January 23, 2010
By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING — The Chinese government made its first official comments on Thursday about a prominent human rights advocate who disappeared nearly a year ago, but its remarks left his fate shrouded in mystery.
At a regular news conference on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman answered a question about the advocate, Gao Zhisheng, saying that he “is where he should be.”
That the spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, even acknowledged the question was widely interpreted as an indication that Mr. Gao was alive and in captivity. But the remarks’ disturbing overtones left open questions about his physical and mental state.
Fears for Mr. Gao — a combative lawyer who defended Falun Gong spiritual practitioners and published an account of being tortured by state authorities — peaked last week when his brother told The Associated Press that he had tracked down a Beijing policeman who detained Mr. Gao last February, and that the officer said Mr. Gao had gone “missing” in September.
The Chinese government had until Thursday declined to acknowledge that Mr. Gao had been detained or that anything out of the ordinary had happened to him.
Earlier this week, a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, citing a source with ties to a Chinese security agency, said that Mr. Gao was still alive. That report prompted the question at the Thursday news conference.
Mr. Ma responded, “The relevant judicial authorities have decided this case, and we should say this person, according to Chinese law, is where he should be.”
He added: “As far as what exactly he’s doing, I don’t know. You can ask relevant authorities.”
In August 2006 Mr. Gao was arrested and charged with subversion, convicted at a one-day trial and placed under house arrest. In a memoir, Mr. Gao described in graphic detail acts of torture performed on him by security forces, including his genitalia being burned with cigarette butts.
In January 2009, Mr. Gao’s wife took their son and made a harrowing overland flight to Thailand, then to the United States. In interviews afterward she said that Mr. Gao had had no idea of her plans to flee and seek asylum. He was detained the next month.
In the last year, the Obama administration has said it would not make human rights a priority in its dialogue with China. But the Chinese government has stepped up its persecution of rights advocates in China.
It detained a well-known lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, last year, then released him. A court in December gave an 11-year prison sentence to Liu Xiaobo, who circulated an online petition for constitutional reform called Charter 08.
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