Student Rights Defense · Full chronicle and history

On the evening of October 30, a large number of students at the Gaoyao School of Zhaoqing Gaoyao District Shimen Middle School (Group) (Gaoyao No. 2 Middle School) gathered in their dormitories to demand that the school turn on the air conditioning. The humidity that night reached over 90%, making it feel stiflingly hot.

On the evening of October 29, Longchuan County Experimental Middle School in Heyuan, Guangdong, experienced a water and power outage due to equipment failure. As the school refused to let students leave, a large number of students gathered and climbed over the walls to leave the campus.

On the evening of October 29, Longchuan County Experimental Middle School in Heyuan, Guangdong, experienced a power and water outage for several hours due to equipment failure. Students, unable to study or live normally, demanded to leave the school. Because the electric gate was malfunctioning and school leaders refused to let them out, the students gathered at the school gate, shouting in unison to be allowed to go home.

At 10:40 p.m. on October 16, after evening self-study ended at Wuzhou No. 7 Middle School in Wuzhou, Guangxi, a school leader surnamed Zhang, citing the excuse that "only 20 people asked for leave tonight," opened just a single lane at the school gate turnstile for hundreds of students to pass through. Several students missed the last bus, and students posted online to complain.

On October 15, a netizen posted to expose that Nanjing Audit University had launched a “Dormitory Anomaly Analysis” feature in its student affairs system, matching dormitory and campus gate turnstile data with class schedules to automatically record class absences and anomalies; in serious cases, students are disciplined according to the student handbook. Students posted to question this and reported that the “Direct Feedback Box” in WeChat Work could not be opened.

On October 2, a netizen revealed that after a student at Xiuyuan Middle School in Shuyang, Suqian, Jiangsu, reported to the education bureau that the school was giving only one and a half days off for the National Day holiday, the student received a phone call from someone claiming to be a teacher in the principal's office, was questioned with "if you don't want to study, then don't," and was scolded. The student's complaint information was suspected of having been handed over to the school. The school responded that it was a teacher's personal act, drawing criticism.

On September 30, a middle school student in Handan posted a long essay accusing school leaders of being keen on superficial projects, with thousands of students forced to accompany leaders in a “drill,” grades treated as achievements, holidays exploited, and free will suppressed.

On September 30, the brother of the female student who fell to her death circulated the account of the incident in a campus WeChat group she had belonged to, saying his sister excelled in both character and academics, was a Chinese Communist Party member and the head of her master's class, questioning school leaders for ignoring students' lives, saying he had already been removed from the dormitory group, and appealing to anyone with information across the school and the entire internet for help.

On September 25, Yan Zongmin, principal of Kangjie Middle School in Yuncheng, Shanxi, responded to recent controversies: he stated that staggered holidays during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day were due to poor communication; admitted that the national flag was not raised to the top during the flag-raising ceremony and that the September 18 warning education was poorly handled; and claimed that the blackboard newspaper text was verified by the police as being self-created by students, reading phrases like "Long live Comrade Mao Zedong," while adding that the students' method of posting notes to express demands was unacceptable and that the police had intervened in the investigation.

Hundreds of former students of the Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School gathered at the school for three consecutive days, demanding the return of deposits that had been withheld for a long time, during which conflicts broke out with the school.

Students at Zhongshan Memorial Middle School in Guangdong chanted in residential buildings to protest after the school broke its holiday promise by cutting the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday down to just one day.

On September 20, inside a classroom at Qiqihar No. 3 Middle School in Heilongjiang Province, students wrote messages such as "not a single penny of corruption spared" and "not a single regular class taught" on their desks or walls, protesting the school's teaching quality and integrity issues.

On September 14, families of multiple victims in Lishui, Zhejiang, held portraits of the deceased and went to the headquarters of Lishui Public Transport Group Co., Ltd. to conduct rights defense. The family members stated that their father was killed after being struck by a bus while performing road work. Nearly three months after the incident, the bus company has yet to provide a clear response, prompting the family to visit the company to demand accountability.

On September 11, 2026, a senior student at Dongguan Experimental Middle School had his night snack taken by first- and second-year students after a late class dismissal. After reporting to the school, the administration posted a notice on the bulletin board, including the statements “The teacher wants you to rank in the top 100 of the grade, can you do it?”, “Your parents want you to get into a 985 university, can you meet the requirement?”, and “Don’t always expect others to satisfy you, learn to empathize.” The incident sparked heated discussion online, with netizens questioning the school’s pressure tactics. The next day, September 12, the original poster’s account was deleted.

On September 12, Liu Anjun went to the Beijing Guangnei Police Station and other departments to demand clarification on Sun Meihua's suspected abandonment, trafficking, and purchase of persons, and was told that the case was still ongoing and that information was kept confidential from non-direct family members.

In September 2026, students at several high schools in Zhengzhou collectively exposed on social media their schools’ forced extra classes and excessively long schedules, and filed online joint petitions to the Henan Provincial Department of Education and the mayor’s hotline, protesting the schools’ illegal deprivation of their statutory right to rest.

According to the student who posted the message, when Jingdezhen University ordered fourth-year female students to move dormitories, it gave each of them only 30 yuan as compensation, deposited into their bank cards, while the new dormitories were dirty and cluttered and had reduced space.

On September 4, 2026, several students at Henan Vocational College of Art reported that the school issued a sudden notice on the eve of the new term, ordering sophomores to transfer to a secondary vocational program. Students questioned whether the school was using the name of work-study alternation as a pretext to covertly arrange for them to work in factories.

Liu Xiang posted on Weibo asking netizens for help, saying the Shanghai Sports Bureau required him to choose between a "buyout of his years of service" and "becoming a coach," and questioning why the placement issue had been delayed for ten years. The Shanghai Sports Bureau responded that it would arrange proper placement.

On August 25, 2026, students at No. 17 Middle School in Yiyang, Hunan Province, posted a video exposing the dirty, run-down and dilapidated conditions of their dormitories. The school subsequently responded by saying these were conditions from previous years and demanded that students delete the exposé video.

On August 22, 2026, students at the Tagou Martial Arts School in Dengfeng, Henan, gathered in protest at the school gate over the cumbersome deposit refund process and abnormal student status information, climbed over the iron gate into the campus shouting "refund our money," and multiple police cars arrived at the scene.

On August 22, 2026, several students at the Sino-German School of Shanxi University of Finance and Economics posted online to protest, accusing the school of breaking its "3+1" promise of studying in Germany upon enrollment by forcibly shortening the overseas semester to less than half a year and obstructing the paperwork.

On August 22, 2026, a student at Zhanjiang Technician College in Guangdong, China, exposed online that a student at the school had long been threatening, beating, and extorting classmates. The school was accused of covering up the behavior multiple times. The victim has reported the case to the police and taken a leave of absence.

On August 12, 2026, a Beijing Film Academy graduate using the name "Shang Mengmeng" posted an account saying that after she had long complained about secondhand smoke on campus and wore protective gear to protect herself, she was pinned to the ground in the street by six school staff members while walking off campus, who tore off her gas mask and seized her phone.

On August 12, 2026, the student rights organization 611Study reported that Fengcheng Senior High School in Laiwu, Jinan, required senior-year students to return to school early on August 20 for extra classes and to attend 57 hours of classes per week. The local education department has formally accepted the report of this violation.

On August 10, 2026, the student rights organization 611Study called the Education Bureau of Fangshan County, Lüliang, Shanjiang, to report that Fangshan County Senior High School was holding illegal holiday tutoring during the summer vacation and requiring students to return to school early, and demanded that the authorities intervene and investigate.

On August 9, 2026, a student rights-defense platform received a submission stating that Quanzhou No. 9 Middle School in Fujian, during the summer vacation, illegally issued a notice requiring students to return to school early, ending their holiday ahead of schedule to resume classes.

On August 7, 2026, a student rights defense organization revealed that Yingshan High School in Sichuan Province illegally held supplementary classes and charged students fees during the summer vacation, while publicly claiming to offer free after-school care. During this period, students were forced to stay on campus at noon, and the quality of the cafeteria food was poor.

Affected villagers posted stating that the flood was a man-made accident, and all residents of Liulan Village refused to sign, demanding an explanation from higher authorities.

In late July 2026, a doctoral student at a university in Chongqing publicly accused their supervisor under their real name on social platforms of long-term personal humiliation and appropriation of research achievements, revealing chat records in which the supervisor said the student was like an ant, sparking public attention to supervisor-student relationships in higher education.

From July 21, 2026, Qizhen School in Zhangjiakou, Hebei was exposed for forcing senior year students to attend a fully closed summer tutoring program six days a week, sparking student protests over severe lack of rest.

On July 2, 2026, a bamboo raft in the waters off Houjiang, Nan'ao County, Shantou, Guangdong was capsized after being struck by an iron vessel, killing one person, and the vessel responsible fled the scene. Recently, the family took to the internet to report that no case had been filed long after the incident and that dock surveillance footage had been overwritten, publicly seeking help to defend their rights.

The Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School in Dengfeng, Henan, has been exposed for coaches mistreating students and withholding students' deposits over a long period. After the incident came to light, hundreds of students gathered in protest for three consecutive days, demanding the return of their deposits.

On June 12, 2026, the Gaizhou City Public Security Bureau in Liaoning formally returned 2,859.2 grams of gold products seized nearly 30 years ago to Dalian man Pan Yongjia and reached a settlement, with the party withdrawing his state compensation application.

On June 8, 2026, in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang, a candidate ranked first in a public institution exam but was illegally replaced. After the person involved continued to defend her rights and appeal, local officials directly issued an announcement canceling the entire recruitment position in question.

On the evening of May 27, 2026, strict new dormitory phone control rules introduced by Guangzhou Information Technology Vocational School triggered a strong student backlash, with multiple students collectively shouting from the dormitory buildings to protest the mandatory management enforced by the school's student affairs office.

Beijing Huangzhuang Vocational High School was relocated by the school authorities to a smaller campus lacking basic facilities such as a cafeteria and a sports field, sparking a collective protest in which students confronted school staff in the corridors and at the school gate.

After returning to her hometown in Guizhou, Xiao Wei (online name "Xiao Wei is not Xiao Wei"), a mainland spouse deported from Taiwan, has been actively defending the rights of local residents, live-streaming to denounce local government extravagance, and publicly challenging the local village committee to a debate in her live-stream.

On May 15, a female student at Beijing University of Technology Gengdan Institute went to the infirmary for a medical note due to menstrual cramps, but was asked by the on-duty staff to pull down her pants to prove her physical condition. Afterward, the school administration released a statement on Douyin, insisting that the on-duty staff's workflow complied with regulations and accusing the related videos circulating online of being distorted.

After the Yang Jia case occurred, artist Ai Weiwei published a series of posts on his blog, pressing questions about the details of Yang Jia's case, the circumstances of his mother being committed to a psychiatric hospital, and the violations of procedure during the trial; his blog at one point became a gathering point for online public opinion. After that, he spoke out for Yang Jia multiple times.

Ms. Ma Yongtian won a lawsuit regarding her factory being robbed in 2002 and obtained a court judgment.