Foto: Independent Chinese PEN Centre

Guobiao Jiao was born in China in 1963. He taught at Peking University’s College of Journalism and Communications until 2004. Most likely as a result of his widely publicized article on the internet, in which he demanded the abolition of the Chinese propaganda department, he was suspended from his professorship. Until November 2006, he was under house arrest and was interrogated almost daily by employees of the Ministry for State Security. On the eve of a summit between China and fifty African countries, he was banished from Beijing. For courage in journalism he was given the 2005 Wan Renjie Media Award. In 2006, in the United States, he won the Human Rights Award of the National Education Foundation for China. After his scholarship at the Heinrich Böll House, he participated in the PEN Writers in Exile Program from January to December 2007. Today, Guobiao Jiao lives in China again. In 2012, he was imprisoned for two weeks. Even after he was set free, he continued to be under strict surveillance and was banned from travelling.