Lawyer continues to be held incommunicado
Ding Jiaxi, Dai Zhenya and Zhang Zhongshun were among dozens of lawyers and activists who attended an informal gathering held in Xiamen, a city on China’s southeast coast, in December 2019. Many presents at this private gathering had been active in the New Citizens Movement, a loose network of activists who aimed to promote government transparency and expose corruption in the early 2010s. At the meeting, they discussed the situation of civil society and current affairs in China. Since 26 December 2019, police across the country have been summoning or detaining participants of the Xiamen gathering.
Dai Zhenya and Zhang Zhongshun were released on bail on 18 June 2020. On 19 June, Ding Jiaxi’s family received an arrest notice from police in Linyi, Shandong, confirming that Ding had been formally arrested for “inciting subversion of state power”. It is believed that Ding is still being held in Linyi County Detention Centre.
In March 2020, United Nations human rights expert bodies expressed their grave concerns about the disappearance of Ding, Dai and Zhang.
Under the Criminal Procedure Law of China, suspect can be detained during the investigation period for a maximum of two months. However, if the investigation cannot be completed, various extensions to the investigation period can be granted upon approval by the relevant authorities. However, the law does not specify how many extensions are allowed.
This is the third extension of investigation period that being granted in Ding’s case.
Under the Criminal Procedure Law of China, a detainee has the right to a lawyer during the investigation period even with charges that related to national security. However, access to a lawyer needs to be approved by the authorities handling the investigation in cases involving national security, and this approval is rarely granted in such cases.
Ding Jiaxi is a Beijing-based former human rights lawyer and a core member of the New Citizens Movement. His activism has included advocating for rights of migrant workers’ children and demanding transparent governance. In 2014 Ding was sentenced to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place”. In 2018, he was barred from boarding a flight to the United States, where his wife and daughter live. In 2019, authorities stopped him from travelling to Hong Kong on the grounds that he “may endanger national security and interest”.
Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal scholar and rights activist who attended the Xiamen gathering, also remains detained by the authorities. The People’s Procuratorate of Shandong Province has extended the investigation period for his case to 19 January 2021, too. Similar with Ding Jiaxi, Xu Zhiyong also has had no access to his family or lawyers of his choice.
Since the massive crackdown on lawyers and activists in 2015, the Chinese authorities have been systematically using national security charges with extremely vague provisions, such as “subverting state power” and “inciting subversion of state power”, to prosecute lawyers, scholars, journalists, activists and NGO workers.