Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been held incommunicado by the Chinese authorities for the past 20 months, has been sent back to jail, according to a report on December 16 by the official Xinhua News Agency. The news comes just several days before Gao would have finished his five-year probation. Xinhua said that the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court had withdrawn Gao’s probation and ordered him to complete his three-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power,” a ruling originally made on December 22, 2006. What's absurd is that the court was quoted as saying that the decision was justified because Gao had “seriously violated probation rules” several times. It would have been quite difficult for Gao to have violated the terms of his probation as he has been under police detention at an unknown location for the past 20 months. China Human Rights Defenders said that the decision highlighted the arbitrariness of the law in China.
Also interesting is that when the Gao family repeatedly asked the police about his whereabouts, police claimed that Gao Zhisheng had been released months ago. This announcement indicates that Gao was in police custody all along and that police intentionally misled his family.
Observers are not sure what to make of the decision, which came unexpectedly. On the one hand, this is the first time in close to three years that the police have admitted to holding Gao, and if he's in a prison, that means his whereabouts should be known and that he should be allowed occasional family visits, depending on whether or not the authorities will allow him to have any visitors.
The following background details comes from China Human Rights Defenders:
Background
As a former lawyer and director of the Beijing Shengzhi Law Firm, Gao Zhisheng took on “sensitive cases,” defending, for example, Falun Gong practitioners and individuals persecuted for their involvement in unofficial house churches. As a result of this and other peaceful activities he engaged in as a human rights defender, the Beijing Justice Bureau revoked his law license and shut down his law firm. Gao was also outspoken in the overseas media about human rights violations in China. Gao was detained on August 15, 2006, and arrested on September 21, 2006, on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” His trial took place on December 12, 2006, and on December 22 he was sentenced to a three-year prison term, suspended for five years, and one-year deprivation of civil and political rights. While on probation, Gao was disappeared on September 22, 2007, by Beijing police officers. Gao was disappeared again on February 4, 2009. He then suddenly resurfaced in late March 2010 and gave several media interviews in which he described the torture he had suffered while held in secret detention. Gao was disappeared again in late April 2010, just after visiting his family in Shaanxi Province.
I interviewed Gao in April, 2010, during his very brief release. During the interview, he told me that police snapped at him saying he should not even dream about the luxury of being allowed to be in a prison. That segment of my interview is here:
As his family struggles in his absence, Gao continues to endure his own nightmare at the government's hands. He provided details of his time in captivity, focusing on the irony of the fact that he could not have the "luxury" of actually going to jail."I'm a bit special among China's 1.3 billion people," he said. "I can't enjoy the privilege of being in prison in China. I can only have the option of disappearing. I often said to the people who detained me that the relationship between us was a legal one and that they should identify themselves as the government and treat me according to the law, and not just use mafia methods. They replied, `If you want to go to jail, you're just dreaming. Prison has proved ineffective in dealing with you'."My family in Shanxi said that if I were under house arrest or legally arrested and sent to prison they could accept it, because they would know that I'm alive."
For more background details, please read my story, Beijing's mafia justice for lawyer they won't lock up but can't set free.