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Media and Rights Groups Work to Secure Gao Zhisheng’s Release

Because of Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States, many have expressed concern for Gao Zhisheng, the lawyer who was ”disappeared” twice and cruelly tortured for defending Christians, political and religious dissenters, and Falun Gong.

On January 10, 2011, AP released an interview with Gao, taken before his second disappearance, in which he discussed his torture, including electric shocks to his genitals, near suffocation, and temporary blindness from cigarettes held close to his eyes.

In a speech given Friday, January 14, 2011, Secretary of State Clinton specifically mentioned Gao Zhisheng. At a congressional press conference on January 18, 2001, Bob Fu of ChinaAid requested that President Obama ask Hu Jintao to free Gao and let him come to the United States to be reunited with his wife and two children. Fu has been circulating a letter that Gao gave his wife, Geng He, before she and their children escaped to the United States. Gao is still missing. No one knows his whereabouts or whether he is still alive.

Sources:
Christian Newswire, January 20, 2011
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9101616001.html
Washington Post, January 10, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011001287.html