2014-06-20
Gao Zhisheng during an interview at his office in Beijing, in a file photo.
AFP
Jailed human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, one of China’s highest-profile dissidents, is scheduled to complete his three-year prison term at a remote jail in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang in early August, amid concerns by some activists that the authorities will keep him under extrajudicial detention even after that.
The family of Gao, who has defended clients in politically sensitive cases and spoken out on behalf of members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, have been told that his term in Shaya Prison would end on Aug. 7.
“Of course we are happy that he is finishing his sentence,” Gao’s father-in-law Geng Yunjie told RFA. But he said it was unclear what “concrete arrangements” the authorities had in mind after Gao completes his term.
Gao has only been allowed two visits from relatives, the last in January 2013, and his relatives have little knowledge of his state of health, Geng said.
“The first time I saw him he was still quite overweight, and the second time I saw him he was pretty thin, and his mouth looked very dry and cracked,” Geng said.
During the 30-minute meeting on Jan. 12, 2013, Geng said he had asked Gao about his health, but hadn’t been able to hear his replies clearly through the phone-like connection between visitors and inmates.
