China Must Stop Human Rights Abuses Against Imprisoned Activists, UN Expert Says

Aug. 13 marks the eighth anniversary of the disappearance of the renowned Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in a file photo. Verna Yu/AFP/Getty Images

A U.N. human rights expert is urging the Chinese communist regime to uphold the rights of imprisoned human rights defenders and disclose detailed information about several detained activists, including missing Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

Mary Lawlor, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said she was “disturbed by consistent allegations” about the ill-treatment of human rights advocates imprisoned in China, in a statement on Aug. 11.

Those allegations have included “torture, denial of access to adequate medical care and visitation rights,” she said.

“Despite making repeated requests, the Chinese authorities have yet to provide detailed responses regarding the alleged treatment of these human rights defenders. Instead, the Government has only provided generic replies with little specific information on the questions raised,” Lawlor added.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of human rights abuses. In an international human rights report published on Aug. 12, the U.S. State Department noted that former prisoners and detainees had reported being beaten, raped, subjected to electric shock, hung by the wrists, deprived of sleep, force-fed, forced to take medication against their will, as well as a wide range of other physical and psychological abuse, with political and religious dissidents often facing the most severe treatment.

Lawlor said Beijing should guarantee these detainees are allowed visits from their families and legal representatives, receive proper medical care, be held in officially recognized detention facilities, and disclose their status and location to any individual with a legitimate interest.

She pointed to her effort to get information about seven human rights defenders serving sentences of 10 years or longer, when she and other U.N. experts sent a letter to the Chinese authorities in February. However, Beijing responded by providing limited information, Lawlor stated, prompting her to urge the Chinese authorities to provide a more thorough reply, specifically with detailed updates on their health conditions and access to family and legal representatives

The seven individuals are ​​Huang Qi, Huang Yunmin, Ilham Tohti, Qin Yongmin, Zhang Haitao, Zhao Haitong, and Ding Jiaxi.

Ding, a human rights lawyer and prominent figure in the New Citizens Movement, was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Chinese court in April 2023. The movement campaigns for transparency regarding the wealth of CCP officials, the promotion of civil rights, and seeks the peaceful transition of China to constitutionalism.

On Aug. 13, Ding’s wife, Sophie Luo, responded to Lawlor’s statement. In an X post, Luo said that, like her, the family members of other prisoners of conscience don’t need to know the full extent of the suffering their loved ones have endured in prison.

“What we need is for the Chinese Communist Party to release them immediately and unconditionally,” Luo wrote. “Immediately and unconditionally release Ding Jiaxi. Immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience in China’s prisons.”

Lawlor also renewed her call to China to clarify Gao’s fate and whereabouts, questioning Beijing’s previous claims about not holding him in custody or subjecting him to enforced disappearance.

“Gao Zhisheng has been missing for almost eight years and the Chinese Government’s refusal to engage on his enforced disappearance is totally unacceptable,” Lawlor stated.

“If he is not in detention, prison or under house arrest, then the authorities must reveal what steps they have taken to ascertain what has happened to him.”

Gao was under house arrest before disappearing from his home in northern China’s Shaanxi Province on Aug. 13, 2017.

A self-taught lawyer and a devoted Christian, Gao began practicing law in 1996, defending victims of government land seizures; families of miners, who are seeking compensation after their loved ones died in coal mining accidents; as well as persecuted Christians and Falun Gong practitioners.

On Aug. 13, Gao’s wife, Geng He, described on social media her husband’s case as illustrative of China’s “systematic, persistent, brutal, and unrelenting” effort to carry out human rights violations.

“For eight years, he has not been seen, not been heard, and his family has not received a single phone call from him,” she wrote. “This is not only a devastating blow to a lawyer and a citizen, but also a public humiliation to the rule of law and humanity.”