Two prominent Chinese activists, lawyer Ding Jiaxi and legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for subversion after more than three years in detention. Ding Jiaxi’s wife announced on Twitter that he received a 12-year jail term, while Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to 14 years by a court in Shandong province, following a closed-door trial that took place in June 2022.
Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were separately detained in 2019 and 2020 as part of a sweeping crackdown on legal activists in China. Both are co-founders of the New Citizens’ Movement, a group that advocates for civil rights and government transparency and have been involved in protests calling for equal social and educational benefits for migrant workers in Beijing since 2010.
Human Rights Watch has denounced their convictions as “cruelly farcical” and called for their sentences to be immediately overturned. According to Ding’s lawyer’s submission to the Shandong court, the 56-year-old has been subjected to constant blasting of music in his cell and forced to sit upright for seven consecutive days after his arrest in 2019. Xu, a 51-year-old former lecturer at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, has also alleged that he was tortured.
In a 2020 interview with BBC Chinese, Xu stated that there is no space in China to openly discuss politics, as party members who do so are accused of lacking respect. Ding, in a separate statement, said, “The Chinese people are still living in a state of political oppression, economic control, and ideological enslavement. I have faced many doubts, encountered many difficulties, and suffered many setbacks. I have personally been tortured. None of this will change my steadfast philosophy.”
This is not the first time prominent dissidents have faced harsh sentences in China. In 2019, journalist Huang Qi, often referred to as the country’s “first cyber-dissident”, was sentenced to 12 years in jail, and in the previous year, democracy campaigner Qin Yongmin received a 13-year sentence after spending a total of 22 years behind bars.
In response to criticism about its human rights record, Beijing has argued that “only the 1.3 billion Chinese people have a say on China’s human rights.” However, these cases highlight ongoing concerns about the suppression of civil liberties and freedom of expression in China.
