Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by China

Chen Guangcheng (born 12 November 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who has worked on human rights issues in rural areas of the People's Republic of China. Blind from an early age and self-taught in the law, Chen is frequently described as a "barefoot lawyer" who advocates for women's rights, land rights, and the welfare of the poor. He is best known for accusing people of abuses in official family-planning practices, often involving claims of violence and forced abortions.

Hu Jia (Chinese: 胡佳; pinyin: Hú Jiā; born July 25, 1973, in Beijing) is a Chinese civil rights activist and noted critic of Communist Party of China. His work has focused on the Chinese democracy movement, Chinese environmentalist movement, and HIV/AIDS in the People's Republic of China. Hu is the director of June Fourth Heritage & Culture Association, and he has been involved with AIDS advocacy as the executive director of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education and as one of the founders of the non-governmental organization Loving Source. He has also been involved in work to protect the endangered Tibetan antelope. For his activism, Hu has received awards from several European bodies, such as the Paris City Council and the European Parliament, which awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to him in December 2008.

Liu Xiaobo (Chinese: 刘晓波; pinyin: Liú Xiǎobō , 28 December 1955 – 13 July 2017) was a Chinese writer, literary critic, human rights activist, philosopher and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who called for political reforms and was involved in campaigns to end communist one-party rule in China. He was incarcerated as a political prisoner in Jinzhou, Liaoning. On 26 June 2017, he was granted medical parole after being diagnosed with liver cancer, and subsequently died on 13 July 2017.

Dhondup Wangchen (born 17 October 1974) is a Tibetan filmmaker imprisoned by the Chinese government in 2008 on charges related to his documentary Leaving Fear Behind. Made with senior Tibetan monk Jigme Gyatso, the documentary consists of interviews with ordinary Tibetan people discussing the 14th Dalai Lama, the Chinese government, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Han Chinese migrants to the region. After smuggling the tapes of the interviews out of Tibet, however, Dhondup Wangchen and Jigme Gyatso were detained during the 2008 Tibetan unrest.

Ngawang Sangdrol (born in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1977) is a former political prisoner, imprisoned at the age of 13 by the Government of the People's Republic of China, for peacefully demonstrating against the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1992. She was at first held for eight months without trial, before being sentenced to a three-year prison term. Her sentence was extended repeatedly for continued protest in prison, which included recording a tape of freedom songs with 13 other nuns from Drapchi Prison that was smuggled out of Tibet.

Mao Hengfeng (simplified Chinese: 毛恒凤; Traditional Chinese: 毛恆風; pinyin: Máo Héngfēng; born 9 December 1961) is a women's rights and human rights activist in the People's Republic of China. She refused to abort her third child after already having twins and was detained in an ankang (psychiatric hospital) and then dismissed from her job. A frequent petitioner, Mao served a year and a half of re-education through labor in 2004-2005 and two and half years in prison for "intentional destruction of property" in 2006-2008. She was released from Shanghai Women's Prison on 29 November 2008. Since then she has served another year in RTL after protesting in support of Liu Xiaobo. She was briefly released, in February 2011, but under house arrest. She was almost immediately taken again, and placed in Shanghai City Prison Hospital, where she was previously tortured and ill-treated.

Shi Tao (simplified Chinese: 师涛; traditional Chinese: 師濤; pinyin: Shī Tāo; born July 25, 1968) is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Communist Party to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.

Harry Wu (Chinese: 吴弘达; pinyin: Wú Hóngdá; February 8, 1937 – April 26, 2016) was a Chinese-American human rights activist. Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, and he became a resident and citizen of the United States. In 1992, he founded the Laogai Research Foundation.

Guo Feixiong (Chinese: 郭飞雄; born 2 August 1966) is the pen name of Yang Maodong (杨茂东), a Chinese human rights lawyer from Guangdong province who is often identified with the Weiquan movement. Guo is known as a dissident writer and "barefoot lawyer", who has worked on several controversial issues to defend the rights of marginalized groups. Prior to his 2006 imprisonment, Guo worked as a legal advisor to the Shanghai Shengzhi Law Firm.

Ren Wanding (born c. 1944) is a Chinese dissident who was jailed several times for his pro-democracy activism. He is the founder of the China Human Rights League.