Two prominent Chinese activists, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, have been sentenced to 14 and 12 years in jail respectively for subversion after more than three years in detention. They were separately detained in 2019 and 2020 as part of a sprawling crackdown on legal activists. They are among the most high-profile dissidents to fall afoul of Chinese authorities. In response to past criticism about its human rights record, Beijing has said “only the 1.3 billion Chinese people have a say on China’s human rights.”
Human Rights Watch spokesman described the convictions of Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi as “cruelly farcical” and called for their sentences to be immediately quashed. In a submission to the Shandong court, Ding’s lawyer said he had been subjected to music being constantly blasted into his cell. Xu, a former lecturer at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, also alleged that he had been tortured. He told BBC Chinese in 2020 that there is no space in China to openly discuss politics. “If party members discuss politics, they are accused of a lack of respect.”
In 2010, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi co-founded the New Citizens’ Movement, which campaigns for civil rights and government transparency. The pair were first arrested in 2013 for their roles in protests calling for equal social and educational benefits for migrant workers in Beijing. Ding’s wife tweeted that her husband was handed a 12-year jail term by a court in Shandong province, and that their closed-door trial took place in one day in June 2022.
In 2019, Huang Qi, a journalist often called the country’s “first cyber-dissident”, was sentenced to 12 years in jail. The year before, democracy campaigner Qin Yongmin was handed a 13-year sentence. He had already spent a total of 22 years behind bars.
Source: BBC
