Han Dongfang

Han Dongfang in 2011.

Han Dongfang (born 1963) has been an advocate for workers' rights in China for more than two decades during which time he has won numerous international awards including the 1993 Democracy Award from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Born in the impoverished village of Nanweiquan in Shanxi, Han first came to international prominence when, as a railway worker in Beijing, he helped set up the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF) during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The BWAF was the People's Republic of China's first independent trade union, established as an alternative to the Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

The BWAF was disbanded after the June 4 crackdown, and Han was placed at the top of the Chinese government’s most wanted list. Han turned himself into the police and was imprisoned for 22 months without trial until he contacted tuberculosis in prison and was released in April 1991. He spent a year in the U.S. undergoing medical treatment before returning to China in August 1993. On his return, he was arrested in Guangzhou and expelled to Hong Kong, where he still lives today.

In 1994, he established China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organization that seeks to uphold and defend the rights of workers across China.

In addition to his work at CLB, Han conducts regular interviews with workers and peasants across China on Radio Free Asia. These interviews give insight into lives of workers in China are broadcast across China three times weekly on shortwave radio.

Sources

• Hans-Heinrich Bass, Markus Wauschkuhn und Karl Wohlmuth: Menschenrechte, Arbeitsverhältnisse und Gewerkschaften in China – internationale Perspektiven, herausgegeben aus Anlass der Verleihung des 5. Bremer Solidaritätspreises an Han Dongfang, Berichte des Arbeitsbereichs Chinaforschung im Institut für Weltwirtschaft und Internationales Management der Universität Bremen, Nr. 6, 1996, ISSN 0947-7977

External links

• Human Rights First interview
• The Worldly – Han Dongfang: Bringing China's Labor Movement to Light
• China Labor Struggles – interview with Han from July–August 2005 New Left Review
• The Prospects for Legal Enforcement of Labor Rights in China Today – A Glass Half Full – June 2008 statement by Han to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China
• "China's Workers Are Stirring" Opinion by Han Dongfang in The New York Times June 17, 2010

Video external links

• Han Dongfang's Youtube page – videos of Han's call-in program with Radio Free Asia (Mandarin language)
• Social Justice and Harmony in China: Trade Union Movement – talk by Han to UCLA International Institute on June 2, 2005
• When will we have Free Unions in China? Online video of speech given in February 2007 in Montreal.
• Speech by Han on unions to SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West on March 8, 2008