A global team of prominent lawyers has petitioned the UN to condemn the detention of high-profile Chinese legal activist Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) as a violation of international law.
The petition, filed to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, said Gao’s detention also violated Chinese law.
Gao was an outspoken rights defender in cases against the Chinese government involving alleged police corruption, land seizures and religious freedom. He was taken away by security personnel on Feb. 4 last year and has not been heard from since.
“There is reason to believe that his health and safety are in serious jeopardy while he remains in Chinese custody and barred from communication with the outside world,” the petition said.
The government has failed to officially arrest and charge Gao with a crime and has not notified his family where he is being held — all violations of Chinese law, the petition said.
Signatories include Jerome Cohen, a leading expert on Chinese law at New York University; Irwin Cotler, member of the Canadian parliament and former minister of justice; and Albert Ho (何俊仁), chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and a member of the territory’s Legislative Council.
Western reporters in Beijing have repeatedly pressed China’s foreign and public security ministries for information on Gao, but both have declined to provide specifics on his whereabouts.
After years of legal activism, Gao was convicted of subversion in 2006, but given a suspended sentence.
In 2007, Chinese authorities detained and severely tortured him, threatening to kill him if he disclosed the details of his torture, which he did last year, the Washington-based rights group Freedom Now said in a statement. The members of Gao’s legal team are affiliated with the rights group.
“I hope that the UN will ask the Chinese government to follow its own law and to release him,” Freedom Now quoted Gao’s wife, Geng He (耿和), as saying.
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