On March 23, 2026, Chinese human rights lawyer Xie Yang was sentenced to five years in prison and fined approximately $14,500 USD by a court in Hunan Province on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” The conviction was based largely on his social media posts and interviews with foreign media. Xie Yang has a long history of persecution by Chinese authorities dating back to the 2015 “709 crackdown,” during which he was previously detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, and reportedly tortured. His latest imprisonment followed more than four years of pretrial detention that was extended by authorities thirteen times, and proceedings conducted without his chosen legal counsel present. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has twice found his detention to be arbitrary and in violation of international human rights law.

Six prominent international legal and human rights organizations jointly condemned the conviction, arguing it violates multiple international legal obligations China has accepted, including protections against arbitrary detention, torture, and restrictions on free expression. The statement situates Xie Yang’s case within a broader, systematic pattern of repression targeting human rights lawyers in China, particularly since the 2015 crackdown that swept up approximately 300 legal professionals. The organizations are calling on Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release him, halt all mistreatment, restore his access to legal counsel and family contact, and cease politically motivated prosecutions of lawyers more broadly.

Read it here.