Friday, September 25, 2015

Fearless: Chinese Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Letter to the World

By James Burke
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Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is one of the bravest men on the planet.
Yes that’s a big call but this is one Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has been to hell and back and it hasn’t broken his spirit. And now Gao wants to say what happened.
There’s not enough room on this page for me to go through what this man has had to endure over the past nine or so years, plus I’d prefer not to get in the way of you reading his letter which is further below.
What I will write is just to help you put his letter, which was written on September 12, into context and assist you to understand what the 51-year-old lawyer is referring to. Some background of sorts.
Described as the ‘conscience of China’, Gao was well known for helping Chinese Christians and any citizen petitioners who had genuine grievances against the state.
But the main reason why Gao was targeted by the communist authorities was his unyielding defense of practitioners of the persecuted Falun Gong meditation practice.
Gao himself is a Christian.
Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer, now himself persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for defending the Falun Gong. His wife Geng He, daughter and son had escaped, through Thailand, and now reside in the United States.
In his recent letter below Gao refers to three open letters that he wrote years ago to Communist Party leaders calling on them to end the persecution, detailing awful cases of torture used against Falun Gong practitioners. He also wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress and publicly announced his membership withdrawal from the Chinese Communist Party in 2005.
After years of harassment, which included the authorities closing down his law business, Gao was disappeared by state security and later imprisoned for “inciting subversion of state power.” In prison he endured years of solitary confinement, maltreatment and bouts of torture.
In 2009 his wife and two children fled China and they now live in the U.S.
Just over a year ago, Gao was released from jail a shell of a man and he was* being held under house arrest in Shaanxi province, north-western China.
The following is his translated letter which was published by the Epoch Times.
*Editor’s note: It has just been learnt that Chinese authorities have once again disappeared Gao after the letter below was first published (September 22) and after the Associated Press published (September 23) an interview they recorded with him in March.
Gao Zhisheng’s Letter
Yesterday, when I was looking through the old cabinet my mother left, I came across the bookLawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Collected Works. I sat down and read in one sitting the three letters I wrote to the Chinese communist bandit leaders. Only after having gone through the same torturous experience myself do I now know how catastrophic, deeply disturbing, and shocking it is.
Wei Xiuling, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shandong Province, was “killed,” resuscitated, and then finally killed again. Reading her story again, the misery is simply suffocating. Reading how her lower half was naked when she died, I start quaking again in my heart. Or the story of how when Liu Boyang and his mother Wang Shouhui from Changchun were both tortured to death, they could hear each other’s blood-curdling cries.
It’s been a decade since I wrote these investigation notes, but the murderers are still “leading comrades,” still strutting around with their heads high and their bellies out, long having forgotten about the bloody debt that will follow them forever. This is the achievement of China Central Television, Global TimesLiberation Army Daily, and other wicked media have wrought, going about their shameful work numbing the Chinese people. The words I wrote to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in the end failed to awaken the numbed souls of this world, and the sinister regime continues its crafty, evil conduct, the same as it always has.
Right around me there are still shameless agents of the regime, hanging about day and night, earnestly carrying out the wishes of their master of forever keeping China in a dark, intoxicating dream. This is what United Nations General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who attended the Party’s military parade recently, doesn’t see, and doesn’t want to see.
Ban Ki-moon, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and Korean leader Park Geun-hye are like visitors from other planets, turning a deaf ear to the human rights disaster in China going on around them. They don’t react in the least when the thugs who invited them carry out a brutal crackdown on expression, thought, freedom of belief, or when they thwart constitutional development, education reform, health reform, judicial independence, or derail attempts to spread universal civilized values. Their numbness to all this should be exposed.
This is all a disgrace to the civilized world.
The dark, criminal elements of the Communist Party have sprung forth again around China, disappearing, torturing, and extracting confessions from hundreds of human rights lawyers. The campaign is another open crime against humanity, another evil for the historical record, just like the Tiananmen June 4 massacre, or the persecution of Falun Gong, or the brutal, continuous practice of demolishing the homes of ordinary people and evicting them.
This is all a disgrace to the civilized world. I don’t know what Ban Ki-moon is thinking inside when he does business with these people who blatantly commit crimes against humanity. During the military parade of this gang of bandits, petitioners and dissidents around the country were suppressed and put under strict control; restaurants in Beijing demanded to see their diners’ identification cards; 10 days before the parade, the post office ceased all package deliveries. All of this was done to make a Potemkin Village for the likes of Ban Ki-moon, to give the gang of scoundrels with guilty consciences a chance to congratulate each other.
I can now make public that in mid-August I successfully delivered overseas two manuscripts: One is titled China Stands Up in 2017; the other is not yet named—both will be available within a year. There is much worth reading in those books, so I won’t say more about them today.
I want to solemnly assure you all that all the crimes against humanity taking place in China today will without exception be judged. At the end of 2017, a special tribunal will be set up for this—the details of this are described in the forthcoming books.
After reading the three open letters, I felt the natural urge to pen the above notes to memorialize the noble martyrs who have passed away—they’re the glory and the last energy of our nation, evidence that our people still have promise and grandeur. Commemorating their lives is proof that our consciences have not been entirely destroyed.
Gao Zhisheng, September 12, 2015
For more details about lawyer Gao and how he has been persecuted by the communist state see this video featuring former Canadian politician David Kilgour:

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高智晟:纪念高贵的殉道者 他们是民族光荣

高智晟著书即将面世 记录中共八年酷刑
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【大纪元2015年09月24日讯】(大纪元记者高凌采访报导)被称作“中国的良心”的著名维权律师高智晟,因代理并独立调查法轮功学员受迫害的案件,并公开上书中共最高当局呼吁停止镇压法轮功,遭到中共的疯狂报复。在过去的八年中,高智晟都是在中共的非法关押及监狱中辗转,至今仍处于被非法软禁状态。
近日,在三封公开信发表的十年后,高律师一口气重读了自己当年的调查文字,发出了这样的感叹:“在自己有了同样的酷刑经历后,才真晓了那种灾难何其的惊心动魄!”让外界更加质疑,在过去的八年中,中共对高律师做了什么。
以下的文字是关心着高智晟安危的朋友们辗转带出来的高律师的最新消息,高律师首次公开自己的两部书稿已经转移到海外,将在年内面世,“书中是有些看头予读者的”。
当朋友们担忧这些文字的面世,会不会给高律师带来当局新一轮的迫害时,高律师回答:“我们任何的对个人得失的折冲计算,都是对往逝者的亏欠!请帮助安抚耿和母子,情形永不会更糟了!”
大纪元记者获得的高律师的原文如下:
高智晟:纪念高贵的殉道者,他们是我们民族的光荣
昨日在母亲遗柜里寻物时偶得《高智晟律师文选》一本,坐下来一口气读了致中共贼首的三封公开信,在自己有了同样的酷刑经历后,才真晓了那种灾难的何其惊心动魄!山东的魏秀玲“死”而复活而终于又死。今天再读,其悲惨状直使人窒息,她死前下身竟是裸露着的,我的心持续为之颤抖着。“长春的刘博扬母子在被折磨至死前母子惨叫声互闻……”写下这些实地调查的文字又十年矣,杀人凶手们依然是“领导同志”,依然昂首挺肚,早已忘记了他们脸上永不可褪去的血污。这是类央视、《环球时报》、《解放军报》诸恶媒体的成绩,是全体一路麻木下去的人民的功劳,是久淤于襟的耻辱。我彼时写予胡、温的那些文字,终于不能撼动这世界上一些人麻木了的灵魂,邪恶政权行事如鬼的恶行依然未见有纤毫的改变。我的周围,一些见不得人的东西依然不舍昼夜地游荡着,认真经营着他们的主子永远将中国留在黑暗里的酣梦。这是潘基文们看不到也不愿看到的。潘基文、普京、朴瑾惠们,他们好似别的星球的来客,对有目共睹的中国人权灾难充耳不闻,对邀请他们来一同光荣的恶棍们在当下中国的冷酷打压言论、思想及信仰自由,野蛮阻挠宪政,阻挠教育改革、医保改革,阻挠司法独立,阻挠一切普世文明价值传播的有目共睹的丑行全无触动。当有文字记录并揭晾他们麻木了的灵魂。
 中共黑恶势力新近在全国范围内对数百维权律师的刑狱、鞫讯、被失踪的暴行,是继“六四”屠杀、迫害“法轮功”及持续血腥强制拆迁暴行后的又一公开的反人类罪的历史恶记录。这是人类文明共有的耻辱事件,不知潘基文们的内心是怎样与这些显然的反人类罪恶办理交涉的?这次强盗集团的阅兵,在全国范围内,所有的上访人员、异见人士都遭致压迫性管制,北京市,尚连饭馆吃饭都必须出示身分证,提前十几天即停办了一切包裹邮寄业务。这全是为了给潘基文们眼里营造好的世界,给作贼心虚的恶棍们营造共欢的环境。
现在可以公开的是,我有两部书稿已于8月中旬成功转移出去,一本《2017年,起来中国》,另一本未予名,两本书将在年内面世,书中是有些看头予读者的,故今天在此不想再多写矣。
我想在此庄严地向你们保证,所有今天发生在中国的反人类罪暴行,均无例外地将在2017年年底开始接受特别法庭的审判,其中究竟在即将出版的书里有详述。
读三封公开信后信马由缰写下上述文字,以纪念那些已往逝的、高贵的殉道者,他们是我们民族的光荣,是这民族的最后力量,是这民族尚可有为、尚可高贵的证据,纪念他们,是我们终于还未完全泯灭良心的证据。
高智晟,2015年9月12日予。
高智晟律师简介:因代理法轮功学员被迫害案件,并三次公开上书中共最高当局呼吁停止对法轮功的迫害而受到严厉打压,于2006年8月遭逮捕判刑,2011年起被关押在新疆沙雅监狱服刑,期间因遭受酷刑和虐待而造成记忆、语言功能严重衰退,身体极度虚弱、牙齿几乎掉光。2014年8月高律师获释,但仍处于被软禁状态。#
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1305121921312100【九评之五】评江泽民与中共相互利用迫害法轮功
[VIDEO] 连环画音像片:评江泽民与中共相互利用迫害法轮功