Location: China
Arrested: February 2009
Days Imprisoned:
Print Fact Sheet

On Feb. 4, Gao Zhisheng, was abducted by Chinese secret police from his hometown. Since 2005, Gao has been repeatedly arrested, imprisoned and severely tortured by Chinese authorities, mostly for his work defending Chinese Christians. In 2006, he and a group of prominent human rights lawyers created the Association of Human Rights Attorneys for Chinese Christians. In 2007, he was arrested and spent over 50 days behind bars where he was tortured. “I was beaten so badly that my whole body began shaking uncontrollably on the floor,” Gao writes of his torture in an open letter.The Chinese government does not acknowledge that Gao is in one of their prisons, as a result his letters of encouragement are being mailed to the Chinese embassy in Washington DC.