Huang and his wife, Zeng Li, from Chengdu, Sichuan, set up the website www.64tianwang.com in June 1998 to track cases of human trafficking by posting information about missing people.
Huang managed the site, helped to decide on its content, and actively investigated cases, ultimately aiding in the rescue of several trafficked girls.
Soon after his release in 2005, he resumed posting similar content on his website as he did before the arrest, until June 2008, when he was arrested again under the charges of "illegal possession of state secrets" after he posted an article on behalf of parents of school children who had died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, demanding an investigation into the schools’ construction.
Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience "imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association" and called for his immediate release.
He told Radio Free Asia that he wanted to resume his web site dedicated to the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
A week later, on June 10, plain-clothed policemen arrested him in Chengdu and held him "on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets", an ill-defined charge often used by the Chinese government to clamp down on dissents.
[3] Amnesty International alleges that during his detention Huang was interrogated for long periods and subject to sleep deprivation.
[12] Earlier on November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed a near-unanimous resolution seeking freedom of activists Huang Qi and Tan Zuoren.
Liu wrote that Hu's administration silences anyone whose opinions differ from the party line, whether that opinion is coming from external elements (censorship of dissidents), foreign elements (deletion of U.S. President Barack Obama's town-hall meeting from news items), or within the Chinese political system itself (removal of Premier Wen Jiabao's calls for greater freedoms in Xinhua publications).
[16][17] In January 2019 Huang was put on trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Mianyang City in Sichuan, accused of leaking state secrets.