Scoop.co.nz: New Zealanders Call on Chinese Regime to Stop Attacking Lawyer for Defending Rights of Falun Gong Practitioners

On Monday November 14^th, a press conference was held in Auckland to call on the Chinese Communist Regime to cease their silencing of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and his law firm in Beijing due to his writing an open letter urging the Chinese leaders to stop persecuting Falun Gong.

Mr. Gao Zhisheng is a well-known and respected attorney for protecting human rights in China. In his recent open letter to Chinese Leaders, Gao describes accounts of torture, death, and mental trauma that he personally investigated, and describes the persecution of Falun Gong in China as a "systematic, large-scale and organized barbarian atrocity." Gao also tells his nation's leaders that China "cannot accept the fact that this kind of barbaric and inhuman violence is still occurring in China in the 21st century."

In 1999, lawyers and courts throughout China were instructed by China's Central Government not to accept cases filed by Falun Gong practitioners. Since then some trials were conducted largely for show, with "verdicts" mandated by Communist Party officials.

In 2001, China's Ministry of Justice honored Mr. Gao as one of the country's "ten best lawyers." In recent years Mr. Gao has become a symbol of hope in Chinese society for taking up very challenging and high profile human rights cases on behalf of ordinary Chinese citizens. He has represented Falun Gong practitioners, leaders of underground house churches, writers, democracy advocates, etc. Moreover, one third of his clients are pro bono cases. He has been viewed by many as the "conscience of Chinese lawyers".

In recent days news has leaked that Mr. Gao's law firm has been closed by authorities after Gao refused to withdraw an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao to stop the "violent and barbaric" repression of Falun Gong carried out by the Chinese Government over the past six years.

Gao's open letter to President Hu Jintao can be read at:

http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-10-24/33667.html

Source http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0511/S00198.htm