As millions of Chinese families gather this week to celebrate the arrival of the tiger, Luo Shengchun is anxious to know the fate of her husband, Ding Jiaxi, a human rights lawyer.
Our family hasn't celebrated the Chinese New Year for the third year. "I don't know what the meaning of the new year is now," said Luo, who now lives in self-imposed exile in New York. It is beyond devastating for my family. My husband has not done anything illegal. Ding was arrested on 26 December 2019 and charged with subversion of state power on 20 January last year. Amnesty International raised the alarm last February over reports of torture.
Before Christmas, Luo was told that her husband and another activist Xu Zhiyong, who was arrested in 15 February 2020 after two months on the run, might finally be convicted sometime between Christmas and the new year, a tactic often deployed by the authorities. Luo was told this week that the expected harsh sentence may not be handed down until May, two months after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics on Friday.
Analysts say that both activists are expected to be charged with involvement in a covert meeting of 20 rights activists in the southern city of Xiamen in December 2019. More than 10 people linked to the meeting have been charged or detained.
Before being treated as a dissident, Xu was a high-profile legal scholar who founded the New Citizens Movement in 2010, a loose network of activists who advocated for more transparency in government to fight corruption. Ding was a core member of the movement.
In 2013, both men were arrested after signing a high-profile open letter in which they urged China's leaders to disclose their wealth for public scrutiny. The following year, Xu was given a prison sentence of four years and Ding three and a half years.
In recent months, the two activists case has been a topic of discussion in Chinese human rights circles. Analysts say that a harsh sentence would show China's growing intolerance of any sign of dissent.
Although we don't know what Xu and Ding and others discussed during their meetings, it looks like what they discussed touched the nerves of the Chinese government, probably Xi Jinping himself, according to Patrick Poon, an adviser to The 29 Principles, a UK-based NGO supporting oppressed human rights lawyers.
Poon said that the potential sentencing would send a chilling message to other Chinese activists because the government's purpose is to silence prominent dissidents like them. Some dissidents would need to rethink what they should say online and offline before making any politically sensitive comments. One of Xu's lawyers, Liang Xiaojun, had his legal license revoked on 16 December. In a post on 21 December, Liang said the authorities had accused him of publishing speeches on social media, including Twitter, which is blocked in China that threatens national security.
William Nee, a research and advocacy coordinator for Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said that the trials would be a farcical sham. It is clear that the government s case against Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi is based on their political views, namely a conception of a new form of democratic citizenship in China. China has claimed to be a whole-process democracy in recent months, but the prosecution of Ding and Xu will highlight how absurd that claim to being a democracy is. Luo said that her husband's fate was hanging in the balance, but the uncertainty of the last few years has turned her into an advocate herself. I will continue to voice my concerns and campaign. The authorities have become more and more bottomless over the past decade.