China tight-lipped on ‘missing’ lawyer’s whereabouts
ICC Note: Gao, a Christian lawyer who defended the persecuted un China, was siezed by the government and now has “disappeared”.
1/9/10 China (TibetanReview) Chinese police took Gao Zhisheng, one of China’s leading human rights lawyers, into custody in Feb’09; but now they say he is no longer in their custody. He went “missing” while on a walk on Sep 25, a policeman who was among those who arrested Gao has told the lawyer’s brother.
Fears have been expressed that the one-time darling of the Chinese legal community, listed among the country’s top 10 lawyers by the Ministry of Justice in 2001, may have died in police custody, a victim of beating and torture.
Five years ago, Gao was feted with awards for the cases he took defending clients in medical malpractice or business disputes, noted a Wall Street Journal online report Jan 18. But his decision to represent clients such as victims of forced evictions and Falun Gong persecution led to increasingly severe retaliation by the government.
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