|
(UPDATED MAY 2012)
Prisoner of Conscience Gao Zhisheng 高智晟
Group 22 has been working since March 2010 on the case of
human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng (pronounced Gow Jir-sheng). He was detained in
February 2009 in Shaanxi Province, China. Except for a few weeks in 2010, his whereabouts were unknown
for the following three years. Brutally tortured during his enforced disappearance,
he is now serving a 3-year sentence in remote Shaya prison.
Gao Zhisheng passed his bar exam in 1995 and went on to
represent many victims of human rights violations. China's Ministry of Justice
named him one of the top ten lawyers of 2001. He began to defend members of the
spiritual group Falun Gong in 2005 and to write open letters calling for
religious freedom. The government revoked his law license in November
2005. About a year later a secret
court trial for "inciting subversion of the state" resulted in a suspended prison
sentence of three years. He and his family then endured several years of
constant police harassment while he was under house arrest.
Gao Zhisheng said he was subjected to torture while in
pre-trial detention in 2006. In September 2007 he was taken from his home by
plainclothes police and held incommunicado for six weeks, during which he
endured violent beatings and electric shocks to his genitals. He also suffered days
of partial blindness due to lit cigarettes held close to his eyes for
hours.
In February 2009, shortly after his wife and children fled
China, Gao Zhisheng was taken away by security agents and disappeared
completely. International pressure for information about him elicited confusing
answers from Chinese officials, claiming first that he had gone missing and
then that he "was where he was supposed to be".
On March 31, 2010, he suddenly reappeared in northern China.
During his brief contacts with the outside world, he said that he was giving up
activism and now wished only to be reunited with his family. But only a few
weeks later, before his wish could be realized, he again disappeared, reportedly
into police custody.
For the next 20 months, enquiries from his family and friends met with no
answers from Chinese authorities.
In an
April 2010 interview
with Associated Press which was released in January 2011, Gao Zhisheng said
that the torture during the year of his secret detention was worse than
anything he had previously experienced.
On December 16, 2011, China's official news agency announced that Gao Zhisheng would begin serving
a three-year prison sentence because he had violated the terms of his probation. Nothing was said about his whereabouts. On January 1, 2012, Gao Zhisheng's brother received official notice of Gao's arrival
at Shaya Prison in the remote western province of Xinjiang. The brother and other family members
made the 2000-mile journey to Shaya Prison as soon as they could make travel arrangements, but were turned away and told that Gao could not yet have visitors. Gao's family were anxious and upset, wondering whether he was even alive.
Finally on March 24, Gao's brother and father-in-law were permitted a closely supervised 30-minute visit with Gao. They reported to Gao's wife and other family members that Gao appeared okay, although pale.
Actions That You Can Take
More About Gao Zhisheng
Rights Readers blog:
Gao Zhisheng is the author of A China More Just, published in 2007.
Scroll to the
bottom of the page to see a current news search window for Gao Zhisheng.
CECC (Congressional-Executive Commission on China) Hearing on Gao Zhisheng.
This Feb 2012 hearing included testimony from Geng He (Gao's wife), Bob Fu of ChinaAid, and Jared Genser of Freedom Now. Scroll down to the recorded live webcast.
More About Human Rights in China
China Aid. You can type Gao Zhisheng into the Search Box.
Freedom Now.
Click on the Campaigns tab to see their Gao Zhisheng page.
Amnesty International 2011
Annual Report (China)
AIUSA
China Country Page
CIA
Factbook for China
US State
Dept Report (2010) Human RIghts, China
Return
to AI
Group 22 Home Page
|