Human rights lawyers sentenced to a decade in prison

Human Rights Watch said Monday that two prominent Chinese human rights lawyers were sentenced to more than a decade in prison, the latest in the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on its critics.  According to the rights group, Xu Zhiyong, 50, was sentenced to 14 years in prison and Ding Jiaxi, 55, was sentenced to 12 years under the ambiguous charge of “subversion of state power.” Such proceedings are held in complete secrecy.

After the political chaos of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution and the bloody crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, Xu and Ding were among a generation of Chinese who hoped that the ruling party would adopt a more liberal approach to governance.  Xi Jinping, the current party leader and head of state, has dispelled such notions by emphasising strict party control over civil society and free speech. He and the loyal members he chose for the Politburo Standing Committee defend their political monopoly by citing China’s success as the world’s second-largest economy, with its tightly enforced social stability and rising global influence.