Xu Zhiyong (left) and Ding Jiaxi
By Jerome A. Cohen
I recently received a sad message from Shengchun Sophie Luo, the wife of human rights and commercial lawyer Ding Jiaxi. Ding and the terrific legal scholar and political reformer Xu Zhiyong are set to be prosecuted soon, but neither the lawyers nor family members have received any information regarding the trial dates. December 6-7 will mark the second anniversary of the Xiamen meeting in which they and about twenty other activists met for a couple of days of discussions reviewing the human rights situation in China. That led soon after to a wide scale roundup of as many of the group as could not evade arrest. Xu and Ding seem to be regarded as ringleaders of a subversive effort and are finally expected to be brought to separate trials before the year’s end. Two recent letters summarizing their plight are linked here and here and reveal the realities of the PRC criminal process, including extended and harsh incommunicado detention, persistent torture, long-delayed access to defense lawyers and illegal restrictions on defense lawyers activities.
Here are summaries of the indictments (Ding Jiaxi here and Xu Zhiyong here) and an excellent analysis of the cases by China Change.
I admire the continuing optimism that reportedly sustains the defendants’ will to resist injustice, but do not share it. Nevertheless, I hope others will do all that they can to protest these tragic abuses by the PRC even if, to borrow the traditional Chinese simile employed by the disappeared tennis star Ms, Peng Shuai, “it’s like throwing an egg against a stone!”