Human rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi, along with the free media advocate Jimmy Lai, are all currently imprisoned 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,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China director.

“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.

“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.”

Jimmy Lai and Chow Hang-tung have both been targeted amidst a broader dismantling of human rights and civic space in Hong Kong since the introduction of a Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL) in 2020. Ding Jiaxi, as with many human rights defenders in mainland China, is the direct victim of the authorities’ broad and vague national security-related laws that justify convictions in secret trials and lengthy jail sentences.

Amnesty International considers a 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.

Ms Brooks said: “As part of its strategy to avoid scrutiny, the Chinese government routinely justifies ruthless repression – and rebuts efforts to hold authorities accountable for it – by describing it merely as ‘internal affairs’.

“This is why the stories of Jimmy Lai, Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi are so important. Theirs are the ‘internal affairs’ the Chinese authorities tell us don’t deserve attention, dignity or justice.”