For immediate release, CRD

November 24, 2006

CRD Condemns Brutality by Beijing’s Political Police:

Detained Human Rights Lawyer’s Wife Beaten, Harassment of Family Intensified

CRD obtained information that, on November 24, Ms. Geng He, the wife of Gao Zhisheng, the detained human rights lawyer, was beaten in the streets of Beijing by State Security (political police) officers assigned to watch and follow her and her children. As she sobbingly told the incident in a recorded phone call to the Beijing AIDS activist Hu Jia (download and listen to the attached recording) 30 minutes after the incident, she was bleeding from her mouth, her teeth were loose, her hands were injured – with upturned fingernails, and her coat was torn into pieces.  The beating followed a verbal assault against her by State Security police after Ms. Geng told them to back off from her as they were tailgating her aggressively, harassing and intimidating her.

From the recorded phone call, CRD also learns that Ms. Geng was escorted to visit her husband at the Beijing No. 2 Detention Center (a detention facility in the outskirts of Beijing, often used for top criminal suspects and important political detainees) on October 6.  She found him thin, but they could not exchange many words as police watched and intervened. The visit lasted only several minutes.

Gao Zhisheng’s 13-year-old daughter, Gege, remains under round-the-clock surveillance.  State Security police escort or drive her to and from school, camp outside her classroom, even follow her into the school bathroom!  With her teenage classmates’ help, she has several times evaded the police and managed to send information to supporters about her family’s ordeal. It is the first time since August 15, however, that her mother is able to reach a friend today to report her beating – after 102 days’ incommunicado and isolation due to police blockage!

The family has so far only received one official notice about Gao Zhisheng’s “detention for questioning for 24 hours” in August.  Gao’s formal detention was announced in official newspapers, and his formal charge and arrest was only told to his lawyer Mo Shaoping when Mr. Mo pressed.  So far, the lawyer’s requests to visit Gao at the detention center have been turned down. For more details about this case, see CRD report:

Abrogation of Legal Rights and Human Rights in the Case of Gao Zhisheng, at Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=2645

CRD condemns the Beijing State Security’s brutal acts against an innocent family member, who, as far as we know, has not been charged for any law-breaking action nor is she under any legal order subjecting her or her children to round-the-hour surveillance. CRD demands the immediate lifting of the illegal surveillance of Gao’s family. There is absolutely no legal basis in Chinese law for subjecting family members of detained “crime” suspects to harassment: aggressive tailgating, verbal abuse, intimidation, beating, etc.

The All-Beijing State Security Unit (Beijing Guo Bao Zong Dui, a special force of political police), which handles the case of Gao Zhisheng, has blatantly violated the international Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the Chinese government signed and ratified, and took effect on China in 1988.

CRD requests the UN Special Rapporteur on torture to take urgent action on this incident of brutality and on Mr. Gao’s case, investigating and holding China accountable for its failures to implement rights protected by the CAT.

PS:  To obtain the recorded phone conversation of Geng He and Hu Jia, please email zgweiquan@gmail.com.