Justice for Wang Quanzhang?

Wang Quanzhang, his son and wife Li Wenzu before he was detained in 2015

While the rest of us celebrate Christmas -- from the birth of Jesus to Santa Claus getting you exactly what you want, to gathering with loved ones -- China uses that day to convict and jail people it deems a threat.

Most famously it was pro-democracy activist and Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009, and two years before that well-known Aids and environmental activist Hu Jia was arrested on Christmas Day and later sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail.

Liu Xiaobo (right) was jailed on December 25, 2009

In 2015 Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who had represented artist Ai Weiwei was handed a three-year prison sentence just before Christmas, and in 2011, writers Chen Xi and Chen Wei were sentenced to 10 years and nine years in prison respectively on December 25. 

This year it was human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang's turn.

He was held incommunicado since July 2015 and only yesterday was tried in a secret trial that neither his wife nor his supporters could attend.

His wife was prevented from leaving her apartment in Beijing to go to the trial that was held in nearby Tianjin. Before his trial, she and other lawyers were prevented from visiting him to see how he was doing.

However, It seems Wang is still in strong spirits -- it was somehow leaked that he fired his lawyer in the courtroom which may have caused a delay in the proceedings.

What has he done wrong?

Li shaves her head in protest of Wang's detention

He is accused of "stirring up trouble", representing the banned group Falun Gong, colluding with a foreign-funded group to "propagate methods and tricks for resisting the government", and was one of the many lawyers who was rounded up in 2015 in a crackdown against human rights lawyers for "subversion of state power".

Meanwhile his wife, Li Wenzu is doing her best from the outside to draw attention to her husband's situation. She and other supporters have tried to go to the detention centre where Wang was being held, and this month they shaved their heads to protest what they said was the judges' failure to enforce Wang's rights under Chinese law.

The mandarin word for hair sounds similar to law.

"In Chinese, having no hair sounds like having no law," Li said. "We meant that we can do without our hair, but we can't do without law."

The fact that Wang has been held so long is a violation of China's own laws, as well as international ones.

She is denied access to her husband in detention

Michael Caster, a human rights advocate who previously worked with Wang in Beijing believes Wang's stubbornness "kept him going through years of abusive, incommunicado detention and given him the strength to refuse a forced confession. He was never one to be intimidated by threats from judges or by the physical abuse of police."

If there are angels, we hope they are watching over Wang. His story is being spread around the world.