The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he is “very concerned” after China sentenced two prominent human rights lawyers to more than a decade each in jail.
Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were convicted of subversion of state power after closed-door trials and sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively.
Both were leading figures in the New Citizens’ Movement, a loose network of activists who met regularly in person and online to discuss civil rights and current affairs, and had called for constitutional reform and criticised government corruption.
The lengthy sentences have shocked supporters and observers.
“I am very concerned that two prominent human rights defenders in China – Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong – have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, at variance with international human rights law standards,” Türk said.
“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.”
Xu, who had called for President Xi Jinping to step down over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, was jailed for 14 years in east China’s Shandong province, Human Rights Watch said.
Ding’s wife, Luo Shengchun, said his sentence was “absurd and insane”, adding that she had been unable to see the verdict directly because lawyers for Ding and Xu were barred from sharing the information.
Observers have regularly raised concerns about due process in China, where the courts have a conviction rate of more than 99%.
“I will follow up on these cases with the authorities,” Türk said. “It is important that steps are taken to ensure other human rights defenders are not targeted for exercising their human rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”
Teng Biao, a fellow human rights lawyer who left China in 2013 after being harassed and detained by the authorities, said he was “very sad to hear these sentences, but not very surprised”.
Teng, a friend of Ding and Xu, said the Chinese Communist party had an “exaggerated sense of insecurity” this year because of an economic slowdown. That would intensify the crackdown on civil society, he said.
Xu and Ding were detained in 2013 for signing an open letter calling for greater scrutiny of the wealth of China’s leaders, and continued to advocate for political reform after their release.
In a statement released through his lawyers before the sentencing, Xu said he had a dream of a China that was “beautiful, free, fair, and happy”.
“It is a democratic China that belongs to everyone on this land, not to any one ethnicity or political party. It is truly a country of the people, its government chosen by ballots, not violence,” he said, according to a translation by the news website China Change. “A democratic China must be realised in our time, we cannot saddle the next generation with this duty.”
In an interview in 2012, Xu said he was not afraid of being jailed for his work. “For the world to become a better place, someone has to pay a price,” he said at the time.
Ding was previously detained by police in December 2019, shortly after attending a gathering in southern China with about 20 other lawyers and activists. He was held incommunicado for almost six months, while being routinely tortured to extract a confession, his lawyer, Peng Jian, told the court.
Xu was detained in February 2020 after going into hiding.
Both men were allegedly kept in “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL), China’s internationally criticised system of secret detention.
In November 2021, a UN working group found the two men to have been arbitrarily detained by Chinese authorities, in breach of 11 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including through the use of RSDL, and in failing to inform Xu and Ding of the reasons for their arrest and detention.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
