Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s intransigence has gained a bitter victory: He has forced China’s communist regime to resort to open injustice in order to silence him. Now the United States is challenged to form a policy toward the Chinese regime worthy of the suffering and courage of Gao and the Chinese people.
The regime prefers to subdue high-profile dissidents under the color of law, but that pretense has in Gao’s case now been stretched beyond all limits of credibility.
The regime recently announced that Gao will serve the three-year prison term to which he was first sentenced in a show trial in December 2006. That sentence was originally suspended, with Gao put on five years probation. The sentence is now being enforced on the grounds that Gao is said to have violated the terms of his probation.
Since 2006, Gao has been abducted and detained repeatedly, suffering severe torture. Most recently, Gao was abducted in April 2010 and held since then in an unknown location.
With Gao having been held by the regime for the past 20 months, how could he have violated the conditions of his probation? The prison sentence is the latest move by the CCP in its ongoing contest of wills with Gao.
Had Gao yielded to the CCP, his silence or even publicly expressed repentance would have testified to the effectiveness of the CCP’s terror. His presence would be a warning to all others who might consider defying the Party.
That the CCP has not released Gao, can only mean that Gao has stuck stubbornly to his original beliefs. Releasing an unrepentant Gao would have amounted to an admission of defeat by the Party before the strength of one man’s conscience.
Moreover, in the eyes of the CCP leadership, his release would have been tantamount to a confession that the persecution of Falun Gong was wrong. The CCP must continue to jail Gao in order to avoid admitting responsibility for its crimes.
The new sentence given Gao has been strongly condemned. U.S. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the United States is “deeply disappointed” by the news and urged Gao be released immediately.
Deputy Asia-Pacific Director of Amnesty International Catherine Baber said, “There is nothing lawful about the way the authorities have handled Gao Zhisheng’s case… The international community must not let up in their condemnation of this travesty of justice.”
European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called for Gao’s “immediate release and for information about his well-being and location.”
