{"id":78542,"date":"2017-11-20T14:28:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=78542 "},"modified":"2017-11-20T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:28:00","slug":"78542-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=78542","title":{"rendered":"Police in China\\&#8217;s Shaanxi Deny Rights Lawyer in Their Custody"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2017-11-20<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2017\/46\/20171120image(2).jpg\" alt=\"20171120image(2).jpg (615&#215;346)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, in undated photo taken during house arrest in Beijing.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Public Domain.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">One hundred days after prominent rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng went missing from house arrest, police in the northern province of Shaanxi have denied claims from ruling Chinese Communist Party village officials that they are holding him.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A police officer who answered the phone at the Jia county police department on Monday was unable to answer questions on Gao&#8217;s whereabouts when contacted by RFA on Monday.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Ah yes, right, I don&#8217;t really know, because it&#8217;s not our case,&#8221; the officer said, when asked to confirm Gao&#8217;s whereabouts. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t a criminal police matter.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Asked who is overseeing Gao&#8217;s detention, the officer replied: &#8220;The state security police.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Asked if Gao is in the custody of state security police, the officer said: &#8220;Uh-huh,&#8221; before hanging up the phone.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Gao, 53, has been incommunicado after disappearing on Aug. 13 from his previous house arrest in a cave dwelling in Jia county&#8217;s Xiaoshibanqiao village.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Last week, a rights group monitoring Gao&#8217;s case said he is being held in secret police custody in a darkened room with no access to the outside, but without specifying which branch of China&#8217;s police are holding him.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">An official from nearby Jiahu township told RFA at the time that Gao is being held by the county police department, which could include the county branch of the state security police, and that he is &#8220;fine.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">An official who answered the phone at the Jia County  Detention Center said Gao isn&#8217;t an inmate there.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Gao Zhisheng. There&#8217;s no one by that name here,&#8221; the official said. Asked if Gao had ever been an inmate, the official replied: &#8220;No, I&#8217;ve never seen him before.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But he couldn&#8217;t rule out the possibility that Gao is being held under a prisoner number only, with no name on the public record.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t tell you that,&#8221; the official said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Rights activist Ai Ming, who heads the Gao Zhisheng Lawyers&#8217; Concern Group, said she and other supporters had made repeated calls to try to confirm Gao&#8217;s whereabouts, to no avail.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Today is the 100th day of lawyer Gao Zhisheng&#8217;s disappearance,&#8221; Ai said. &#8220;I call on any online activist who cares about Gao to retweet news about him, and to call the Jia county police department to inquire about what happened to him.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Targeted lawyer<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Gao, 56, once a prominent lawyer feted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, began to be targeted by the authorities after he defended some of China&#8217;s most vulnerable people, including Christians, coal miners, and followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In a published memoir, Gao details the torture he later endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, as well as three years of solitary confinement, during which he said he was sustained by his Christian faith and his hopes for China.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Activists say his continuing house arrest even after being &#8220;released&#8221; from jail mirrors the treatment meted out to fellow rights lawyers and activists detained in a nationwide police operation since July 2015.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Gao&#8217;s wife Geng He fled to the U.S. with the couple&#8217;s two children after Gao&#8217;s last disappearance in 2009, where she has continued to speak out on his behalf.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/lawyer-11202017103916.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;A police officer who answered the phone at the Jia county police department on Monday was unable to answer questions on Gao&#39;s whereabouts when contacted by RFA on Monday.&quot;Ah yes, right, I don&#39;t really know, because it&#39;s not our case,&quot; the officer said, when asked to confirm Gao&#39;s whereabouts. &quot;This isn&#39;t a criminal police matter.&quot;&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-78542","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\/78542","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=78542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}