Harassed in China for defending their husbands

Sophie Luo Shengchun was, according to her own description, a traditional and conservative woman, an engineer by profession but dedicated above all to the care of her husband and their two young daughters.

She was not interested in politics and about the work of her spouse, lawyer Ding Jiaxi, she only had a very general idea: that she represented human rights cases.

She until she was first arrested in 2013.

Nine years later, Ding - co-founder of the New Citizen movement, which demands transparency from the Chinese government - sat on the bench again last Friday in a secret trial, in Linyi county in the coastal province of Shandong.

He is accused of subversion against the powers of the State, a charge that can carry him a life sentence.

Luo, the diffident former wife, has become a formidable activist in exile, from where she fights for the freedom of her husband and many other human rights defenders in China.

“My husband had asked that his trial be open to the public, so that people could follow him.

But they refuse to show it and it is behind closed doors, ”denounces this petite woman by videoconference from her residence in Saint Paul (Minnesota, USA).

The lawyers point out that they have no information.

Supporters of Ding who wanted to attend were forced to leave the hotel where they were staying in the middle of the night.

She herself only knew that she was going to start the trial through a text message on her mobile.

“This case has been treated completely in secrecy, there is no transparency.

And they don't have anything to support it."

Ding's case is tried almost simultaneously with that of New Citizen's co-founder, Xu Zhiyong, one of the most famous critics of the Chinese government.

Xu - who immediately before being arrested in February 2020 was very critical of the management of the pandemic in his country - was tried, also in secret, on Wednesday in Linyi and his case is now pending for the verdict to be known. .

Both were arrested shortly after participating in a weekend meeting with other human rights activists and lawyers at a villa in the coastal city of Xiamen in December 2019. A meeting that also led to the arrest of several other participants, and in which those who attended assure that it was an informal meeting of friends in which they chatted about the human and the divine.

In the eyes of the Chinese authorities,

Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi at Niagara Falls in October 2017. LUO SHENGCHUN (via REUTERS)

Luo denounces that her husband has suffered torture during his arrest.

Her account coincides with what other detained lawyers have revealed.

Ding told him that in her first six months of detention — under the system called “Residential Surveillance in Designated Place”, or RSDL for its acronym in English, which allows the isolation of a suspect for half a year — she suffered daily harassment.

Sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, lack of access to fresh air or natural light.

And endless interrogations in the dreaded

, designed to immobilize the detainee in the same position for hours, with chains on hands and feet.

“For seven days straight they kept him awake without being able to sleep.

To prevent him from falling asleep, they played a documentary on the life of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at full volume 24 hours a day, ”he says.

Ding did not have access to a lawyer until January 2021, a year after he disappeared.

The activist does not know what the sentence against her husband will be.

There is not much reason for optimism.

99% of trials in Chinese courts end with a guilty verdict for the accused.

She is in contact with international NGOs, with the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, with politicians, diplomats and activists to try to put pressure on Ding's behalf.

It is a role that, he admits, he would not have imagined years ago.

“She was the project manager for my company and I was only concerned about my work and my two daughters.

She didn't ask my husband much about her homework, I trusted him.

He was a lawyer and he knew what he was doing.”

But in 2013, with Xi Jinping coming to power, New Citizen became a persecuted group.

Ding was first arrested and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.

Luo and her daughters went into exile in the United States.

There she became interested in the human rights situation in China, although without taking on a relevant role.

“I had to take care of my girls, by then teenagers.

Both of them developed serious psychological problems due to the absence of their father,” she explains.

But the new arrest of her husband meant that she took the final step.

“I have seen many cases.

And I thought, I must not only speak for Jiaxi, I must speak for all prisoners of conscience and politicians.

So I decided to dedicate all my free time to the defense of human rights… I want to use my freedom to work for these people.”

Breaking from a “very traditional” mentality

The process has not been easy.

Along the way, he had to break with his "very traditional" mentality, in which the man of the house is the one who should make decisions and responsibilities, and the woman is left in the background.

“I am naturally shy and introverted.

I have had to find strength to continue the cause.

At first it was difficult, but I have had support from many people.

I still don't speak very well in public in front of crowds, but I do.

In the US Congress, in the Executive Commission on China, in Geneva… and I don't feel so shy anymore.

What I want is for people to know the truth,” she says.

It's not the only one.

The Tiananmen Mothers, who are fighting to achieve justice for their children who fell in the 1989 massacre, have been on this path for three decades.

And since the Chinese government launched a major raid on human rights lawyers in the country in 2015, a generation of wives of those detainees have been fighting for the freedom of their own, becoming activists themselves.

Almost all of them share a similar profile: intelligent and highly educated —university professors or doctors abound—, who until the time of their husbands' arrest had focused their interest on childcare, without any type of political activity.

But they learned to use social networks, to convene and be in contact with the media, NGOs and foreign diplomats.

To organize events of all kinds – marches on foot hundreds of kilometers, putting up posters in front of police stations and courts – to draw attention to their cases.

Weaving, along the way, a network of sorority among many of them.

They are women like Wang Qiaoling, married to lawyer Li Heping, one of the most prominent detainees in the July 2015 roundup, who has continued to support other "defenders of defenders" when her husband was released in 2017. Or her partner in fatigue and activism Li Wenzu, partner of the lawyer Wang Quanzhang, the last of the 2015 raid to be released and from whom she had no news for more than three years.

Or the microbiologist Chen Zijuan, transformed into an activist since her husband Chang Weiping, specialized in cases of discrimination and freedom of expression, was arrested twice - he is still detained, between complaints of damage to his health - after having also participated in the meeting from Xiamen.

Like the vast majority of activists in China, since they began to come out in defense of their husbands and other human rights defenders, all of them have gone from enjoying a normal life to becoming victims of a campaign of harassment that has continued even after the release of their husbands.

Which has become permanent for those who have continued their activism on behalf of others.

Phone calls, intimidation of friends and relatives, thugs standing guard at their door to control comings and goings, visits and, where appropriate, keeping them inside their homes and preventing them from going to a "sensitive" appointment.

“What they wanted was to shut me up”

This is reported by Mindy Shi, wife of human rights defender Cheng Yuan, founder of the NGO that promotes equal rights Changsha Funeng and arrested in July 2019 on suspicion of subversion.

The authorities also threatened to hold her.

“They put me under surveillance, they asked me to sign a secret agreement asking me not to accept any media interviews and not to talk to anyone.

They froze my accounts, they took my documentation, my computer, my mobile and many other things.

Clearly what they wanted was to shut me up, ”she says in a virtual interview.

The pressure, he denounces, extended to his family and friends.

“My colleagues, my contacts… they were threatened, so they were hesitant to contact me.

I was isolated.

But that isolation is actually a tool used by the state.

They use isolation to get you to give up.”

Finally, he chose to leave China in February 2021. Successful computing, as Luo tries from abroad to keep up the pressure in favor of her husband.

According to the complaint, more than 1,000 days have passed since her arrest and Cheng has still not been able to access the lawyers she has chosen for him.

With the argument of the covid pandemic, they have not been allowed to communicate either.

“I have written him a lot of letters, but he is not allowed to reply to them.

In the last 1,000 days I have only received one letter from him.

And we have not had information about her living conditions, her health.

We are very worried".

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