As a baby during the Cultural Revolution in the
1960s, Sophie Luo Shengchun nearly starved to death. Her father, accused of “rightism and subversion” by Mao, was sent to the far reaches of
southern China with his wife and six children. “There was nothing to eat
in those forests. I was lucky to survive… We paid the price for my father’s
courage in daring to criticize the tyrant Mao,” recalls Luo, now 56, a
mother of two daughters who has been living in exile in the United States. She is
currently visiting Tokyo. Like millions of Chinese, Sophie Luo carries the
scars of the Cultural Revolution.
Xi Jinping’s unyielding grip
More than half a century later, she finds herself
reliving the nightmare of her childhood, but this time due to her husband, Ding
Jiaxi, a human rights lawyer who dared to challenge Xi Jinping, the new
dictator of 21st-century China. “In any other democratic country in the
world,” she said passionately, “defending poor farmers dispossessed
of their land or workers whose social rights are violated would be celebrated.
But in Xi Jinping’s China, it’s a dangerous act that threatens the legitimacy
of the supreme leader’s absolute power—and that’s why my husband has been
sentenced to 12 years in prison.”
“Defending the people”
Both trained as engineers, Sophie and Ding met
during their studies in Beijing. “He would study law in the evenings after
class,” Sophie recalled, “and even then, he would tell me he wanted to
defend the people who had no voice to fight against injustices.” The
student protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989, along with dreams of democracy,
were crushed by the People’s Liberation Army tanks. Life continued, and China
threw itself into the freedom to pursue wealth.
Ding opened his law firm in 2004, traveling
across the country and organizing seminars to train village leaders facing
expropriation, workers forced to work 18-hour days, seven days a week, and
women exploited in underground factories. “At the time, Ding was a thorn
in the side of corrupt businessmen, but the political climate allowed such
actions,” Sophie explained. He trained numerous lawyers across China’s
provinces.
Challenging Party corruption
That tolerance ended on April 17, 2013, when Ding
and two colleagues were arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to three years for
exposing corruption among Communist Party officials. The tide had shifted with
Xi Jinping’s rise to power the previous year.
“I managed to find refuge in the United
States with our two daughters,” Sophie recalled. “When Ding was
finally released in 2017, he joined us. I was so happy and relieved, but the
trials were far from over.” Despite warnings from his colleagues, Ding
returned to China. “I understood his fight, but I fell into
depression,” she admitted. “My heart was broken because I had to wait
for him all over again.”
12 years in prison
Ding was arrested again in December 2019 and
sentenced to 12 years in prison for “subversion of the state.” He
endured months of physical and psychological torture. “Since then, I’ve
moved from waiting to taking action, and I’ve entered the resistance to secure
my husband’s release,” Sophie Luo declared passionately. She has
been tirelessly raising awareness in the U.S., Europe, and now Japan about the
plight of all Chinese political prisoners.
“If I don’t speak out, they will all be
forgotten because the world is focused on Ukraine, Israel, and Lebanon,”
she said. “But today, Xi Jinping is a dangerous dictator, worse than
Mao.” Sophie Luo knows all too well what she’s talking about.
