Lei Cheng: I’m Doing What Others Have Done to Me

By Lei Cheng        11-15-2025

 

Freedom is doing what others had done for me on day of the imprisoned writer, Nov 15. At the @peninternational event, I held up a picture of Zhang Zhan 张展– citizen journalist who has been imprisoned again in China.

 

Lei Cheng.

 

戚洪Qi Hong, aka Projector Man, whose act of rebellion that defied the world’s best resourced surveillance system proved the power of the desire to express freely.

 

Luo Shengchun.

 

Luo Shengchun, wife of jailed human rights lawyer 丁家喜Ding Jiaxi, accepted the Liu Xiaobo Courage to Write Award on behalf of her husband, talked about the trauma on their kids that I also understand.

Discussion with Mina Thabet (on Gaza), Amal Akasha of Sudan and Iryna Starovoyt of Ukraine to speak on war and freedom of speech. They implored the audience to snap out of war fatigue, to care, to write and speak and ‘be annoying’ to governments.

The winner of the Freedom to Write award– journalist 高瑜Gao Yu was taken away by secret police so she couldn’t even appear by video from China. The award made more poignant by her absence.

 

So awed to be in the company of award-winning writers Jung Chang (Wild Swans) and Yan Geling (芳华，金陵十三钗，天浴etc), activist 盛雪，exiled writer 马健. Yan was banned in China after criticising its Covid handling and condemning the chained woman 铁链女incident, the cost of her integrity runs to the tens of millions in royalties.

 

@latikaburke a super thoughtful and empathetic interview that felt like the best kind of conversation.