{"id":24527,"date":"2012-01-01T15:34:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T15:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=24527 "},"modified":"2012-01-01T15:34:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T15:34:00","slug":"24527-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=24527","title":{"rendered":"Long-Missing Human Rights Lawyer Held in Xinjiang Prison, Family Learns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">BEIJING &#8212; Chinese authorities have jailed prominent lawyer and outspoken government critic Gao Zhisheng in a remote prison in the far western Xinjiang region, his brother said Sunday.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The whereabouts of Gao, who earlier said he had been kidnapped and tortured by Chinese authorities, had been unknown for 20 months until state media reported last month he was being sent back to prison for three years for violating his probation.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The official Xinhua News Agency did not say exactly where Gao was being held in its Dec. 16 report.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">His brother, Gao Zhiyi, said he finally received an official notice of the court&#8217;s decision by mail on Sunday.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">He said the document stated that his brother is being held in the Shaya County Prison in Xinjiang.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">A telephone operator said the phone number for the Shaya prison was restricted and couldn&#8217;t be released to the public. An officer with the Shaya County Public Security Bureau said he didn&#8217;t know anything about Gao&#8217;s case.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Gao was a galvanizing figure for the rights movement, advocating constitutional reform and arguing landmark cases to defend property rights and political and religious dissenters. Convicted in 2006 of subversion and sentenced to three years, he was released on probation before being taken away by security agents in 2009 in the first of his forced disappearances that set off an international outcry.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Gao was held incommunicado in apparent disregard of laws and regulations for all but two months of the last three years. When he emerged from the first 14-month period in April 2010, he told The Associated Press that he had been shunted between detention centers, farm houses and apartments across northern China and had been repeatedly beaten and abused.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><a href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/05\/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says\/?ref=china#h[]\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; \"><\/a><\/span><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/us-ambassador-to-china-calls-on-beijing-to-improve-its-human-rights-record\/2011\/12\/10\/gIQAeRlEkO_story.html\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; \"><\/strong><\/a><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/china-rights-lawyer-in-remote-jail-after-lengthy-disappearance-brother-says\/2012\/01\/01\/gIQAD1IgTP_story.html\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">original article<\/span><\/a><\/strong><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Gao Zhisheng, who was missing for 20 months until authorities admitted he was being sent back to prison, was feared dead up until that point by his family. &amp;nbsp;Gao has been an outspoken advocate of constitutional reform and has defended property and religious rights in the courtroom as a lawyer.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}