Jul 23, 2012 • 12:37 pm
To: UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) hereby respectfully submits an update concerning the enforced disappearance of Mr. GAO Zhisheng (高智晟), following the urgent appeal on behalf of Mr. Gao that we submitted on April 15, 2009. (See: “Communication on a Victim of an Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance,” http://chrdnet.com/2009/04/15/un-work-on-cases-gao-zhisheng-april-15-2009/.)
As an initial matter, CHRD would like to briefly present background on the case of Gao Zhisheng and then provide updated information, which was obtained between January 2010 and May 2012. Mr. Gao, one of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, once served as the director of the Beijing Shengzhi Law Firm, which had its license suspended by the Beijing Bureau of Judiciary Affairs in November 2005. Gao is best known for representing defendants persecuted for activities tied to the banned sect Falun Gong and unofficial Christian house churches. He was detained on August 15, 2006, and arrested on September 21, 2006, on a charge of “inciting subversion of state power” (Criminal Law art. 105(2)). His trial took place on December 12, 2006, and he was sentenced 10 days later to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years. CHRD strongly believes that Gao’s arrest, conviction, and disappearance have been in retaliation for his involvement in “sensitive” legal cases and other rights-defense activities. CHRD has found no evidence that Mr. Gao engaged in any acts that would constitute “inciting subversion of state power,” a crime commonly used by the Government to prosecute activists and dissidents for peaceful expression and other legally protected behavior. Neither China’s Criminal Law nor relevant regulations or interpretations define “inciting subversion,” or what conduct constitutes the crime. (For more on this issue, see CHRD’s 2008 report, “Inciting Subversion of State Power”: A Legal Tool for Prosecuting Free Speech in China.)
On September 22, 2007, while Gao was on probation, he was “disappeared” by Beijing police officers from the State Security Bureau and the National Security Unit. Days before his disappearance, he wrote to the U.S. Congress urging members to focus on China’s human rights concerns before the Olympics. Gao was “disappeared” again on February 4, 2009, when Gao’s relatives saw at least seven policemen take him from his home in Shaanxi Province. (See more background on Gao in the urgent appeal from April 2009.)
In January 2010, Beijing national security officials told Gao’s brother, Gao Zhiyi (高智义) that Gao had gone “missing” and they did not know where he was, according to lawyers with knowledge of Gao’s case. Before this admission, Chinese officials had refused to confirm that Gao was in police custody since his disappearance nearly a year earlier. Concerned about his brother’s fate, Gao Zhiyi went to Beijing to seek official information about his detention. When he spoke with a national security officer responsible for detaining Gao Zhisheng, he was told that Gao had “walked out” of the police station and “became lost” on September 25, 2009. This statement raised fears that Gao was possibly being subjected to mistreatment, including torture. At that time, Gao Zhisheng had been last heard from in July 2009, when he called Gao Zhiyi and simply said that he was fine and that his brother should not to worry about him.