Dissident's wife reveals family's harrowing escape to the west
The wife of dissident lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gao Zhisheng revealed yesterday she and their children had escaped to the United States via Thailand - and told of their harrowing journey.
Geng He said it was her desperation as a mother that kept her going during the seven days it took her to get from Beijing to Thailand with her 16-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.
She had left her apartment in disguise before travelling to Yunnan province and then through the mountains to Thailand, where they arrived on January 16.
They were given refugee status by the United Nations and asylum by the US in Thailand.
Even so, they had to move several times and stayed behind locked doors, fearing interception by Chinese intelligence agents, until they left for the US on Tuesday.
Speaking to the South China Morning Post by phone from Phoenix, Arizona, yesterday, Ms Geng said she had conceived the idea of defection in October after her daughter, Geng Ge, was barred from attending school.
'It was a painful decision,' she said. 'While fleeing, I had to tell myself to keep going or my daughter would never attend school. If my daughter could have gone to school in China, we certainly wouldn't have left.'
Ms Geng said friends inside and outside China, including Falun Gong practitioners and the US-based Christian group China Aid Association, helped her family flee and apply for asylum.
She said 'friends' helped her pay traffickers, known as snakeheads, the 40,000 yuan (HK$45,300) needed to cross the border by motorcycle and on foot.
At one point, the snakeheads forced her to split up with her children to avoid capture; she did not see her son for nine hours.
'The two children were too eye-catching and we had to take a difficult route,' she said. 'We were so scared throughout the journey.'
Ms Geng said Mr Gao could not leave with her because he was under constant watch by the police, and she dared not even say goodbye. All she could do was leave a note on the table when she left.
She said all she wanted now was to spend a year or two calming her emotionally disturbed daughter down and seeing that she received a proper education in the US.
Human rights groups said Mr Gao disappeared on February 4. Ms Geng said his disappearance might be related to her defection.
Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said dissidents had made many escapes from China via Thailand since 1997.
Mr Gao, 45, a self-trained lawyer from a poor peasant family, won several high-profile lawsuits for homeowners in Shenzhen. He was known for his courage in taking on politically charged cases, but finally ran into trouble when he publicly defended Falun Gong practitioners.
