“We are reassured to see that Gao Yu is not going back to prison for the time being but we are very concerned by the judge’s barely veiled threats,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Asia-Pacific desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“How could we fully welcome this decision? Gao should not have been convicted in the first place. If the Chinese authorities truly wanted to demonstrate that they respect fundamental rights, they would let her receive appropriate medical care by allowing her to leave China temporarily.”
While serving her jail term under house arrest, Gao and her family are subject to constant harassment by the authorities. In a raid on her home in March, about 20 plainclothes policemen trashed her garden and roughed up her son, Zhao Meng.
Gao was arrested on 24 April 2014 for sending supposedly confidential Communist Party documents abroad. In fact, they consisted solely of educational material for party officials. Initially held incommunicado, she re-appeared on state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) two weeks later “confessing her crimes” to a police officer.
This disgraceful video showed that China continues to use mistreatment to justify detaining independent journalists and anyone else regarded as overly critical of the party. The broadcasting of this footage by a government-controlled TV news channel constituted a direct and grave violation of the right to due process.
At her trial in November 2014, Gao said she had made the confession under duress because of the threat of reprisals against her son.
The world’s biggest prison for journalists and bloggers, with more than 100 detained, China is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
Source: https://rsf.org/en/news/journalist-still-under-house-arrest-cannot-receive-treatment-abroad