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Human rights defenders and government critics continue to face persecution.

In January, authorities released human rights lawyer Tang Jitian after forcibly disappearing him for 398 days. In March, a Guangxi court sentenced human rights lawyer Qin Yongpei to five years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power.” In April, a court in Shandong province sentenced prominent legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi to 14 and 12 years in prison, respectively, for “subversion of state power.”