The Canadian embassy in Beijing is demanding the immediate release of two Chinese human rights lawyers who were dealt heavy sentences of more than a decade each by the communist authorities.
“We are deeply concerned by the sentencing of lawyers Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi to 14 and 12 years in prison. These human rights defenders were calling for transparency & civil rights. According to the UN, they were arbitrarily detained. We call for their unconditional release,” the Canadian embassy wrote in a Twitter statement on April 13.
The U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk issued a statement on April 10, saying that he was “very concerned” about the lengthy prison terms handed to Xu and Ding.
“We urge the PRC to immediately and unconditionally release these two unjustly detained human rights defenders and to cease any harassment of their family members,” the statement said.
Clampdown
Xu, 50, and Ding, 55, are prominent figures in the Chinese New Citizens Movement, which seeks the peaceful transition of the country toward constitutionalism and also calls for greater transparency regarding the wealth of officials.Li Qiaochu, Xu’s girlfriend and a labour and women’s rights activist, was also arrested. Li didn’t participate in the 2019 gathering, but her home searched by police and was placed under surveillance following the incident. She was later arrested after documenting and making public the crackdown in a blog post on Feb. 4, 2020.
The Chinese communist regime has dramatically clamped down on dissent in recent years. Prior to the 1226 crackdown, hundreds of rights lawyers were detained and dozens jailed in a series of arrests in China commonly known as the “709 crackdown,” referring to a clampdown on July 9, 2015.