wang face a charge of “inciting subversion of state power.”