Sophie Luo Shengchun, the wife of jailed Chinese human-rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, holds a photo of him at her home in Alfred, N.Y., on July 28, 2022.BRENDAN MCDERMID/Reuters
A court in China has sentenced two of the country’s leading human-rights activists to more than a decade in prison for subverting state power.
After a closed-door trial last year, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were jailed Monday for 14 and 12 years respectively, according to overseas rights groups and Mr. Ding’s wife, Luo Shengchun, who lives in the United States.
Mr. Xu and Mr. Ding are both lawyers and founders of the New Citizens Movement, which advocated for civil rights and a transition to democratic rule. The group grew out of a wider push in the 2000s by activists and lawyers to assert and protect freedoms guaranteed under the Chinese constitution by filing legal cases, exposing corruption and holding demonstrations.
Chinese rights advocate Xu Zhiyong speaks during a meeting in Beijing in this file handout photo dated March 30, 2013.Reuters
The Weiquan, or “rights protection” movement, saw some successes but has been steadily suppressed since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. Many prominent lawyers have fled China or have been jailed; both Mr. Xu and Mr. Ding were imprisoned for several years in 2014 for “gathering crowds to disrupt the public order.”
The following year, hundreds of activists and lawyers were detained in what is known as the “709 crackdown.” This devastated the Weiquan movement, leaving only a handful of independent lawyers working, many of whom spent much of their time attempting to defend former colleagues within China’s unfair legal system. More than 99.9 per cent of criminal cases in China end in a guilty verdict.
Mr. Ding and Mr. Xu pressed on regardless after they were released in 2016 and 2017, respectively. In December, 2019, they took part in a gathering of activists in southern China to discuss the state of the rights movement and ways forward.
Mr. Ding was arrested soon afterward, along with many other participants. Mr. Xu went on the run, during which he published a blistering open letter to Mr. Xi, calling on him to resign.
“Autocracy encourages sycophants to crowd around the Emperor, but this particular Emperor’s new clothes are on full display for all to see,” he wrote, criticizing Mr. Xi’s policies on everything from trade to pandemic response. Mr. Xu was apprehended two weeks later, in mid-February, 2020.
In a statement issued before he was sentenced this week – shared by Ms. Luo and China Change, a U.S.-based website – Mr. Xu said he had been charged with subversion “for expressing my desire for a beautiful China and for calling on Chinese to become real citizens.”
“Why is it ‘subversion’ to aspire to be real citizens? Why is it ‘subversion’ for Chinese to exercise their core values and pursue democracy and freedom?” he said. “How hypocritical and absurd their regime is! How rotten it is!”
Mr. Xu said he dreamed of a China where people could freely elect their leaders and express themselves without fear of censorship or imprisonment.
“I’m proud to suffer for the sake of freedom, justice and love. I do not believe they can build national rejuvenation on the quicksand of lies,” he added. “I do not believe the Chinese nation is destined to authoritarianism and slavery. I don’t believe freedom can be forever imprisoned behind high walls. And I do not believe the future will forever be a dark night without daybreak.”
In his own statement, Mr. Ding said he looked to the future: “The megalomania of dictatorship and the eternal one-party state is fast coming to an end, and the social transformation of China is growing closer, day by day.”
Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the two men’s sentences demonstrate Mr. Xi’s “unstinting hostility towards peaceful activism.”
“Beijing’s treatment of the country’s best-known human-rights defenders should be a reality check for foreign leaders rushing to return to business as usual,” she said. “The international community needs to stand by those who are paying the highest price by fighting for the rights of everyone in China.”
Monday’s sentences followed a visit to Beijing last week by French President Emmanuel Macron, during which he said European countries should discuss human-rights issues “respectfully” and not try to “give lessons” to China.