Concerns as Gao Zhisheng, Chinese human rights lawyer, remains ‘missing’

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Concerns are growing for the fate of a prominent Chinese lawyer who is reported to have “gone missing” while in the custody of the Chinese police.

By Peter Foster in Beijing
Published: 4:36PM GMT 15 Jan 2010

Gao Zhisheng, a fearless critic of the Chinese government, was taken from his home in February 2009, but no official confirmation of his whereabouts has ever been released by the Chinese authorities.

Chinese lawyers and the US-based human rights group ChinaAid are now demanding that Mr Gao be produced by the authorities after his brother, Gao Zhiyi, was told by police that the activist lawyer had “gone missing” while out on a walk last September.

According to ChinaAid, Ghao Zhiyi travelled to Beijing to seek information from the police officer who arrested his brother and was told that Mr Gao “did not recognise the road and was lost on the way on December 25, 2009”.

“It is totally unacceptable for the Chinese government to lose track of their own prisoner,” said ChinaAid’s president Bob Fu, who helped Mr Gao’s wife and two children escape to the US a month before he disappeared.

“It is absolutely clear that he was forcibly taken from his home in February 2009. Nearly a year later, the Chinese government now says they do not have him.”

Mr Fu added that the implausible explanation raised fears that Mr Gao, who was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize along with another Chinese rights activist, was likely to have died in custody.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau refused to comment on the case, a stance the police have taken since Mr Gao was taken into custody.

“I would say that’s a very worrying statement coming from a public official, someone who works in security,” said Roseann Rife, the deputy program director for Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific office. “It seems to me he’s implying they don’t know where Gao Zhisheng is, which is completely unacceptable, because they detained him.”

Gao Zhisheng, a former People’s Liberation Army soldier and Communist Party member, made his name by representing “sensitive” cases, including coal miners, underground Christians and members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

In December 2006, he was convicted of subversion and given a suspended sentence of three years and placed under house arrest, but continued his campaign to highlight the abuses of the Chinese government.

In an open letter to the US Congress, Mr Gao claimed that he had been subjected to several weeks of torture prior to his trial, including suffering electric shocks to his genitals and having his eyes burned by cigarettes.

“If the police officially told the family that he is missing... then this is not normal,” said Mo Shaoping, a prominent Beijing-based rights lawyer and colleague of Mr Gao.

“If he is missing, the police must immediately establish a case in accordance with legal procedures and look for this person, this is their duty.”

Source : Concerns as Gao Zhisheng, Chinese human rights lawyer, remains ‘missing’ - Telegraph