A Chinese artist whose work draws attention to the communist regime’s bloody history was tried behind closed doors on March 30, according to his family and European diplomats.
Diplomats from the European Union said that Gao’s wife and son, who have also been detained, were barred from attending Gao’s trial in the northern Chinese city of Sanhe, about an hour’s drive from Beijing.
“After an initial admittance to the court building, they were not granted entry to the hearing’s room,” the EU delegation to China said on X on March 30. “We will continue to follow developments closely and support respect for due process and fair trial guarantees.”
His wife, Zhao Yaliang, said that no verdict was announced after the proceedings. She added that she was denied access on March 30 as her husband’s trial was due to start.
Gao, whose artwork depicted the Cultural Revolution, was indicted in June 2025 on charges of insulting “heroes and martyrs,” according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a network of Chinese and international non-governmental organizations.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is known to whitewash historical events such as its 1949 overthrow of republican China and subsequent leadership as both historically inevitable and a boon for the Chinese people.
After a 2020 amendment to the criminal law, violators can face a jail term of up to 3 years.
In Gao’s case, international human rights organizations noted that the authorities appeared to have applied that law retroactively, targeting artwork created before 2009.
“Gao Zhen has the right to freedom of artistic expression,” Shane Yi, a CHRD researcher, said in a March 25 statement before Gao’s trial. “The use of a contrived, retroactively applied law and a closed trial underscores serious due process violations.”
Gao, along with his younger brother, Gao Qiang, crafted sculptures, paintings, and photographs inspired by memories of their father, who died in custody after being arrested as a “counter-revolutionary” during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The decade-long movement, targeting the nation’s historical legacy and its scholar-bureaucrat traditions, resulted in a wave of deaths under the leadership of Mao Zedong.
Human rights advocates and Gao’s family have voiced concerns about the 69-year-old artist’s deteriorating health, noting Gao suffers from lumbar spine disease, knee effusion, and an eye condition that requires urgent care.
Gao’s wife and their 7-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, have been barred from leaving China since the senior Gao’s arrest in 2024.
Rights groups have questioned why Beijing chose to impose the exit ban on them, noting that neither is accused of a crime or required for any criminal investigation by the Chinese authorities.
“This constitutes a form of family intimidation and transnational repression, as direct and indirect travel restrictions on a dissident’s family member are aimed at effectively exerting undue pressure on a dissident to comply with Chinese law enforcement because his family’s freedom of movement is at stake,” 17 rights groups said in a joint statement in August 2025.
“We urgently ask other relevant organizations, government bodies, and international institutions to speak out and join our call for the immediate and unconditional release of Gao Zhen, lifting the exit ban on his wife, and the safe return of his family to the United States.”
