Zhang Kai (Chinese: 张凯; pinyin: Zhāng Kǎi) is a human rights lawyer known for defending churches in China that were being forced to remove their crosses and crucifixes.
[1] Since coming to power in 2012 Xi’s strict political regime has clamped down on human rights lawyers, liberal academics, journalists, bloggers and feminist campaigners.
[2] Zhang, like many of China's human rights lawyers, is a Christian, and earlier in 2015 had posted an online essay denouncing the Communist party’s treatment of Chinese churchgoers.
Zhang Lei, a fellow human rights lawyer, said “it is utterly appalling for a person to be made to confess on the television”.
[9] Her husband also believes that she may have been forced to recant, and disputed the authenticity of statements on her Sina Weibo social media account.