Two long-standing Chinese rights activists were put on trial behind closed doors on June 22 and June 24.
Xu Zhiyong, a legal scholar and civil rights activist, and Ding Jiaxi, a veteran human rights lawyer, faced “unfair” and “spurious charges of ‘subverting state power,’” which is “an attack on freedom of association,” according to a June 21 report from Amnesty International.
Xu and Ding co-founded the New Citizens’ Movement that called for the rule of law and freedom in China.
Ding’s wife, Luo Shengchun, now living in the United States, wrote on Twitter on June 20 that her husband’s lawyers were forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement, banning them from speaking with the media. She wrote four days later that she received only a short message from one of her husband’s lawyers, telling her that the trial, lasting almost 12 hours, ended before 9 p.m. on June 24 and that a court record had just been signed….