Rights Lawyer Couple Sentenced in China Amid Global Outcry

Xu Yan, wife of human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, making a video for her husband’s birthday in front of the Xuzhou City Detention Centre in this picture taken on Oct. 30, 2019. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

An outspoken Chinese human rights lawyer and his wife were sentenced to prison on Oct. 28 following their being detained by police while en route to a meeting with EU diplomats in Beijing in April 2023.

Rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan, were sentenced to three years and one year plus nine months in prison, respectively.

The couple had been convicted at a secret trial in August of inciting subversion of state power, a vague national security charge often used against dissenters.

Foreign governments and activists have raised concerns over the sentencing, which is the latest effort by the communist regime to stifle rights advocacy.

“The United States condemns the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) unjust imprisonment of human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement on Oct. 31.

“These sentences demonstrate the PRC’s continuing efforts to silence those who speak out for human rights and the rule of law.”

The foreign ministries of France and Germany expressed on Oct. 30 their “regret” over the verdict against Yu and Xu. In a joint statement, they called for the couple’s immediate release and urged the Chinese authorities “to put an end to intimidation and arbitrary arrests against human rights defenders.” The French and German ambassadors to Beijing honored Yu with a human rights prize in 2018 for his support of activists in China.

Raphael Viana David, program manager of the International Service for Human Rights, called on the United Nations and foreign governments to continue to put pressure on China over the case.

“An unfair outcome after a secret trial on spurious grounds: the reality for many activists in China,” David wrote on X on Oct. 29. “#YuWensheng and #XuYan should have not been arrested in the first place.”

The European Union, whose diplomats have raised the couple’s plights during meetings with regime officials, reiterated its demand for the couple’s “immediate and unconditional” release.

“The EU also continues to call on China to respect all of Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan’s rights, ensuring full access to adequate medical care, as well as regular access to lawyers of their choice and regular contacts with their families,” the EU’s diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service, said in a statement on Oct. 29.

The arrest of Yu and Xu has left their teenage son, Yu Zhenyang, to fend for himself. Under constant police surveillance and overwhelmed by the distress of his parents’ situation, their son attempted to take his own life last November, rights groups said.

Chinese lawyer Yu Wensheng in Beijing, China, on Jan. 12, 2017. Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

Taking on Sensitive Cases

Yu, 56, gained a reputation for providing legal assistance to those who have suffered at the hands of the Chinese regime.

Before being disbarred in 2018, his work ranged from helping petitioners forcibly evicted from their homes by developers or local officals, to representing his fellow rights attorneys targeted by the authorities. He also took on some of the most sensitive cases for the CCP—defending Falun Gong practitioners.

“There are no laws in China that specifically criminalizes the practice of Falun Gong,” Yu explained in a 2017 interview with The Epoch Times.

“Whether it’s the police, the procuratorates, or the courts, they must consider that if they continue persecuting Falun Gong, they will be held responsible in the future.”

Falun Gong, a meditation discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has been the subject of a persecution campaign in communist China. For the past 25 years, Falun Gong practitioners—numbering up to 100 million in 1999, according to estimates at the time—have faced mass arrest, lengthy imprisonment, torture, and even forced organ harvesting.

Due to his legal defense work, as well as his vocal criticisms of the ruling Communist Party, Yu has been detained several times by Chinese authorities.

On Jan. 17, 2018, he penned an open letter to the regime’s leadership asking for political reform and democratic ways to choose the Chinese leader. Two days later, while walking his son to school, he was arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison for inciting subversion of state power.

But imprisonment didn’t stop Yu from speaking up. Following his release in March 2022, he continued to speak out against the CCP’s tightened control of society. Just days before his April 2023 arrest, Yu expressed support on overseas social media platform X for his fellow legal activists, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, who were sentenced by a Chinese court to 14 years and 12 years, respectively.