Yu Wensheng

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The Foundation of Anna Dahlbäck’s Memorial Fund has the honour of awarding the grant of SEK 50,000 for year 2022 to the lawyer Mr Yu Wensheng.

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The motivation for the 2022 grant is:
Yu Wensheng is a Chinese lawyer and human rights activist. He has defended civil rights activists and lawyer colleagues in human rights cases against the government and has worked for constitutional reform. Due to his support of the democratic movement in Hong Kong (”the yellow umbrellas”) he was detained for the first time in 2014. In 2018, he was excluded from his lawyer profession and shortly thereafter brought into custody. In 2020 he was sentenced to four years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power”. EU has condemned the judgement and several human rights foundations and movements have demanded his release. He has been harassed, tortured and denied medication. A few weeks ago, however he was set free. 

 

Yu Wensheng fulfils the requirements of the Foundation’s Statutes that the grant is to be awarded to: ”a person – in particular with a law education – who works for human rights in Sweden or abroad and who has demonstrated great dedication and moral courage” including ”altruistic commitment to the work for human rights and additional consideration is taken if the nominee’s actions have directly aided a person/persons in a vulnerable position”.

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Stockholm the 22th of March 2022, 
The Board
 

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