NGO seeks clarification on lawyer who disappeared in 2017

The non-governmental organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) urged Chinese authorities on Wednesday to reveal the whereabouts and situation of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing since August 2017.

According to CHRD, Gao has not been seen since August 13, 2017, when he tried to escape surveillance in the central province of Shaanxi with the help of activists.

The NGO said the lawyer was detained by agents believed to be from Beijing and Shaanxi and that authorities have not officially acknowledged his custody since then.

Gao, who in the 1990s defended members of religious communities, victims of corruption and cases related to freedom of expression, began to be targeted with punitive measures in 2005, when his office was closed and he lost his license to practice, the organization said.

In 2006, he was sentenced by a Beijing court to three years in prison , with a suspended sentence and five years' probation, for "inciting subversion of state power."

Between 2007 and 2010, Gao was subjected to several forced disappearances by authorities in Beijing and Shaanxi, according to CHRD.

In 2011, a court revoked his parole and sent him to prison to serve his original sentence, after which he was placed under house arrest in Shaanxi, where, according to the NGO, he did not have adequate access to medical care, despite health problems resulting from his incarceration .

"Chinese authorities have a legal obligation to clarify Gao's whereabouts, well-being and status ," said Sophie Richardson, co-executive director of CHRD.

The organization recalled that in 2017, the Chinese government informed independent UN experts that Gao's disappearance was under police investigation.

"My family has exhausted all possible avenues and resources, but we still have no information about his whereabouts," said his wife, Geng He, calling for "the search to continue for Gao," as proof of "the courage and ability to defend this last line of defense for justice," according to the NGO's statement.

The United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States, as well as the European Union, have raised the case at the UN Human Rights Council on several occasions since 2018, without Beijing providing information on the lawyer's whereabouts.