Sophie Luo

Luo Shengchun (; born October 1968), commonly known as Sophie Luo, is a Chinese engineer and human rights activist based in the United States. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Citizens Rights. Luo began publicly campaigning for civil and political rights after her husband, human rights lawyer and New Citizens' Movement activist Ding Jiaxi, was imprisoned in 2013. Following Ding's second detention in 2019, she advocated internationally for him and other detained Chinese activists. She has testified before committees of the United States Congress, spoken at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, and addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Early life and engineering career

Luo was born in October 1968 in Jiangxi province and is from Shanggao County. During the Cultural Revolution, her father was sent to perform labor on a farm, leaving her mother to support the family. Luo later studied power engineering at the Dalian University of Technology. As a third-year student in 1989, she joined local demonstrations in support of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, helping to make banners and organize marches.

In 1990, she began graduate studies in biomedical engineering in the Department of Engineering Thermophysics at Beihang University, where she earned a master's degree in engineering. She met Ding, then a graduate student at the same university, in a thermophysics laboratory in the fall of 1992. The couple married on October 8, 1993, and later had two daughters. Luo began working at a research institute affiliated with China's defense industry in 1993.

Luo received a full scholarship to study at Alfred University in New York in 2000. After completing graduate study in ceramic engineering, she worked for the French rail manufacturer Alstom. She returned to China in 2004 and held project and operations management positions in the company's transportation business. In 2013, after Ding's first arrest, Alstom offered her a position in the United States, and she moved with their daughters to western New York.

Human rights advocacy

Ding Jiaxi's first imprisonment

Ding was detained in April 2013 after participating in New Citizens' Movement activities that included calling for government officials to disclose their assets. Luo wrote an open letter to police and prosecutors in July 2013, arguing that his actions did not constitute a crime and calling for transparency in the case. Ding was subsequently convicted of “gathering a crowd to disturb order in a public place” and imprisoned for three and a half years.

While living in the United States, Luo transcribed and published recordings of Ding's conversations with his lawyers and later published letters he sent from prison. She also began speaking about the treatment of Chinese human rights lawyers and their families. Ding was released in October 2016 and visited his family in the United States in 2017, but returned to China after approximately two months. Chinese authorities prevented him from leaving China again in 2018.

Campaign following the 2019 detention

On December 26, 2019, Chinese authorities detained Ding after he had attended a private gathering in Xiamen with legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and other activists. Luo responded by releasing information about the case through social media and videos and by contacting governments and human rights organizations. In January 2020, she and relatives of other detainees met in Washington, D.C., with officials from the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), asking them to raise concerns about incommunicado detention and the risk of torture.

Luo testified at a CECC hearing on February 3, 2022, describing Ding's detention and allegations that he had been tortured. In April, she delivered a speech titled “Losing My Husband to China” at the 14th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. In February 2023, when the State Department gave Ding a Global Human Rights Defender Award, Luo accepted it on his behalf.

In April 2023, a Chinese court sentenced Ding to 12 years in prison and Xu to 14 years after closed trials on charges of subversion of state power. Luo told Reuters that she would continue seeking information and campaigning on their behalf. Ten days after the sentences were announced, she testified before a subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, discussing Ding and Xu's cases as examples of forced disappearance, lengthy pretrial detention, torture allegations, and closed trials in China.

Luo testified again before the CECC on February 1, 2024, following China's Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations. Her testimony discussed Ding and other detained or imprisoned human rights defenders and alleged practices including incommunicado detention, denial of medical treatment, forced labor, and restrictions imposed on family members.

Alliance for Citizens Rights

In 2025, Luo founded the U.S.-based nonprofit Alliance for Citizens Rights, which works on civic education and advocacy concerning the rights of Chinese citizens. On June 25, 2025, she delivered a statement at the 59th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council marking the tenth anniversary of the 709 crackdown. The statement, supported by a group of lawyers' associations and human rights organizations, called for accountability over China's treatment of lawyers and human rights defenders.

In December 2025, the Alliance released a report identifying cases in which Chinese dissidents, rights defenders, members of ethnic minorities, and their relatives had allegedly been prevented from leaving or entering China. The group has also developed civic-education materials with Chinese students living abroad and offered courses for Chinese immigrants.

Personal life

Luo and Ding have two daughters. After moving to the United States in 2013, Luo lived in Alfred, New York, while working for Alstom. She became a Christian after first attending churches while studying in the United States.

See also

• Human rights in China
• Weiquan movement
• 709 crackdown

External links

• Alliance for Citizens Rights
• “Losing My Husband to China”, Luo's 2022 Geneva Summit speech
• Written testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs (2023)