Thursday, August 7, 2014
Gao Zhisheng was released from Xijiang’s Shaya Prison on August 7, 2014. Image credit: rfa.org
Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), a defense lawyer known for taking on politically sensitive cases and for calling on the Chinese government to end its persecution of Falun Gong, completed his three-year prison sentence for inciting subversion today. He was released from Shaya Prison in western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Gao was accompanied by his brother and taken by police escort to his father-in-law’s house in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital and Gao’s place of household registration (hukou).
Gao now begins his supplemental sentence of one year of deprivation of political rights (DPR). China’s Criminal Law, promulgated in March 1997, stipulates that DPR sentences of 1‒5 years be applied to individuals convicted of inciting subversion (which falls under the category of endangering state security) and other serious crimes. According to Chapter 3, Section 7 of the Criminal Law, people serving DPR sentences lose their rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, procession, and demonstration.
Two years prior to the promulgation of the Criminal Law, the Ministry of Public Security issued the “Regulations for Monitoring and Management of Offenders Subject to Public Surveillance, Deprivation of Political Rights, Suspended Sentence, Parole, or Medical Parole by Public Security Organs.” The Dui Hua Foundation has translated these regulations in their entirety. Together with the relevant articles of the Criminal Law, these regulations provide the framework for how Gao Zhisheng will be monitored and managed over the next 12 months.
According to the regulations, public security authorities in Urumqi (Gao’s place of residence) will be responsible for monitoring and observing him during DPR. He must report periodically to police and receive their approval to travel outside Urumqi. The regulations prohibit Gao from giving interviews to journalists, and from “publishing or circulating, inside or outside China, any remarks, books, audio recordings, or other such items that damage the reputation or interests of the state or pose any other threat to society.”
Gao was detained on suspicion of inciting subversion on August 16, 2006, and sentenced on December 22, 2006, to three years in prison and one year deprivation of political rights by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court. The prison sentence was suspended for five years, but shortly before that period ended, the suspension was revoked by the court on December 16, 2011. Gao was then incarcerated in remote Shaya Prison. The four months and seven days he spent in detention prior to his first trial was credited to his three-year sentence.
Local public security bureaus have a high degree of discretion to establish measures targeting specific individuals during the enforcement of DPR. Given what is known about how Gao was treated during the period of his suspended sentence, portions of which were spent in Urumqi, and the current tense situation in Xinjiang arising from ethnic strife between Uyghurs and Han, it is likely that the Urumqi public security authorities will strictly implement the regulations, thereby effectively restricting Gao’s personal freedom and contact with the outside world.
