MIDLAND, Texas — Certain that Chinese authorities are torturing Christian human rights activist Gao Zhisheng following the escape of his family to the United States, advocacy group China Aid Association (CAA) urged the international community in March to take action by signing a petition on his behalf.
Earlier this year, Gao had authorized CAA to release his account of 50 days of torture by state-sponsored officials in September and October 2007. Gao had written the account in November 2007 while under house arrest in Beijing after prolonged beatings and electric shocks on his mouth and genitals.
“Every time when I was tortured,” Gao wrote, “I was always repeatedly threatened that if I spelled out later what had happened to me, I would be tortured again, but I was told, ‘This time it will happen in front of your wife and children.’”
On Jan. 9, before state security agents in his home village in Shaanxi province abducted him again Feb. 4, Gao’s family members began their escape from China. Gao’s wife, Geng He, along with 16-year-old daughter Geng Ge and 5-year-old son Gao Tianyu, fears for his safety, according to CAA.
In his 2007 account, Gao had written that those who captured and tortured him warned that if he revealed his treatment, he would be killed.
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