GOD JESUS SAVIOR
may GOD JESUS help release Gao Zhisheng
Since 2005, Gao has been repeatedly arrested, imprisoned and severely
tortured by Chinese authorities, mostly for his human rights work. In
2006, he and a group of prominent human rights lawyers created the
Association of Human Rights Attorneys for Chinese Christians. That
same year, Gao was sentenced to five years of probation for inciting
"subversion of the state." After serving three years in prison, Gao
was supposedly released on probation but he disappeared for extended
periods of time.
In 2007, he was arrested and spent over 50 days behind bars where he
was tortured. "I was beaten so badly that my whole body began shaking
uncontrollably on the floor," Gao wrote in an open letter.
Gao last reappeared out of police custody in April 2010. He told the
Associated Press that he had been shunted between detention centers,
farmhouses and apartments across northern China. Security forces
repeatedly abused him, beating him with electric batons,
pistol-whipping him and holding burning cigarettes close to his eyes.
"Not only is it now extremely difficult for me to make my voice heard,
but it is also extremely dangerous," Gao wrote in an essay in 2009.
"In the past three-plus years, the authorities invested a great deal
of manpower, physical resources and funds, and employed the most
merciless methods, to achieve their goal of silencing me."
Gao Confirmed Alive in Police Custody
Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Chinese dissident lawyer known for taking
politically delicate cases, reappeared after 20 months in a forced
disappearance. He is being held in Shaya Prison in Xinjiang, China, a
remote western region. Gao's family and supporters believe authorities
have secretly held him in prison for much of the past two years. A
Chinese court confirmed Gao was alive by sending a letter to his
family saying he would be incarcerated for three years for violating
his probation.