Teng Biao

Teng Biao (Chinese: 滕彪) (born 2 August 1973) is a human rights activist and lawyer in China. Teng is a lecturer at the University of Politics and Law in Beijing. He has been a vocal supporter of human rights activists such as Chen Guangcheng and Hu Jia. He has been arrested at least twice, in March 2008 and in February 2011. He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School.

Human rights activities

Teng Biao is one of the founders of the Open Constitution Initiative in 2003.

In 2006 he was counsel for the blind civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

Arrests

On 7 March 2008, Teng was abducted by Beijing Public Security agents and detained for two days.

In 2011, Teng met with other lawyers on 16 February to talk about the case of Chen Guangcheng, who was placed illegally under house arrest after his release from prison. His fellow lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jitian, who attended the meeting, were arrested soon after. Teng was arrested on 20 February, the first Sunday of the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests that were inspired by the Arab Spring. On 28 February 2011, Amnesty International launched an "urgent action" in support of the three detained lawyers. Teng Biao was released on 29 April, after more than two months of detention. Human rights organisations state that "He remains under surveillance".

Awards

• Religious Freedom and Rule of Law Defender Award (2012)
• Prize for Outstanding Democracy Activist (2011)
• Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammett Grants (2010)
• NED Democracy Award (2008)
• Human Rights Prize of French Republic (2007)

• http://www.chinaaid.org/2012/07/chinaaid-freedom-and-rule-of-law.html
• https://chinaview.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/chinese-lawyers-teng-biao-jiang-tianyong-named-democracy-prize-recipients/
• https://www.ifex.org/awards/2010/08/05/hellman_hammett_award/
• http://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/annualreports/2008/PDFs/AR_NewsEvents08.pdf
• http://www.ifex.org/egypt/2007/12/18/cihrs_wins_france_s_human_rights/