Call for Release of Chinese Lawyer Gao Zhisheng

Friday, 29 August 2008

NGOs and Brussels Bar Association call for immediate release of human rights activist. Below is an article published by Human Rights Without Frontier: UNPO: On 26 August, a letter prepared by several international human rights NGOs and prominent human rights defenders which calls for aid in securing the release of Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng was presented to the head of the Brussels Bar Association. Mr. Georges-Henri Beauthier, a member of the Brussels Bar Association, presented the letter together with representatives of Committee of Investigation on the Persecution of Falun Gong and Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l to the head of the Bar Association who stated that after familiarizing himself with Mr. Zhisheng’s case he will take the necessary steps to involve both his Bar Association and the European Bar association. Mr. Gao Zhisheng, a Nobel Prize nominee and recipient of the 2007 Courageous Advocacy Award from the American Board of Trial Advocates, is a renowned Chinese lawyer known for his work concerning human rights abuses, religious persecution, corruption, environmental degradation and land appropriation in China. He has been missing since September 2007 when he was arrested after sending an open letter to the United States Congress in which he expressed his deep concerns over the worsening deterioration of human rights in his country. […]