News stories by Emily-Anne Owen

A dissident Chinese author has expressed dismay at the lack of independent and exiled authors represented at this year’s London Book Fair (LBF), where China is guest of honour. An ensuing public spat, revolving around accusations that the Fair’s organisers have bowed to Chinese authorities, has thrust the thorny issue of censorship to centre-stage.

Zhang Haxia and her husband received a knock on the door in the middle of one night last December. They were dragged from their home in south-west China and forced into a van. When they returned nothing was left.

An escalating number of unprecedented self-immolations and violent protests that have gripped Tibetan regions of Western China over recent weeks show no sign of abating, as the country reels from the worst Tibet crisis since the 2008 riots.

Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has been placed at the forefront of the fight for human rights in China once again with a new collection of works published in translation this January.

A Tibetan ‘Living Buddha’ who set himself on fire in protest against Chinese rule died this week, sparking a vigil of thousands of Tibetans and creating fears that self-immolations are spreading.

China is experiencing the worst crackdown since 1989 with a rising number of enforced disappearances of activists, a prominent Chinese dissident now living in exile has stated.

A Tibetan monk set himself on fire last week while shouting slogans calling for the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet during a religious ritual watched by hundreds, the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported last week.