作者：张宇
编辑：邢文娟 责任编辑：李聪玲 校对：程筱筱 翻译：刘芳
“毁掉一个民族最简单的方式，就是篡改他们的语言。”——乔治·奥威尔
语言，是人类思想的呼吸。
如何衡量一个社会是否健康？不是它的楼房有多高，不是它的高铁建得有多长，也不是工厂的机器转得有多快，唯一的标准是它的人民能否自由地说话。然而在当下的中国，许多词语正在被悄悄“消失”。“离婚”成了不祥的话题，“自杀”成了禁忌的词汇，“维权”“抗议”“真相”这些原本属于公民日常表达的词语，却被网络算法和系统判了“无声”的死刑。
文字狱是封建帝王专制的利器，是古代中国专制统治者对文人的一种政治迫害。它的历史几乎与帝制本身一样长，在雍正、乾隆两朝的文字狱尤为严酷。一个读书人写了“天地会”三个字，被判谋反；一首诗中用了“明月”二字，被解释为怀念前朝，当立斩；一句“白云苍狗”，也可能被扣上“影射圣上”的罪名，轻则流放，重则斩首。
历史课本告诉我们，那个时代早已过去。但今天，当我们打开电脑或手机，看到“此内容无法显示”，内容“涉嫌敏感”时，看到一个个词汇从公众视野中消失，难道这不正是另一种形式的文字狱吗？现代中国因言获罪的例子还少吗？
不同的是，古代的人知道自己被禁言；而今天，许多人甚至都不知道自己曾经拥有说话的权利。这才是更加恐怖之处：当沉默变成了习惯，不公就会显得理所当然。
当一个国家连字句都要审查，它不只是怕言语——它害怕的是人民思考。如果人民学会说出真相，谎言就再也无法稳固！
（图片提供：张宇；图为11月1日在洛杉矶星光大道举行的集会活动）
2019年，中共在举行大型阅兵式庆祝建国70周年之际，抓了很多所谓的“辱国人士”。一些人仅仅因为在网上说了几句官方不喜欢的话就被抓走。其中一个案例让我觉得最为荒谬，一位四川网民说：“阅兵有什么好看的”，一位山东网民说：“祖国没有养你，是你妈养的你。”结果二人双双被拘留。
45岁的黄根宝是徐州市一家国企的高级工程师，2019年6月1日，他被判处16个月的监禁，罪名是在Twitter等平台上侮辱国家领导人、损害国家形象。服刑期间，他与20多人一起住一个牢房，必须遵守严格的作息，包括上厕所。他和妻子都失去了工作，现在他靠送外卖养家糊口。
2020年4月，北京三名90后疑因备份新冠疫情期间被删除的文章失踪，陈玫和蔡伟随后以“寻衅滋事罪”被正式逮捕。
也许最令人沮丧的，莫过于那些因发表有关新冠病毒大流行言论而受到行政处罚的人。位居榜首的一定是李文亮医生，2020年1月1日，他和其他七人因试图向亲朋好友发出新冠病毒的警告而受到训诫。2020年2月6日，李文亮死于新冠病毒，人们现在把他当作新冠疫情爆发的吹哨人来纪念。但因新冠病毒言论受到行政处罚的还有其他587人。
还有一些被媒体广泛报道的知名人物，比如地产大亨任志强，他曾暗示习近平是“脱光了衣服也要坚持当皇帝的小丑”，最后他被重判18年；前清华大学教授许章润，他接连发表批评当局文章被革职；出版界“侠女”耿潇男，她声援多位良心犯被起诉“非法经营罪”；前中共党校教授蔡霞，她抨击共产党是“政治僵尸”被开除党籍；记者张展，报道武汉疫情被判刑 ……
（图片为洛杉矶自由雕塑公园；意为：中国那些起来吹哨的人，他们要背负非常沉重的代价，这种代价可能是死亡、可能是监狱、可能是失踪。）
当前中共政权将“惟有社会主义制度才能救中国”，“谁反对共产党、谁反对社会主义制度、谁就是反革命”的政治意识形态作为司法的量刑手段，对维护人权、倡导民主、争取自由的民主人士和知识分子给予最为严厉的镇压、抓捕以及迫害。
直到已将社会主义法治确定为宪法原则的今天，这种镇压言论自由和思想自由的文字狱在国民的唾弃中愈演愈烈，并把它改头换面，以一种新的方式出现。中共将其纳入司法执法的范围，罪名为“煽动颠覆国家政权罪”。
这一罪名绝对是与宪法原则及其精神背道而驰，它与上述强加在国民身上的所谓“反革命罪”同工异曲，其功能便是以法律的名义镇压和迫害敢于对中共独裁提出批评的民主人士。
“煽动颠覆国家政权罪”是现代法治精神和宪法原则的一个悖论。其唯一的表现就是“霸王硬上弓”的强权镇压和凶残的政治迫害。它无非是一条镇压言论自由和迫害思想自由的独裁暴政的锁链，这条蔑视宪法，打压自由民主的锁链终究会在中国人民争取和建构自由民主宪政制度的政治洪流中被彻底打碎。
中共压制语言的力量，绝不会一直成功，每当真相被遮蔽，人们就会用新的方式去表达它。
语言被删，人们就创造新的词汇；
话题被封，人们就换一种语气去问。
这是人类思考的本能，也是意识的反抗。
历史上已经多次证明，再高的墙，也挡不住思想的流动。中共试图控制语言时，它其实是在暴露自己的恐惧——害怕被质疑，害怕被揭穿，害怕被记住。
历史告诉我们：我相信不管是什么样的国家政权，只要对国民实施专制独裁的极端统治，这个国家政权都会在国民的声讨中轰然垮塌。
China’s New Era of Literary Inquisition
Author: Zhang Yu
Editor: Xing Wenjuan Executive Editor: Li Congling Proofreader: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translator: Liu Fang
Abstract: This article criticizes China’s recent suppression of free speech, the erosion of legal principles, and the systematic deprivation of citizens’ rights. It reveals how charges such as “subversion of state power” have become tools to silence dissent, and questions whether any space for freedom of thought still remains.
“The simplest way to destroy a people is to corrupt their language.” —George Orwell
Language is the breath of human thought. How do we measure whether a society is healthy? Not by the height of its buildings, nor by the length of its high-speed railways, nor by the speed of its factory machines. The one and only standard is whether its people can speak freely.
Yet in today’s China, many words are quietly being “disappeared.” “Divorce” has become an ominous topic, “suicide” an unspeakable term. Words such as “rights defense,” “protest,” and “truth”—once part of ordinary civic vocabulary—have been sentenced to a silent death by algorithms and systems.
The literary inquisition was a tool of feudal autocracy—political persecution wielded by emperors against scholars. Its history is as long as imperial rule itself, and reached brutal extremes during the reigns of Yongzheng and Qianlong. A scholar who wrote the words “Heaven and Earth Society” could be charged with treason. A poem containing “bright moon” might be interpreted as longing for the previous dynasty—punishable by beheading. Even the phrase “white clouds and grey dogs” could be taken as slander against the emperor, resulting in exile or execution.
History textbooks tell us that era is long gone. But today, when we open our computers or phones and see “This content cannot be displayed” or “This content is deemed sensitive,” when word after word disappears from public discourse—is this not another form of literary inquisition? Is modern China lacking examples of people punished for speech?
The difference is this: In ancient times, people knew they were being silenced. Today, many don’t even realize they once had the right to speak. That is the most terrifying part—when silence becomes habit, injustice begins to appear normal.
When a state censors even individual words, it is not merely afraid of speech—it is afraid of its people thinking. If the people learn to speak the truth, lies can no longer stand.
(Photo provided by Zhang Yu, taken at a November 1 rally on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.)
In 2019, while the CCP celebrated the 70th anniversary of its founding with a massive military parade, it arrested numerous so-called “unpatriotic individuals.” Some were detained simply for posting comments the authorities disliked. One case was particularly absurd: a man in Sichuan wrote, “What’s so great about a military parade?” Another netizen in Shandong said, “It wasn’t the motherland who raised you—it was your mom.” Both were detained.
Huang Genbao, a 45-year-old senior engineer at a state-owned company in Xuzhou, was sentenced to 16 months in prison in June 2019. His “crime” was insulting state leaders and “damaging the nation’s image” on Twitter. During imprisonment, he shared a cell with more than 20 people and had to follow rigid routines, even for using the toilet. Both he and his wife lost their jobs, and he now delivers food to support his family.
In April 2020, three young Beijing residents—born in the 1990s—went missing after archiving online articles deleted during the COVID-19 outbreak. Chen Mei and Cai Wei were formally arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Perhaps the most heartbreaking cases are those punished for speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic. At the top of the list is Dr. Li Wenliang. On January 1, 2020, he and seven others were reprimanded for warning friends and colleagues about the coronavirus. He died of COVID-19 on February 6, 2020, and is now widely remembered as a whistleblower. But beyond Dr. Li, 587 other individuals were penalized for COVID-related speech.
There are also well-known figures widely reported by the media: real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, who called Xi Jinping a “clown stripped naked” and was sentenced to 18 years; former Tsinghua professor Xu Zhangrun, dismissed for his critical essays; publisher Geng Xiaonan, charged with “illegal business operations” for supporting prisoners of conscience; Cai Xia, a former Party school professor expelled for calling the CCP a “political zombie”; and journalist Zhang Zhan, imprisoned for reporting on the Wuhan outbreak.
(Photo: Los Angeles Freedom Sculpture Park, symbolizing that whistleblowers in China bear extreme costs—death, prison, or disappearance.)
Today, the CCP uses the ideology of “only socialism can save China,” and “whoever opposes the Party or socialism is a counterrevolutionary,” as a judicial weapon to suppress human-rights defenders, democracy advocates, and intellectuals who fight for freedom.
Even now—when “socialist rule of law” has supposedly been written into the Constitution—this persecution of speech and thought grows ever more severe, cloaked in new forms. The CCP has incorporated such repression into law enforcement using the charge of “inciting subversion of state power.”
This charge fundamentally contradicts constitutional principles. It mirrors the old “counterrevolutionary crimes,” functioning solely to use the law as a tool of political persecution—silencing those who dare to criticize authoritarian rule.
“Inciting subversion of state power” is a paradox in the modern rule-of-law framework. Its essence is brute-force suppression—nothing but a chain of authoritarian violence used to crush free speech and free thought. A chain that violates the Constitution and suppresses freedom and democracy will, inevitably, be shattered by the political tide of the Chinese people’s struggle for a free and democratic constitutional order.
The CCP’s effort to suppress language will not succeed forever. Whenever truth is blocked, people find new ways to express it.
When words are deleted, people invent new ones. When topics are banned, people change their tone and ask again.
This is the instinct of human thought, the natural rebellion of consciousness.
History has shown again and again: no matter how tall the wall, it cannot stop the flow of ideas.
When the CCP tries to control language, it reveals its own fear— fear of being questioned, fear of being exposed, fear of being remembered.
History teaches us this: any regime that imposes extreme authoritarian control over its people will ultimately collapse under the weight of public outcry.
