It has been more than three years since the disappearance of well-known Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Our reporter Sun Cheng recently interviewed Geng He, the wife of lawyer Gao Zhisheng, to hear her account of her efforts to rescue Gao Zhisheng.
Reporter: Since August 13, 2017, lawyer Zhisheng Gao has been missing for more than three years. Can you talk about the efforts you have made to rescue him over the years?
Geng He: Zhisheng Gao has not been persecuted for three years, he has been persecuted for 16 years without a single day of freedom. I am very grateful to Free Asia for inviting me to do this interview. In the past 12 years, I have been trying to rescue my husband mainly through media interviews and hearings. During the 71 years of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule in China, it has created countless persecuted political prisoners. Although my husband has not been in prison the longest, he has been in solitary confinement, beaten, tortured, and imprisoned for almost all of the past sixteen years. He was even punished when the armed police and soldiers who imprisoned him said a word to him, and such intense persecution lasted for sixteen years. I think in the history of the Chinese Communist Party, (Zhisheng Gao) is one of the political prisoners who suffered the most.
Reporter: During these years, how did you and your family live in the United States? Have you encountered any difficulties?
Geng He: I have been in the U.S. for 12 years, and I have raised my two children alone. But now, my children and I can live a normal life. I’m a mother, so I want to be a role model for my children. Any difficulties or problems that I encountered in life are normal. In retrospect, it’s all something we have to go through as we grow up. However, I can often think of the persecution my husband suffered, like black hoods in the dark, imprisonment, trumpets, illegal detention, etc., and I can relate to it. The concern for him also torments me. Once I had some free time, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Chinese New Year, New Year’s Day, birthday, etc., even when I stopped working for a moment, I would have palpitations: “Alas, how good it would be to hear from my husband”. I would flip through the calendar and think about how he has never missed an opportunity to speak out about human rights persecution in China for the past 16 years. So, as his wife, I think this is nothing compared to Gao Zhisheng’s suffering.
Reporter: Can you tell us what you expect from the U.S. government in terms of helping Zhisheng Gao’s lawyer?
Geng He: The improved treatment of Zhisheng Gao, I believe, will also promote the treatment of political prisoners in China as a whole, and indirectly save thousands of Chinese political prisoners, so that the Chinese Communist Party will have some fear of power. I hope the U.S. government will break away from its previous pressure tactics and make a more effective rescue plan. I think that in the past 12 years since I came to the United States, I have learned one thing more: freedom is never free. Zhisheng Gao suffered for his ideals and even died on the land of his own homeland, and I think that was his honor. I have fulfilled my responsibility as a mother, and now I want to completely fulfill my responsibility as a wife. No matter where he (Zhisheng Gao) is, no matter it is in heaven or on earth, I must find him, no matter life or death!
Reporter: So, where do you hope the U.S. government and the international community should continue to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party?
Geng He: I am a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. government has an obligation to help reunite families of U.S. citizens. I hope that the U.S. government will openly mention Zhisheng Gao’s name and talk about his case, as well as hope that U.S. embassy officials will be able to poke around, find Zhisheng Gao, and visit his family. Zhisheng Gao’s family was implicated and persecuted, and both his sister and brother-in-law were forced to commit suicide. I was told by a scholar in the United States that Zhisheng Gao suffered the highest level of persecution of any political prisoner. In his book, Zhisheng Gao also wrote that the Chinese Communist police told him that his code name for political prisoners in the Ministry of Public Security was 002, and 001 was Liu Xiaobo. Now that Liu Xiaobo has passed away, Zhisheng Gao would be 001, the number one political prisoner of the Communist Party.
Gao Zhisheng was kidnapped and disappeared for such a long time that he was not heard from, and his life and death were unknown. The disappearance of Zhisheng Gao is a direct consequence of the international community’s indifference to Liu Xiaobo’s murder. I deduce from this that if Zhisheng Gao does not receive assistance, many more political prisoners in CCP prisons will face the same result as Zhisheng Gao. Obviously, the international community has not paid any attention to this, and the international community has condoned the CCP’s persecution of human rights. This unchecked power (of the CCP) has also brought turmoil and unrest to the entire world.
Recent Comments