Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been missing for one year.

Chinese security forces took Gao from his home in China’s Shaanxi Province at midnight on February 4 last year. Since then, he’s been held without charge. His current whereabouts are not known.

President of the Texas-based NGO ChinaAid, Bob Fu, has a personal connection with Gao and his family. Fu first met him in 2004 after Gao took on the case of a Beijing Bishop, detained for making and distributing Bibles. And when Gao’s wife and two children escaped China last year, Fu was behind the scenes campaigning the Thai government to take them to the United States.

Fu says that without Gao’s pioneering work, the Falun Gong spiritual group wouldn’t have a chance of getting their cases publically heard in China.

Falun Gong is a traditional meditation practice the Chinese regime has been persecuting for more than 10 years—sending hundreds of thousands to forced labor camps.

[Bob Fu, ChinaAid President]:
“By his pioneering work of breaking the water, breaking the ice, that enabled human rights lawyers, Li Heping, Li Zubing, Zhang Chenyin, these lawyers started petitioning and filing court cases for numerous Falun Gong torture victims.”

Gao became a Christian while in contact with persecuted house Christians in China. His disappearance caused a great outcry in the international community.

[Tina Lambert, Christian Solidarity Worldwide]:
“He represents a freedom, the voice of those in China who are suffering from religious freedom violations, from other human rights violations. It’s crucial that we allow his voice to be heard.”

New York University law professor Jerome Cohen is an expert on China’s legal system. He says Chinese authorities often provide difficult to believe explanations for missing persons, and in Gao’s case, he says they have only provided nonsense.

[Jerome Cohen, NYU Professor of Law]:
“Recently as you know the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said, ‘Oh, he’s where he should be.’ Where do they think he should be? Have they killed him? Is that where he should be? Where is he? The Chinese government is foolish and that shouldn’t treat human life like that.

His daughter is in an especially difficult condition. So your heart goes out to people like that. It’s a cruel situation and why should the leaders of China, who lead a great civilized country, why should they do this?”

NTD News, New York.