Meeting

Virtual Roundtable: The Imminent Trial of Two Human Rights Lawyers—Criminal Justice in Xi Jinping’s China

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Tyrone Siu/REUTERS

Speakers

Shengchun Sophie Luo

Human Rights Activist; Spouse of Defendant Ding Jiaxi

Biao Teng

Pozen Visiting Professor, University of Chicago; Grove Human Rights Scholar, Hunter College

Presider

Jerome A. Cohen

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia, Council on Foreign Relations; Faculty Director Emeritus, U.S.-Asia Law Institute, New York University

Africa Program

By the end of this month, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, two of China’s most innovative and moderate political reformers and human rights lawyers, will be subjected to a secret trial for alleged subversion of state power after two years of criminal detention. This will result in their imprisonment for many years. Our speakers, Shengchun Sophie Luo, the wife of defendant Ding Jiaxi, and Teng Biao, a previous victim of Beijing’s secret police kidnappings and co-founder of the New Citizens Movement with Xu and Ding, offer an in-depth understanding of what Xi Jinping’s “rule by law” means in practice.

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