Chinese Court Sentences Human Rights Lawyer to 5 Years in Prison for ‘Subversion’

Human Rights Watch denounced the charges against Xie Yang as politically motivated, calling for his unconditional release.

Xie Yang in 2021. Courtesy of Chen Guiqiu

A Chinese court sentenced human rights lawyer Xie Yang to five years in prison on subversion charges on March 23, according to his ex-wife, in a case critics say serves as a warning to Chinese citizens against challenging the communist regime’s rights record.

Xie, 54, has been kept behind bars since January 2022, after voicing support for a pregnant teacher who was committed to a psychiatric hospital by local officials for challenging the censorship in schools.

Xie was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power”—a charge commonly used against those who criticize the authorities—and the sentence was handed down by a court in the central city of Changsha, according to a March 23 social media statement from his former wife, Chen Guoqiu.

Xie’s defense lawyer was barred from the trial, Chen said, adding that Xie would appeal against the ruling.

“For Xie Yang, even a single day in prison is an injustice to him, let alone five years,” Chen, who currently lives in the United States, told The Epoch Times. “This is a huge disgrace to the Chinese Communist Party’s judiciary.”

Human Rights Watch denounced the charges against Xie as politically motivated, calling for his unconditional release.

“This case not only aimed to persecute a brave human rights lawyer like Xie, but to intimidate all lawyers seeking to protect Chinese people’s rights,” Maya Wang, the group’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.

Asked about Xie’s case at a regular briefing on March 24, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian sidestepped the question and instead criticized Human Rights Watch, accusing the rights group of “smearing China” and saying that it’s “not worth commenting on.”

The exchange, recorded by international media, was scrapped from the ministry’s official transcript.

Xie was accused of using social media and giving interviews to foreign media, including The Epoch Times and Voice of America, to “publicly defame the state authority, the socialist system, and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” according to a copy of an August 2022 indictment viewed by the publication.

The indictment stated that Xie’s comments, published by these outlets, had a “severe political impact.”

Lawyer Xie Yang (C) accompanied his client Xu Yan (R), wife of human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, who is trying to meet with Yu in person outside the Xuzhou Intermediate Court in Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province, China, on Oct. 31, 2019. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

Xie’s sentencing has drawn criticism in Washington.

“Beijing again shows that it fears lawyers and human rights advocates simply because they champion freedoms promised in China’s own laws and Constitution,” the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which was set up in 2000 to monitor China’s human rights conditions, said on X on March 25.

The sentence of Xie came as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tightened censorship and dialled up pressure on those challenging its human rights records. Some prominent rights lawyers have received prison terms of more than 10 years or have been forced to disappear.

Xie, a lawyer since 2011, had taken on a wide array of human rights cases, from defending villagers against forced land seizures to representing underground church members and Falun Gong practitioners persecuted for their faith.

In July 2015, a nationwide clampdown led to the arrests of hundreds of human rights lawyers and legal activists, including Xie, which later became known as the “709 incident.”

Although he was granted bail in May 2017, Xie continued to face constant surveillance and harassment.

Hong Ning contributed to this report.