On the afternoon of April 13, 2023, they were due to be received by the European Union (EU) ambassador to China, Jorge Toledo, and another European diplomat. But while on their way, the couple were pulled out of the subway in Beijing, the city where they live, by plainclothes officers. Yu Wensheng, a respected lawyer who had already spent four years in prison for defending other Chinese rights activists and calling for constitutional reforms, was released in March 2022. His wife, Xu Yan, had not stopped fighting for him during this period. "We were taken away," Yu wrote on X with a photo showing him in front of a man wearing a cap and mask. Xu filmed the scene.

For the simple fact of having accepted an invitation to meet European diplomats, the couple was sentenced on Tuesday, October 29, to three years' imprisonment for him and one year and nine months for her, according to the Weiquanwang (rights protection network) website. The initial charges of provoking unrest were reclassified by the Suzhou Intermediate Court, where they were tried, 1,000 kilometers from home, on a much more serious charge: "inciting subversion of state power." Diplomats from a dozen countries were prevented from attending the trial, which was held at the end of August. The European Union expressed its dismay at the news of their conviction.

Yu was awarded the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in 2018 and the Martin-Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2021. The couple's detention over the past year has had a chilling effect, particularly for foreign embassies faced with the new reality that a simple appointment with them can send a Chinese rights defender to prison.

Yu distinguished himself by daring to take on the cases of Chinese citizens who showed their support for the Occupy Central movement, in Hong Kong in 2014. He then defended some of his colleagues arrested during the so-called 709 crackdown, on July 9, 2015, when hundreds of lawyers were detained. Yu could have gone abroad, but he decided to stay and continue his work. In December 2023, the NGO Amnesty International learned that his wife, Xu, had lost 14 kilos during her detention; that, despite the winter weather, her guards gave her fewer blankets than the other detainees, who brutalized her; and that she suffered from being forced to sit in the same position for hours on end.

Adding to the tragedy of the couple's situation, their son suffers from depression. Just 18 when both parents were arrested in the spring of 2023, he found himself extremely isolated and attempted suicide on November 18, 2023, by drug overdose. Xu could be released within the next few months, however, and her pre-trial detention has covered most of her sentence.

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