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Rights Defense Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Confirmed Alive by Family Visit

Date: 2013-01-23

Family members of imprisoned Chinese rights defense lawyer Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) were permitted to visit him at the Shaya Prison in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the family’s first confirmation that Gao is alive since their last authorized visit on March 24, 2012. According to the advocacy group Human Rights in China, which has been in direct contact with Gao’s wife, Geng He (耿和), Gao’s brother and Geng He’s father visited Gao on January 12, 2013, but were only permitted to speak with him by phone through a glass window. Although Gao appeared clear-minded and coherent, his relatives were unable to learn when Gao is scheduled to be released, or whether he received letters sent by his family during his imprisonment.
 

Family members of imprisoned Chinese rights defense lawyer Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) were permitted to visit him at the Shaya Prison in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the family’s first confirmation that Gao is alive since their last authorized visit on March 24, 2012. According to the advocacy group Human Rights in China, which has been in direct contact with Gao’s wife, Geng He (耿和), Gao’s brother and Geng He’s father visited Gao on January 12, 2013, but were only permitted to speak with him by phone through a glass window. Although Gao appeared clear-minded and coherent, his relatives were unable to learn when Gao is scheduled to be released, or whether he received letters sent by his family during his imprisonment.

Gao, one of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, was convicted on December 22, 2006, of “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and one year of post-release deprivation of political rights. He was also granted a five-year sentence suspension that allowed him to stay outside of prison under strict supervision. However, throughout his period of suspended sentence, Gao was kidnapped, detained, and tortured by Chinese officials, and on December 16, 2011, just six days before the expiration his five-year sentence suspension, authorities revoked the suspension and imprisoned him again.

 

The Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers echoes Geng He’s call upon the international community to continue to pay close attention to Gao’s case and to press the Chinese government to justify his incarceration. Moreover, the Committee calls on China to assure the international community that Gao is in a healthy state of mental and physical wellbeing, given past reports of torture and abuse, and to provide a full accounting for the duration of Gao’s imprisonment, including a comprehensive explanation for why Gao remains imprisoned.