ICC Note: Gao Zhisheng, a Christian human rights lawyer and nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, has been imprisoned in Northwest China since late 2011. His work documenting human rights abuses and calling for greater religious freedom in China was seen as a threat by Chinese authorities, who since 2006 have consistently arrested, imprisoned, and tortured Gao. Geng He, Gao’s wife, told ICC in an interview in 2012 that Gao’s faith and it’s emphasis on justice and serving others is a fundamental motivation for his work. 
1/11/2014 China (ChinaAid) – The New Year is here and the Spring Festival is around the corner. The Spring Festival is the most important day in a year for the Chinese people when they get together with family. The saying goes like this: “On festive occasions more than ever, one thinks of one’s loved ones far away.” When this program was broadcast for the first time, there was no news within the past year of Gao Zhisheng, the rights defense lawyer who is serving his time in Shaya Prison in [the far western region of] Xinjiang, China. His wife and children in America and his brothers and relatives in his native town miss him very much and hope they can visit lawyer Gao Zhisheng in jail to learn about his recent situation. They all the more hope that he can be released from prison as soon as possible.
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Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese rights defense lawyer who will turn 50 in three months, has been involved in the defense cases of the oil fields in Northern Shaanxi, Falun Gong and other cases. From December 2004 to December 2005, he wrote three open letters to the highest leaders in China, demanding that they stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. In November 2005, Shengzhi Law Firm of Beijing, where he worked as a director, was shut down by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice. On August 15, 2006, Gao Zhisheng was kidnapped by the police, and on Dec. 22 of the same year, he was sentenced to three years in prison with five years’ probation on the conviction of “inciting to subvert the state power.” He was deprived of his political rights for one year and he went back home.
In September 2007, Gao Zhisheng was once again arrested. After he was released, his article “Dark Night, Dark Hood and Kidnapping by Dark Mafia” was circulating around in which he described the torture he suffered, including the description of how the authorities inserted a toothpick into his genitals. Lawyer Gao Zhisheng won the Courageous Advocacy Award issued by the American Board of Trial Advocates and other human rights awards.
On the early morning of Feb. 4, 2009, right in front of his relatives, he was kidnapped from his home in his native own and disappeared. At the end of March 2010 and early April 2010, he appeared in public for a little over 10 days during which he could talk with the outside world. After that, he was made to disappear again.
At the end of 2011 when lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s five-year reprieve was about to expire and 21 months after he was made to disappear, he was sent to Shaya Prison in Xinjiang to serve the three years he was sentenced [to in 2006].
On March 24, 2012, for the first time in two full years after lawyer Gao Zhisheng was made to disappear for 21 months and was detained for three months, his family saw Gao Zhisheng. After that, his family couldn’t get in direct contact with the prison and was not allowed to visit him until Jan. 12, 2013, when they visited him for the second time.
The police didn’t allow his family to ask Gao Zhisheng about his life in the prison during their visits. His family wanted to leave more money to Gao Zhisheng, but the prison said: “You can only leave up to 600 yuan (US$99) per visit.” While other inmates can have a visit once a month, there has been no news of Gao Zhisheng for the whole year.
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