The LAW & LAWYERS Blog

A human rights group said Chinese authorities have located a Chinese lawyer who has been missing for over a year, although his family has yet to contact him, according to the BBC.

The circumstances surrounding Gao Zhisheng, one of few lawyers who dared to stand against Chinese government, has brought international scrutiny against the large nation considering how long he has been missing. Gao also said he was on the receiving end of severe violence and torture at the hands of Chinese authorities, which has also cast a dubious veil over his case.

The Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights organization based in San Francisco, released a statement that said they were told by the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C. that Gao was in the Xinjiang region, about 1,800 miles west of Beijing, according to the Associated Press.

John Kamm, executive director of the foundation, said it wasn’t clear what Gao was doing in that area of the country or what has happened to him in the last year.

“On Feb 12, the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC informed John Kamm, executive director of The Dui Hua Foundation, that Mr. Gao Zhisheng is working in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and that he has been in contact with his wife and relatives in China,” according to a statement from the foundation. Gao’s wife Geng He said she has not been in touch with him.

Considered one of the best known activist lawyers in China, Gao was known for his legal work involving religious groups that were targeted by the Chinese government, including underground Christians and the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, Reuters reported.

Gao was last seen in his home in the Shaanxi province on February 4, 2009, according to the Associated Press. At the time, his wife and children had already escaped the home and fled to Bangkok where they waited to be granted asylum in the United States.

Both the U.S. and the European Union had called on the Chinese government to find out what happened to Gao.

In August 2006, Gao was arrested on a subversion charge and shortly thereafter was placed under house arrest when he was convicted after a one-day trial. Since then, he was under constant police monitoring and would be secretly detained for random periods of time, Geng told Reuters after she was granted asylum in the U.S.

In 2005, Gao wrote an open later to China’s president demanding the country stop persecuting practitioners of Falun Gong, which the Chinese government considers a fanatical cult.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 9:48 am and is filed under Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.