‘The Chinese Communist Party is punishing him for his willingness to speak on behalf of others and defend human rights,' Rep. Adam Schiff said.
A House Democrat is calling on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to release a Chinese human rights lawyer who has now spent his fifth birthday in prison.
“Today is Ding Jiaxi’s birthday,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
wrote in an X post on Aug. 17. “We are going to keep fighting to get Ding released.”
Ding, 56, a human rights lawyer and prominent figure in the New Citizens Movement, was
sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Chinese court in April last year. The movement campaigns for transparency regarding the wealth of CCP officials, the promotion of civil rights, and seeks the peaceful transition of China to constitutionalism.
Ding was detained after attending a private gathering to discuss civil society and political reforms with other like-minded people in Xiamen, a city in southern China’s Fujian Province, in December 2019. In June 2022, Ding was
put on trial behind closed doors, along with another human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The Chinese regime is consistently ranked as one of the world’s worst offenders in terms of civil liberties. In its 2024
annual report on China, Washington-based advocacy group Freedom House said that the country lacks an independent judiciary, since judges are “expected to conform to CCP ideology and uphold the principle of party supremacy over the judiciary.”
“Violations of due process are widespread in practice,” the report says. “An ongoing crackdown on human rights lawyers has left many defendants without effective or independent legal counsel.”
Days before Xu’s birthday, Schiff issued a
statement criticizing the CCP for punishing Xu with a trumped-up charge.
“The Chinese Communist Party is punishing him for his willingness to speak on behalf of others and defend human rights. The alleged crime of ‘subversion of state power’ is a fabrication by Chinese authorities meant to deny freedom to the Chinese people,” Schiff said.
“On the occasion of another birthday in prison, I join his wife, Sophie Luo, and freedom loving people around the world in once again calling for his release,” Schiff added. “He is an inspiration to all of us and a reminder that in China, people continue to face the consequences of a repressive and dictatorial regime.
“The Chinese government must release Ding Jiaxi and allow him to reunite with his family and enjoy the freedom that was so capriciously taken away.”
Ahead of her husband’s birthday, Luo spoke of her concerns about his well-being. “I’m really worried about his health, because he was tortured before,” she said.
Luo also commented about how her husband was forbidden from leaving his cell to go out for exercise. “This is really bad for his health,” she said. “Every prisoner in China should have the right to be let out for exercise. Why can’t he have that?”
During a congressional hearing in April last year, Luo spoke of how her husband had been subjected to
torture and other ill-treatment in detention, including prolonged sleep deprivation, interrogation while being forced to sit on a restraining device called the “
tiger chair,” food and water restrictions, and deprivation of access to showers, according to Luo.
Luo and the couple’s two daughters moved to the United States soon after Ding was detained for the first time in 2013. She said that she has not been allowed to speak to her husband on the phone since he was detained in 2019.
“He can’t be with the girls when they needed a father most,” Luo said. “It’s really a big loss.”
Xu’s case is not the only case that has drawn attention from Congress in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China,
called on China to release Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer who has been missing for seven years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
