AUGUST 7, 2015 7:45 AM August 7, 2015 7:45 am
The journalist Gao Yu, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in April for leaking state secrets abroad, is receiving good medical care compared with that provided to most Chinese prisoners, her lawyers said on Friday.
Gao Yu, in a photo from June 9, 2012, is serving a seven-year prison term for allegedly leaking state secrets.Credit Kin Cheung/Associated Press
But the results of a physical examination in mid-July were worrying, said Shang Baojun, one of her two lawyers, in a telephone interview. They showed that Ms. Gao, 71, has cardiovascular problems including high blood pressure.
The day after receiving the results on July 28, Ms. Gao’s lawyers applied to the Beijing Higher People’s Court to grant her medical parole, Mr. Shang said.
This week, 15 human rights and press freedom groups issued a joint letter calling on the Chinese authorities to release Ms. Gao and to improve medical treatment for prisoners.
Exceptionally for a convicted prisoner in China, Ms. Gao was examined at a specialist civilian hospital outside the medical system run by the police.
Mr. Shang said that the examination was conducted around July 10 at Beijing Anzhen Hospital, the capital city’s leading cardiac hospital, where the country’s top leaders can seek care.
Trying to explain the special treatment, her other lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said, “Perhaps they think that she really has problems.”
“It’s not that usual for a prisoner to be taken to a hospital outside the public security system,” Mr. Mo said. “Usually, they are taken to the Public Security Hospital.”
Ms. Gao has repeatedly challenged the Communist Party during a decades-long career. Her recent arrest and conviction were for disclosing to an overseas news media group a Communist Party directive that had been widely summarized on government websites. The directive, called “Document No. 9,” laid out the party’s plans for an offensive against liberal political ideas and values.
In March last year, Cao Shunli, a 53-year-old rights activist, died in a hospital of organ failure after six months in policy custody.
Ms. Cao’s family and her lawyer, Wang Yu, who has since been detained by the police in a sweep of rights lawyers, said her medical problems were insufficiently treated or ignored in detention.
Rights groups say that prisoners, including political prisoners, are regularly denied adequate medical treatment in detention.
