On 10 April 2023, the Intermediate People’s Court of Linyi City, Shandong Province sentenced legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi to 14 years in prison with deprivation of political rights for 8 years and 12 years in prison with deprivation of political rights for 3 years for "subversion of state power” respectively. Ding Jiaxi’s lawyer stated on 18 April that the court had confirmed that Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi had filed an appeal, which had been scheduled to hand in their appeal documents to the detention centre on 20 April. The appeal documents would then be sent to Shandong Provincial High Court.
Xu Zhiyong was born in 1973. He obtained his Ph.D. in law from Peking University in 2002 and subsequently worked as a university lecturer. In November 2003, he was elected to the Beijing Haidian District People’s Congress as an independent. His advocacy for civil rights in this role caused his teaching license to be revoked in 2009, in particular he was the co-founder of the now banned public interest group “Gongmeng” (also known as Open Constitution Initiative) in 2003 and of the "New Citizens Movement” in 2010.
Born in 1967, Ding Jiaxi first worked as an aerospace engineer, but decided to be a lawyer in 1996 because "after two years of reflection, I find that, only lawyers can speak for people who have been treated unfairly. This is a profession that can change the society." He later participated in “Gongmeng”, co-founded the "New Citizens Movement" with Xu and won the 2021 China Human Rights Lawyer Award.
Xu and Ding, together with other human rights lawyers, have spent the past two decades advocating for civil rights, government transparency and right to education. Over the years, they have been suppressed by the authorities because of their human rights advocacy and efforts to promote the rule of law.
In 2014, Xu published an open letter to Xi Jinping as a citizen, advising the president to lead China towards democratic constitutionalism and distributed leaflets on the streets of Beijing calling for equal rights in education. He was subsequently charged with "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order" and sentenced to four years in prison. When Xu was sentenced, his daughter was only two weeks old.
During this period, in 2012, Ding Jiaxi collected signatures from 8,000 citizens across China and organised public events to demand officials to disclose their wealth to the public. Ding was arrested in 2013 and in 2014 was charged with "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order". He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. As early as the start of 2013, Ding sensed that his advocacy work would pose risks to his family, so he arranged for his wife and two daughters to emmigrate to the USA. After he was released from prison, he made a short trip to the USA to visit them in 2017. Although many people advised him not to return to China, as an idealist, he still chose to return to China to continue his mission. According to Ding’s wife, Luo Shengchun, those two months in the USA was the only time their family had truly spent together in a decade. In May 2018, when Ding wanted to travel to the USA to attend his eldest daughter's graduation ceremony, he was stopped by customs at Beijing Capital International Airport on the grounds that leaving the country would "endanger state security”.
Xiamen Gathering and “1226 Crackdown"
Before the announcement of their harsh sentencing in 2023, Xu and Ding had been detained for more than three years.
It all started on 7 December 2019, when around twenty human rights lawyers (such as Ding Jiaxi and Chang Weiping) and human rights activists (such as Xu Zhiyong and Dai Zhenya) met in Xiamen City, Fujian Province. It was a private gathering between friends and colleagues to discuss current affairs, the development of China, and to share experiences in promoting the construction of civil society and other related issues.
On 26 December 2019, the authorities began to arrest those who participated in the gathering. More than 20 citizens and lawyers went “missing” or were summoned, accused of inciting subversion of state power, picking quarrels and provoking trouble. This is the largest crackdown on human rights activists since the “709 Crackdown” in 2015, and is known as the "1226 Crackdown”.
The past three years for Xu and Ding
Xu Zhiyong:
While Xu was on the run, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. In January 2020, Xu Zhiyong published an open letter to Xi Jinping, urging him to resign from his position as he had shown no capacity to handle the pandemic and Hong Kong's democratic movement.
On 15 February 2020, Xu was taken away by Guangzhou Public Security Bureau and Beijing Public Security Bureau while at the home of Lawyer Yang Bin in Guangzhou. He was taken back to Beijing the next day and has been out of lost contact since then. On 20 June Xu Zhiyong's second sister received a call from the Shandong police, saying that Xu Zhiyong had been officially detained, but they did not tell her either the alleged charges or the location of his detention.
Having been kept in Linshu County Detention Centre in Line City of Shandong Province, on 21 January 2021, Xu Zhiyong was finally allowed to meet with his lawyers, Liang Xiaojun and Zhang Lei, online. Xu Zhiyong told his lawyers that he was tortured, including sleep deprivation for 10 days (only sleeping 2-4 hours a day) at the beginning of his secret detention. He was then transferred to a designated residence in Yantai city for residential surveillance (RSDL). For over a week, he was tied up for more than 10 hours a day, had his limbs tied to an iron chair (the so-called tiger bench). He even found it difficult to breathe. He was given only a certain amount of water to drink and a small plain steamed bun each meal. When going between cells, he was put in black hoods and heavy helmets.
Ding Jiaxi:
On 26 December 2019, Ding was taken away by the police in Beijing and held in secret detention for 13 months with his rights to counsel violated. In the first six months, he was placed under residential surveillance in a designated location (RSDL). He was completely isolated from the outside world, never saw a ray of sunlight, and suffered a variety of torture, including but not limited to: long-term sleep deprivation, and being forced to watch a propaganda movie, namely ”Xi Jinping: The Governance of China of These Five Years" at the loudest volume for 10 consecutive days. He was tied to an iron chair (tiger bench) for interrogation for several weeks, being fixed in an uncomfortable position for prolonged periods. Consumption of food and water was restricted. He was not allowed to take a shower or change clothes, and had to wear a black hood when walking around.
After being transferred to the Linshu County Detention Center in Shandong Province in June 2020, he continued to suffer torture, including hunger, insufficient outdoor time, poor sanitary conditions, no hot water, and no paper, pen, books or newspapers.
When Love Becomes a “Crime”
Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist and Xu Zhiyong's girlfriend, had her flat in Beijing raided by the police on the night Xu Zhiyong was detained in Guangzhou. Li was forcibly disappeared as she was taken to RSDL. She was released four months later and fearlessly exposed her own experiences and the torture Xu Zhiyong had suffered. Through online platforms, she pleaded with the international community to pay attention to Xu and his fellow “1226 Crackdown” victims. Her outspokenness offended the authorities and she was abducted by the police from Shandong Province near her flat in Beijing on 6 February 2021. Two days later, the authorities confirmed that she had been placed under RSDL for charges of "inciting subversion of state power." It was not until August of the same year that she was allowed to meet her lawyer via a video call and she was only allowed to meet her lawyer in person in March 2023.
Her lawyer described that Li had suffered from severe auditory hallucinations since her detention. In order to keep her mind clear, she insisted on taking medication to treat auditory hallucinations and depression, but the side effects were severe. She ate very little but gained weight and had amenorrhea. Yet, she does not regret speaking out for Xu Zhiyong and herself, saying she feels an inner peace despite being placed under residential surveillance twice. Her family is deeply worried about her health and has applied for her bail pending trial repeatedly, but in vain.
The indictment that Li received in March 2023, listed her “crime" as being in a relationship with Xu Zhiyong and being deeply influenced by Xu's idea of “inciting subversion of state power”. Under Xu's “instruction”, she built a personal blog for Xu and uploaded a large number of subversive articles written by Xu to promote his subversive ideas.
On 20 June 2023, a secret trial against Li Qiaochu began at the Linyi Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in the Shandong province. Shortly afterwards, the court informed Li’s family that the right of the two lawyers to represent Li Qiaochu had been revoked and the lawyers are no longer allowed to meet her. The trial is now suspended pending the appointment of new defence lawyers for Li Qiaochu.
“To Witness Our Forerunners Being Swallowed By Darkness”
Although the gathering in Xiamen was simply a private gathering among friends, the authorities insisted that such a gathering could become a force capable of inciting subversion of state power and used the idea of “state secrets” to refuse giving further information of this case.
The trial was repeatedly delayed till June 2022, and when finally held, families and diplomats were banned from observing the two hearings on the grounds that state secrets were involved. The lawyers were forced into signing confidentiality agreements and not allowed to talk to the media. The court’s social media platform did not display the trial information online. According to Ding’s wife, lawyers were not allowed to communicate with their defendants’ families. From her perspective, the Chinese government has not only deprived Xu and Ding of all their legal rights, but "even the rights of defence lawyers have been deprived."
The local government began closing roads the day before the trial and checked on passers-by. Xu's sister, Xu Zhiyu, travelled to Linshu County alone, but at 1 a.m., police officers suddenly broke into her hotel room and forced her to leave overnight, denying her the chance to attend the hearing. In order to prevent witnesses from going to court to testify for Xu and Ding, the authorities guarded the front of the witnesses’ flats and prevented them leaving their homes. Xu's lawyer Zhang Lei described the situation cryptically, "The trial is over. After the court announced the trial would stay closed-door in the name of the law, all we lawyers can do is to be witnesses, witnessing our forerunners being swallowed darkness.”
Xu Zhiyong wrote a court statement named “A Beautiful China” and released it before his sentencing: “I yearn for a free China where power cannot run amuck, where our freedom to believe in a religion or an -ism is a personal choice and cannot be interfered with by those in power, and where we have the freedom of speech without large-scale censorship and political restriction, and no one is imprisoned for expressing their political beliefs. In a free China, we would have the freedom to participate in public affairs without fake and manipulated elections, without such a thing as “wanton talk” [about the communist leaders]; everyone would have the freedom to form a political party or association. In a free China, we are free to live our lives without Big Brother watching over everything we do, and privacy and dignity will not be trampled by those in power.”
Ding Jiaxi’s court statement, titled “Authoritarianism Shall Perish” was also released shortly before his sentencing, reaffirming his beliefs despite all the hardship he encountered. “We firmly believe that the most stable model for China’s transformation is one that is peaceful, rational, and non-violent. However many have doubted me, no matter many difficulties and setbacks I’ve encountered, including the physical torture that I’ve suffered, I will not part from my steadfast convictions.”
Although the European Union, the U.S. State Department and numerous international human rights organisations had urged China to release Xu, Ding and others involved in the "1226 Crackdown”, the authorities still handed down the heaviest sentences, even heavier than the victims of the “709 Crackdown” in 2015 had received. The entire legal proceedings and sentencings were kept secret, even the verdicts were not given to their family members. On 10 April 2023, when Wang Wenbin, the spokesman of China’s Foreign Ministry was asked at the daily briefing whether he could confirm the verdict, he only replied with “China is a country governed by law, all are treated equally under the law and cases are handled in accordance with the law.”
A legal scholar and a lawyer who have been advocating for civil rights peacefully, rationally and non-violently for nearly two decades, but have end up being sentenced to more than ten years of imprisonment. This is not what the public would call “fair and open trials” and the “rule of law”. To accuse Li Qiaochu simply because she is Xu’s girlfriend and keep her locked up without trials, is not only absurd, but torture, both physically and mentally.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk expressed his concerns over the sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong and said he would follow up on the cases with the authorities: “Human rights law requires that people not be prosecuted or otherwise punished for voicing their criticism of Government policies. It also requires respect for fair trial and due process rights, and proper investigations into any allegations of ill-treatment.”