The China Human Rights League, as can be inferred from its name, took a particularly strong interest in the issue of human rights. The organization was established in order to promote the cause of human rights, and it put out a magazine that carried many articles on the subject. The League was to some extent inspired by the China League for the Protection of Civil Rights set up in the early 1930s (see Text 26). One of its central figures was Ren Wanding, later to become a prominent dissident. Like so many others, the organization suffered from internal strife that led to its splitting into two. The declaration translated here gives a good overview of the kind of rights for which these democracy activists yearned. They were predominantly civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech, the press, publication, assembly, association, and demonstration. But the League also attacked such typical Chinese organizations as the work unit (danwei), Party committee, and secret police, which all controlled people’s lives, livelihood, and movement. Economic and social rights were also invoked: for example, the League called for improvement of the cramped living conditions of urban citizens and economic relief for the poor and unemployed. Many of the League’s demands reflected the interests of young people who had been sent down to the countryside: they now demanded the right to be transferred back to their hometowns and the right to be accepted at university regardless of their political background. The League also spoke out in support of the right to autonomy for minorities; except in Wei Jingsheng’s writings, minority issues did not otherwise figure prominently in the democracy movement.
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