Beijing's mafia justice for lawyer they won't lock up but can't set free
Gao Zhisheng , a former coal miner, soldier, self-trained lawyer, Christian and ex-party member, was once recognised by the Ministry of Justice as one of the mainland's top 10 lawyers for his pro bono work. However, he ran afoul of authorities in 2004 after investigating the persecution of the Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned by the central government, and underground Christians. Since then, he's suffered six years of harassment, abuse, illegal detentions, beatings and torture at the hands of the government, which seems at a loss about how to deal with the man known to some as 'the conscience of China'.
Gao is among a handful of activists and dissidents whose arrest or disappearance make news around the world. Last month in Washington, US officials led by assistant secretary of state Michael Posner met a Chinese delegation for a formal dialogue about human rights. Posner said little afterwards about individual cases raised during the talks, except to note that the US side brought up Gao's case.
He was sentenced to prison in 2006 for 'inciting subversion' after writing a series of open letters to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao , accusing the government of persecuting and torturing Falun Gong practitioners and Christians. Gao's licence to practise law was revoked and his law firm was shut down. He was given a suspended sentence in December that same year, after which things grew worse for the whole family. They were placed under constant surveillance, their movements were restricted and they suffered repeated abuse. For a period, police even moved into their apartment.
After sending an open letter to the US Congress in 2007, Gao was again detained and said he suffered more than 50 days of torture before being sent back home. Early last year, his wife and children were secretly smuggled out of China, eventually taking asylum in the United States. Shortly after, Gao 'disappeared' again when he was taken from his family home in Shaanxi by government security agents, who put a hood over his head. He did not resurface until late March this year, when he turned up at a Buddhist monastery town. He returned to his Beijing home on April 6 after 14 months in illegal secret detention. The South China Morning Post met Gao in his apartment two days after he returned home. But, his freedom was brief. Within a little more than one week, he had vanished again.
During the more than two-hour conversation, he repeatedly emphasised that it was not an interview, but a discussion among friends. He said he'd been warned that he would 'disappear' again if he talked to the media, although he was sure the conversation was being recorded. His supporters believed Gao had been encouraged to speak with foreign reporters to get the word out that he had not been mistreated. Several days after returning home, Gao was taken away under a police escort to visit his father-in-law in Urumqi , in Xinjiang . His father-in-law called friends in Beijing to report that Gao would return to the capital on April 20.
He never arrived. His family has not heard from him since and the government has provided no details about what happened to him, leading to concerns that he has been detained once again and mistreated. Human rights experts believe the government introduced Gao to the public briefly to reduce the growing international pressure on his behalf, and took him away once they thought the pressure had receded.
At the time, Gao asked that details of the conversation not be reported because it might land him in more trouble. His friends, fellow lawyers and human rights workers now agree that his continued detention makes it unlikely that reporting his remarks will adversely affect him.