Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - According to advocacy groups, two well-known Chinese human rights attorneys will be tried this week behi...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - According to advocacy groups, two well-known Chinese human rights attorneys will be tried this week behind closed doors on allegations of state subversion as part of President Xi Jinping's crackdown on dissent and rights activity.
According to family and friends, hearings for Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were planned for Wednesday and Friday, respectively, in Linshu county court in the province of Shandong in the northeast.
The two have been permitted legal counsel but additional visitors like families and diplomats will not be able to attend the proceedings, two people in touch with their attorneys told Reuters, adding that the lawyers were rigorously advised by officials from speaking to media.
Notices of the future trials were absent from the court's social media pages, which is not unusual in delicate cases. The court did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment and other details on the proceedings.
A request for comment from Reuters was also not quickly answered by China's justice ministry.
Xu, 49, and Ding, 54, are key figures within the New Citizens Movement, which campaigned for greater transparency into the wealth of officials and for Chinese citizens to be able to enjoy their civil rights as stipulated in the country's constitution.
Amnesty International said in a statement that Xu and Ding, who have both previously been found guilty and served jail terms, were targeted after attending an unofficial assembly in the city of Xiamen in the southeast of China in late 2019 with other activists and friends.
On Feb 4, 2020, Xu released an open letter calling on Xi to resign, citing his handling of crises including the Hong Kong riots to the beginnings of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
Ding vanished in December of 2019, and Xu vanished in February of 2020, not long after he published the open letter.
According to Luo Shengchun, Ding's wife and a steadfast advocate for his and Xu's liberation, both were formally detained on June 19, 2020.
Naturally, our families are outraged and upset, added Luo. "Persecution and injustice are on full display in this instance."
Both Xu and Ding might spend years in prison for these offences because Chinese courts have a conviction rate of well over 99 percent.
The trials have been dubbed a "sham" by rights groups.
Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, said that the men are being imprisoned and accused of absurd "subversion" offences because they dared to imagine a different China and demand that the nation be free and just.
China dismisses criticism of its record on human rights, claiming that it is a nation with a strong legal system and that those imprisoned for advocating for human rights are criminals who have breached the law.
Since Xi took office in 2012, China has severely cracked down on opposition. Following a nationwide crackdown on July 9, 2015, hundreds of human rights attorneys were detained and many were imprisoned in what is known as the "709" cases.
