The Wall Street Journal
SHANGHAI—One of China's high-profile dissident lawyers, missing for more than a year, has resurfaced and is apparently living in mountains in northern China known as a place for Buddhist pilgrimages.
The dissident, Gao Zhisheng, who has gained a reputation as one of a handful of lawyers willing to take on the government in legal cases, disappeared from his hometown in February last year. His case has drawn significant international attention, because he was missing for so long and because he had reported being tortured by authorities when detained previously.
Mr. Gao told the Associated Press in a telephone interview on Sunday that he is living in Shanxi province and is "free at present." Mr. Gao also told the AP that he wants "to be in peace and quiet for a while, and be reunited with my family." The dissident told Reuters in a separate phone conversation Sunday that he was released about six months ago.
In 2006, Mr. Gao was arrested and placed under house arrest with intense surveillance by security agents. His wife and children fled China about a month before Mr. Gao's 2009 disappearance. They were later granted asylum in the U.S. Chinese officials offered vague and at-times conflicting statements about Mr. Gao's whereabouts.
In January, a Chinese foreign-ministry spokesman, responding to a question from a reporter, said that Mr. Gao was "where he should be" after "relevant judicial authorities have decided this case." The spokesman's comments, however, weren't included in the ministry's official transcript of the news conference.
British Foreign Minister David Miliband raised Mr. Gao's case, among other human-rights concerns, when he visited China this month.
At a news conference with Mr. Miliband, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Mr. Gao "has been sentenced for committing the crime of subverting state power."
It is unclear whether Mr. Yang was referring to a previously reported 2006 conviction, for which he received a suspended prison sentence, or to the results of a new trial. Mr. Gao said in a statement issued before he disappeared that Chinese security forces beat him and applied electric shocks to his genitals during a 2007 detention.
Reuters reported that Mr. Gao, known as an advocate for political reform, appeared to be under police surveillance when interviewed by phone Sunday, and he declined to make extensive comments.
He told the AP that he isn't allowed to accept media interviews.
The dissident, Gao Zhisheng, who has gained a reputation as one of a handful of lawyers willing to take on the government in legal cases, disappeared from his hometown in February last year. His case has drawn significant international attention, because he was missing for so long and because he had reported being tortured by authorities when detained previously.
Mr. Gao told the Associated Press in a telephone interview on Sunday that he is living in Shanxi province and is "free at present." Mr. Gao also told the AP that he wants "to be in peace and quiet for a while, and be reunited with my family." The dissident told Reuters in a separate phone conversation Sunday that he was released about six months ago.
In 2006, Mr. Gao was arrested and placed under house arrest with intense surveillance by security agents. His wife and children fled China about a month before Mr. Gao's 2009 disappearance. They were later granted asylum in the U.S. Chinese officials offered vague and at-times conflicting statements about Mr. Gao's whereabouts.
In January, a Chinese foreign-ministry spokesman, responding to a question from a reporter, said that Mr. Gao was "where he should be" after "relevant judicial authorities have decided this case." The spokesman's comments, however, weren't included in the ministry's official transcript of the news conference.
British Foreign Minister David Miliband raised Mr. Gao's case, among other human-rights concerns, when he visited China this month.
At a news conference with Mr. Miliband, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Mr. Gao "has been sentenced for committing the crime of subverting state power."
It is unclear whether Mr. Yang was referring to a previously reported 2006 conviction, for which he received a suspended prison sentence, or to the results of a new trial. Mr. Gao said in a statement issued before he disappeared that Chinese security forces beat him and applied electric shocks to his genitals during a 2007 detention.
Reuters reported that Mr. Gao, known as an advocate for political reform, appeared to be under police surveillance when interviewed by phone Sunday, and he declined to make extensive comments.
He told the AP that he isn't allowed to accept media interviews.
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