Gao Zhisheng
| Gao Zhisheng 高智晟 |
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| Born | 1964 Shaanxi, China |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Known for | Human rights activism |
| Spouse(s) | Geng He |
| Gao Zhisheng | |||||||
| Chinese | 高智晟 | ||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 高智晟 | ||||||
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Gāo Zhìshèng |
Gao Zhisheng (born 1964) is a Chinese human rights attorney and dissident known for defending activists and religious minorities and documenting human rights abuses in China. Because of his work, Zhisheng has been disbarred and detained by the Chinese government several times, and severely tortured. He last disappeared in February 2009 and was unofficially detained until December 2011, when it was announced that he has now been imprisoned for three years. His commitment to defending his clients is influenced by his Christian beliefs and their tenets on morality and compassion.
Gao's memoir, A China More Just (2007), documents his "fight as a rights lawyer in the world's largest communist state." In subsequent writing, he accuses the ruling Communist Party of China of state-sponsored torture and reports having been tortured by the Chinese secret police. He disappeared in February 2009. At the beginning of 2012, Gao's brother said he had received a court document saying his brother was in Shayar jail in Xinjiang. In 2014, it was reported that Zhisheng was released from jail and put under house arrest.
Gao was born and grew up in a house in Shaanxi Province with six siblings; his father died at the age of 40. He briefly worked in a coal mine.
With his family not being able to afford elementary school, Gao said he sat listening outside the classroom window. Later, an uncle helped him attend secondary school, after which he qualified to join the People's Liberation Army. His unit was stationed at a base in Kashgar, in Xinjiang region, and he became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Later, he left the PLA and began working as a food vendor. In 1991, inspired by a newspaper article that mentioned a plan by Deng Xiaoping, then China's paramount leader, to train 150,000 new lawyers and develop the Chinese legal system, he took a course in Law. Gao credited his excellent memory of titles and clauses for passing all his exams; he passed the bar in 1995.
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