Liu Ping

Liu Ping (, born December 2, 1964) is a female grassroot civil rights activist in China. As a retired factory employee of Xinyu Iron and Steel Group, she attracted widespread attention for independently running for a local delegate to the National People's Congress in 2011. In 2013, Liu Ping was arrested for publicly demanding Chinese officials to disclose their wealth and was the first being tried among the arrested activists in the New Citizens' Movement in China. She was sentenced to years in prison in June 2014. Biography Liu was born in Xinyu, Jiangxi in 1964. She worked at Yuanxingang Equipment and Materials Co., a branch of Xinyu Iron and Steel Group until she xiagang (being forced to retire) in 2009. Since retirement, Liu started activism to increase the compensation for her colleagues who were similarly forced to retire. She went to petition to the central government in Beijing for three times and was detained for 10 days in 2010. In April 2011, Liu Ping decided to run for the local delegate to the National People's Congress. As soon as Liu announced her candidacy, local government started to harass her and her supporters. The authority deemed her action as being backed by "anti-China forces" and posing grim threat to China's established election procedures. Even though Liu obtained enough supporters to show up on the ballot by Chinese election laws, Liu was declared ineligible by Yang Jianyun, director of the local election office. Liu Ping's attempt received widespread support in China, e.g. the prominent scholar Yu Jianrong. It also unleashed a wave of candidacies in China later that year. Along with Liu, another Xinyu resident, Wei Zhongping, also attempted to run in the race. He was declared ineligible by the authority similarly. More than 100 people announced campaigns online, including celebrities like Li Chengpeng, but a much smaller number of people actually ran. Chinese authority took it very seriously and made sure not a single one independent candidate appear on any ballot. Xu Zhiyong, a prominent legal scholar and activist, who succeeded in running independently twice in the past, did not succeed later that year.