Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged China to quash the sentences on “unfounded charges” against two lawyers and human rights activists sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.
“The cruelly ridiculous convictions and sentences handed down to Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi show President Xi Jinping’s unrelenting hostility towards peaceful activism,” said HRW China researcher Yaqiu Wang.
“Governments around the world must unite to call on the Chinese authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of the two lawyers,” he added.
“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 with China,” Wang stressed.
Chinese lawyers and activists Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were convicted of “subversion of state power.”
According to HRW, the trials were held “behind closed doors and plagued by procedural problems and allegations of ill-treatment.”
Ding and Xu were part of the New Citizens movement, a network of activists founded in 2012 in favor of government transparency and against corruption in the Asian country.
Xu was sentenced to 14 years by the Linshu County People’s Court in Shandong province. Ding was sentenced to 12 years by the same court, the South China Morning Post reported.
Both jurists have spent between three and four years in prison in the last decade for crimes related to public order disturbance.
Source: TSF
