Unbowed, unbent, unbroken: Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng speaks out on his torture with an electric baton

In his first interview in five years, leading Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said he was tortured with an electric baton to his face and spent three years in solitary confinement during his latest period of detention since 2010.

The Nobel Peace Prize nominee also vowed to never leave China despite the hardships and having to live apart from his family.

For years, Gao’s supporters feared he might perish inside a remote Chinese prison. He survived his prison term. But when he was released in August 2014 from prison to house arrest, the formerly outspoken lawyer could barely walk or speak a full, intelligible sentence, raising concerns that one of the most inspirational figures in China’s rights movement had been permanently broken – physically and mentally.

READ MORE: 'He can't eat or talk': Gao Zhisheng's wife horrifed by state of his health after jail

“Every time we emerge from the prison alive, it is a defeat for our opponents,” Gao said in a face-to-face interview.

Gao, who lives under near-constant guard in Shaanxi province, gave the interview earlier this year on the condition that it not be published or aired for several months, until he could finish the manuscripts of two books and send them safely outside of China for publication, which he now says he has done. He also later sent his manuscripts and gave permission to quote from them.

The 51-year-old attorney gained international recognition for his courage defending members of the outlawed spiritual movement Falun Gong and fighting for the land rights of farmers. In and out of detention since 2006, Gao upset authorities in 2010 by publicly denouncing the torture he said he had undergone.