In 2003, while most young law scholars were building comfortable academic careers, Xu encountered a case that would change his life forever. Sun Zhigang, a young graphic designer, had been beaten to death in police custody. His only crime was not carrying the right identification papers.
Together with fellow legal scholars Teng Biao and Yu Jiang, Xu launched a constitutional challenge that would eventually bring down China's notorious custody and repatriation system.
In 2005, Xu moved into Beijing's "Petitioners Village" for two months, living among citizens who had traveled to the capital seeking justice. Despite facing physical threats from government-sponsored actors, he documented how the system systematically silenced complaints rather than addressing them.
“Only there [Petitioners' Village] could I see, beneath the veneer of all being well with the world, the profound suffering that totalitarianism had brought to millions of powerless people,” Xu wrote.
