Gao Zhisheng
Detained Since: August 13, 2017.
Charges: No official charges.
Sentence: No official sentence.
Biography: Gao Zhisheng is one of the most respected human rights lawyers in China. He has defended activists and religious minorities and documented human rights abuses in China. This award-winning lawyer has handled a number of high-profile human rights cases, including those of Christians in Xinjiang and Falun Gong practitioners. In August 2006, after numerous death threats and continued harassment, Gao disappeared. In 2006, Gao was convicted of "subversion," and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was incarcerated in December 2011 for allegedly violating the conditions of his suspended three-year sentence. Gao was released from prison on August 7, 2014, was kept under house arrest until August 2017, and is now reportedly being held in custody with no contact with the outside world.
Past Advocate: Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA, Ret.)
Advocacy Partner: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Updates:
- Zhisheng has released a book titled "Year 2017, Stand up China - A Narration by Geo Zhisheng, a Human Rights Lawyer Under Torture", documenting torture during his imprisonment while also predicting the fall of the Communist Regime in 2017 (June 24, 2016, Epoch Times).
- In August, 2017, Gao Zhisheng went missing from his house arrest; in November, reports surfaced that Gao is being held in secret police custody in Shaanxi province, in a darkened room with no access to the outside (November 12, 2017, Radio Free Asia).
- Gao Zhisheng's wife Geng He, spoke to RFA's Mandarin Service about her husband's renewed disappearance (August 24, 2018, Radio Free Asia)
- Gao Zhisheng has been awarded the Shahbaz Bhatti Freedom Award. The prize is granted by the First Step Forum, a Finland-based international NGO that monitors religious and human rights abuses worldwide, and is named after Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s first federal minister of minorities affairs, who was assassinated on March 2, 2011 (August 29, 2018, Epoch Times).
- At the 37th EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, EU officials raised the case of Gao Zhisheng with their Chinese counterparts (April 2, 2019, European Union External Action).
- Amnesty International has raised concerns over the possible torture and mistreatment of Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who was forcibly disappeared nearly two years ago (April 17, 2019, Radio Free Asia).
- In recognition of the 2022 International Day of the Disappeared and the fifth anniversary of Gao Zhisheng's disappearance on Augsust 13, 2022, 33 human rights organizations called for China to end all forms of enforced disappearance (August 30, 2022, Front Line Defenders).
- During the 38th EU-China Human Rights Dialogue the European Union called on China to immediately release multiple prisoners of conscience including Gao Zhisheng, John Cao, Wang Yi, Ilham Tohti, Wang Bingzhang, and Xu Zhiyong (February 17, 2023, European External Action Service).
- On March 7, 2023, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed titled "As the Rule of Law Disappears, So Do Chinese Dissidents," which highlighted the case of Gao Zhisheng (March 7, 2023, Wall Street Journal).
- On April 20, 2023 the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing throught the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations titled "China’s Political Prisoners: Where’s Gao Zhisheng?" (April 20, 2023, House Committee on Foreign Affairs).
- Prior to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's June 2023 visit to China, 42 human rights organizations submitted a joint letter to Secretary Blinken which called for him to raise the human rights situation in the country with officials during his visit and to push for the release of Gao Zhisheng, Ilham Tohti, and Xu Zhiyong (June 14, 2023, Human Rights Watch).
- In recognition of the sixth anniversary of his disappearance on August 13, 2023, 35 human rights organizations called for the immediate, unconditional release of Gao Zhisheng (August 14, 2023, PEN America).
- During their statement for the "Item 4 General debate on human rights situations that require the Council’s attention" at the 55th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Union called for the immediate, unconditional release of Rahile Dawut, Ilham Tohti, Gulshan Abbas, Gao Zhisheng, Xu Zhiyong, Wang Yi, Ekpar Asat, Wang Bingzhang, and John Cao (who had been released on March 5, 2024) in China and Vladimir Kara-Murza in Russia, among others, as well as raised the general situation of arbitrary detainees in Belarus and Iran, and highlighted concerns over the death in custody of Alexei Navalny (March 20, 2024, Delegation of the European Union to the UN).