FDI Concerned About Closure of Vanguard Lawyer’s Firm
NEW YORK (FDI) – The Falun Dafa Information Center applauds the efforts of lawyer Gao Zhisheng to defend the rights of Falun Gong practitioners in China and expresses deep concern at the recent closure of his law firm by the Chinese Government.

In recent days international media have reported that the law firm of public interest lawyer Mr. Gao Zhisheng has been closed by authorities on a technicality. The closure follows Gao’s refusal to withdraw an open letter ([ http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9274 ]full text) to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao regarding the violent repression of the Falun Gong carried out by the Chinese Government over the past six years.

Gao spends several pages of his open letter describing personal accounts of torture, death, and heartache that he personally investigated. He describes the persecution of Falun Gong in China as a “systematic, large-scale and organized persecution and a barbarian atrocity,” and he tells his nations’ leaders that China “cannot accept the fact that such kind of barbarian and inhuman violence is still occurring in China in the 21st century.”

Gao also criticizes the leaders of free nations for their inaction, writing that governments around the world, “have shamefully remained silent in the face of this great calamity.”

In 1999, lawyers and courts throughout China were instructed by China’s Central Government in Beijing not to accept cases filed by Falun Gong practitioners. In recent years, some trials were conducted largely for show, with “verdicts” mandated by Communist Party officials.

For this reason Gao’s work is critical.

“Falun Gong practitioners in China have been denied their most basic rights and have nowhere to turn,” stated Falun Dafa Information spokesperson, Mr. Erping Zhang. “Mr. Gao’s work to defend Falun Gong followers in China takes tremendous courage… his family has been threatened and now the government is aiming to take away his livelihood. He is the kind of lawyer that the Chinese people need most, but that the Communist government wants least,” Zhang continued.

In 2004 Gao wrote to the Central Government about a Falun Gong case, but his client was persecuted further for seeking redress (see the [ http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41640.htm ]U.S. Department of State’s 2004 Annual Human Rights Report).

“The Chinese government’s response to Mr. Gao is, sadly, typical,” Mr. Zhang stated, “They don’t investigate allegations of human rights but instead deny them across the board, attempt to silence voices of criticism, and when that doesn’t work, use bully tactics and often extreme violence.”

The Falun Dafa Information Center calls upon the international community to monitor the case of Gao Zhisheng and to voice its support for his heroic efforts to stop the persecution of Falun Gong in China and hold Chinese authorities accountable.