Ding Jiaxi

Ding Jiaxi (Chinese: 丁家喜; born 17 August 1967) is a Chinese civil rights activist known for co-organizing the New Citizens' Movement advocating for political change in China and having been sentenced in 2022 to 12 years in prison for his advocacy. Ding holds a Bachelor and Master's degree in Engineering from Beihang University, specializing in aircraft manufacturing. While doing post-graduate studies in Beihang University, he simultaneously studied law and passed the law exam. In 1996, he transitioned to a legal career and worked at multiple law firms until co-founding the Beijing Dehong Law Firm in 2003 as a Senior Partner. By 2013, his law firm employed over 20 lawyers and had an annual income of 25 million yuan. During his legal career, he advocated for the rights of migrant workers' children to participate in the college entrance exam locally where their parents work, instead of returning to where they came from. In 2012, when government corruption was a widely disucssed topic, he wrote a public letter together with Xu Zhiyong and others, calling on Xi Jinping and other top-level government officials to lead the way in dislosing their financial assets, which gathered over 7,000 signatures. In April 2013, Ding was arrested on charges of "illegal gathering", whose cause was speculated by commentators to be related to his organizational role in public demonstrations demanding officials to disclose their assets. In April 2014, he was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for "gathering crowds to disrupt order in public places". He was released in 2016 after serving his sentence. Ding was again detained in 2019, along with other human rights activists, after attending two days of meetings in Xiamen to discuss social issues, including the 2019 Hong Kong democracy protests, the U.S.-China trade war, and human rights. He was...