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International human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has awarded three human rights defenders from mainland China and Hong Kong, with the title of 'Prisoners of Conscience' on October 2.
The title was given to human rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi. The third recipient of this title is Jimmy Lai, an individual involved in free media advocacy. The Amnesty International report stated that these individuals are currently imprisoned solely because of their peaceful human rights activism. Amnesty International has called for their immediate release. "As the Chinese government touts progress on its measures to promote human rights, the stories of these three human rights defenders demonstrate a starkly different reality inside the country. Meeting with diplomats; discussing politics; complaining about unfair treatment in police custody; talking with friends over dinner: these are all things that can get you jailed in today's China," Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's China Director said. "The ongoing detentions of Chow, Ding and Lai demonstrate the continuing failure of the authorities in China to uphold their international obligations, and their prosecution lays bare the cowardice of state officials who cannot accept criticism, whether from international experts or from their own citizens," Brooks added. Amnesty International said that it considers 'prisoner of conscience' to be any person imprisoned solely because of their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, their ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, socio-economic status, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or other status, and who has not used violence or advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to their detention. According to the report, both Jimmy Lai and Chow Hang-tung in Hong Kong have been targeted amidst a broader dismantling of human rights and civic organisations after the implementation of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL) in 2020. Ding Jiaxi, as with many human rights defenders in mainland China, is the victim of authorities manipulating vague 'national security-related' laws that justify convictions of defenders by secret trials and lengthy jail sentences in China. Previously, Jimmy Lai's Apple Daily newspaper was raided by 200 police personnel just after NSL was implemented. He was arrested along with several of his newspaper executives, and was charged with "colluding with foreign forces" under the NSL, and with sedition. Eventually, the Apple Daily was closed in June 2021 following another police raid and the freezing of its assets, in what Amnesty International called a "flagrant attack on press freedom." Moreover, Chow was charged in 2020 for participating in a peaceful vigil commemorating protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and charged again in 2021 after she asked people on social media to light candles in memory of the victims. She was jailed for 22 months for daring to commemorate their lives. Ding Jiaxi was sentenced to 12 years in prison for "subverting state power" in April 2023. He is one of dozens of lawyers and activists targeted after attending an informal gathering held in the city of Xiamen in 2019, at which they discussed current affairs in China. Activist and legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, who had also attended the meeting, was sentenced to 14 years by the same court on the same charges. Ding was held incommunicado, including in "residential surveillance at a designated location," for more than a year after being taken away on 26 December 2019. Notably, China's attempt to suppress critical views and human rights has always faced global condemned by several human rights organisations. (ANI)
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