Lawsuit over politically motivated censorship and surveillance on WeChat filed in California
Citizen Power Initiatives for China (“CPIFC”) filed a lawsuit today in the Superior Court for the State of California, Santa Clara County, alleging that the censorship and surveillance practices and policies of WeChat, the dominant social media and payments application in the Chinese-speaking world, violates numerous aspects of California law. Joining the lawsuit are six California WeChat users who have suffered significant financial, emotional, and psychological harm as a result of those practices and policies. The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the challenged practices and policies are unlawful under California law, issue an injunction against them, and to order that defendants pay damages for the harms they caused. The defendants are Tencent America LLC and Tencent International Service. Ltd. [Read More]
For Us, the Living:
A Journey to Shine Light on Truth
CPIFC president Dr. Yang Jianli’s selected collection of 138 speeches (2000-2020), For Us, the Living: A Journey to Shine the Light on Truth, is now available for purchase. Published by Redwood Publishing, the 619-page book is forwarded by the Dalai Lama and Natan Sharansky.
Examining China’s Response to the Covid-19 Outbreak
This is a comprehensive report on how the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has already killed over half-a-million people, including 134,000 Americans, could have been avoided had the Chinese Communist Party acted in an honest and responsible manner. This book, currently available in Chinese, analyzes how the Chinese Communist Party responded to the virus, especially in the critical month between December 26, 2019 and January 25, 2020.
Based on meticulous analysis of data, much of it directly from sources in China, the report establishes a day-by-day, objective record documenting how Chinese authorities, from the top leadership to local governments, from biomedical institutions to public health administrations, from official media to foreign affairs functionaries, responded to the epidemic.
Class Action Lawsuit Against Wechat
We believe that Tencent has become the technology shackle for the CCP to restrict the freedom of the people. What Tencent has been doing domestically and overseas constitutes a serious violation to human rights and violates Chinese, American laws as well as the international law. We must start a battle for the freedom of speech, taking a stand against WeChat. By doing so, we can open space for the freedom of speech in China. This is why Citizen Power Initiatives for China officially is starting a class action lawsuit against WeChat (Tencent) in the United States, a project we have been planning and preparing.
Forced Labor in the Uyghur Region
Our team led by Dr. Han Lianchao published a report, Cotton: The Fabric Full of Lies, on forced and prison labor in Xinjiang in August 2019. One of the key conclusions is that there is presence of forced labor at many steps of the cotton supply chain and some of these products have entered into international commerce, including the U.S. and European markets. Recently the U.S. State Department, Dept. of Treasury, Dept. of Commerce, and Dept. of Homeland Seucirty issued a joint advisory which cited the report on its findings.
Latest Articles
The Hill: Fighting TikTok on wheels: Putting consumers in control of their auto data
By: Jianli Yang - Jul 17, 2023 America’s national security experts have made a compelling case that TikTok, the popular social media application owned in part by the Chinese government, constitutes a national security threat. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has...
Washington Times: China and Russia cooperating on defense technology, space projects
By Jianli Yang - Jun 22, 2023 On June 6, China and Russia conducted a joint aerial patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, the third such joint air patrol since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. China‘s defense ministry...
Newsweek: India Offers a Bridge to the Global South
By Jianli Yang - Jun 22, 2023 Since taking office in 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown increasing ambition to strengthen India's global diplomacy and governance. In several international conferences led by India, Modi has consistently emphasized...
Washington Times: China’s decades-long military presence in Cuba goes beyond espionage
By John Suarez and Jianli Yang - Jun 14, 2023 President Biden has made it clear that he seeks competition, not conflict, with China, but President Xi Jinping has other plans. China seeks to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower, create a new international world...
The Messenger: China’s Young People Still Want Freedoms and Democracy
By Yuki Zhang and Jianli Yang - Jun 4, 2023 On June 4, 1989, Chinese troops equipped with tanks and rifles fired at political demonstrators, including college students and other civilians, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Students at the square pleaded with soldiers,...
Letter of Support to China’s Democracy and Freedom
Alliance for Vietnam's Democracy | Letter of Support Jun 4, 2023 Dear Dr. Yang, On June 4, 1989, the world witnessed a painful and tragic event not only for the Chinese people, but also for the whole world right at its dawn of freedom and democracy. On that day, also...
WUHAN MEMO – Timeline
CPIFC Team has put together a comprehensive timeline that documented the most crucial days of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Such report contains the daily record for epidemic development and global countermeasure strategies. We sincerely hope it provides a panoramic index and guide for analyzing the development of the epidemic.
Other Initiatives
Dr. Jianli Yang gave a keynote talk “The Chinese Communist Party: Savior of Culprit?” at Covid Con on April 13, a virtual Oslo Freedom Forum event hosted by the Human Rights Foundation. The virtual conference focused on how tyranny sparked and is exploiting the novel coronavirus pandemic to crack down on civil liberties.
CPIFC at the UN
We have collaborated with UN Watch to bring China’s records on human rights abuses to United Nations’ Human Rights Commission.
Our Voice at the United Nations