Human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng and his wife Geng He ()
First of all, I would like to thank you for your concern and loving care. At the same time, I would like to express my sincere respect to all of you!
My husband was again abducted by Chinese communist authorities, on the evening of February 3rd of this year, For the past six months, the outside world has not even known whether he is still alive or not. Since November 2004, he had been abducted and detained by the communist regime numerous times; this time was the longest detention he has ever suffered. To tell you my heart-felt feeling, every time my husband was abducted, I would fall into an abyss of boundless darkness. No one has a more vivid experience of the absolutely lawless state of China’s authoritarian system than I do.
In mainland China, in the handling of human rights lawyers like Gao Zhisheng, it's not so much detention by the government, but rather incarceration by a sinister gang. During such detentions, the detainees suffer both physical and mental tortures; the brutality and cruelty of such torture has come to such an extreme that anyone living in a civilized society would feel it is absolutely inconceivable.
My two children and I are not to be compared with Gao Zhisheng. He has his vast and broad spiritual world; but for us, he is almost the entirety of our spiritual world. Every time he was abducted by the communist authority, our spiritual world would drop into a boundless darkness. Recently, I discovered that my two children, especially my daughter Gege’s state of mind, also fell into this kind of boundless darkness, which should not ever belong to a child of her age.
One day in April 2009, I entered my daughter’s room. She sat there quietly, with her father’s photo in her hands and tears all over her face. Before I could speak, she said: “I am sorry, Mom. Every day at this time, I want to talk to Dad. Could you please stay outside?” I turned around with tears bursting out like a spring. My little son Tianyu also asks me about his father frequently. My little boy told me: “There is a very long red thread in my heart. Wherever my dad goes, this red thread is linked to him.” The two children each set their father’s photo as the desktop photo on their computers. No one asked them to do so, but they concurrently have all these in their spiritual world, which really breaks my heart.
During this year, in Beijing alone, 21 attorneys have been brutally suppressed by local authorities for their concern for humanity and conscience. It has been proven that in Beijing, the government is determined to eliminate people’s consciences. For the Chinese people’s efforts to improve human rights, the financial crisis has added disaster to an already dreadful situation. What is more disturbing is that at the moment, the whole world turns a deaf ear, or pretends to turn a deaf ear to China’s current dark and corrupt state—an evil and completely lawless state. Some Western countries are making profits from the suffering of Chinese prisoners of conscience. They have, in actuality, become accomplices (of the communist regime). I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to everyone to become vigilant!
I feel very sorry that I can only respond to your concern and loving care by ways of written correspondence. Every time I recall the past four years’ horrific suffering, I feel an excruciating pain in my heart. My current goal is to give my children a peaceful environment, at least a peaceful environment on the surface. Your understanding of our situation is deeply appreciated!
In addition, I would like to extend my thankfulness and respect to all those who support and are concerned about China’s struggle for human rights and the efforts to uphold conscience, and all those kind people who care for and are concerned about my two children and me. Attorney He Junren in Hong Kong is a representative of this group of people. Their concern and support shines through our hearts. I have always wanted to express my gratitude to these people. Now, with your help, I am given the opportunity to publish this open letter; I would like to take advantage of this occasion to express my thankfulness in greater detail.
I would also like to take this opportunity to send greetings and salutations to the suffering prisoners of conscience and their loved ones in mainland China. I call on the outside world to care for them and care about the values they represent. Now that 1.3 billion Chinese people cannot enjoy basic human rights, it means all mankind’s efforts to improve human rights is far from perfect. In a sense, we would say it is dilapidated.
Very recently, I noticed among those who appealed for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, there were, unexpectedly, Chinese Communist Party members. However, among all those who appealed for Aung San Suu Kyi, which one of them is not aware that the perilous situation of Chinese political prisoners such as Gao Zhisheng, is more tragic and more inhumane than that of Aung San Suu Kyi?
I strongly remind everyone to give the same level of concern and attention to the Aung San Suu Kyi’s in authoritarian China.
“Eventually, one day, an authoritarian regime which chooses to be an enemy of human rights will present itself like a rat crossing the street in front of the entire mankind.” Gao Zhisheng once said this and had no doubts this will happen.
Thank you!
Geng He
Read original Chinese article.
