By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – The family of Gao Zhisheng, one of China’s most prominent dissidents, fled China last week. Gao Zhisheng’s wife paid human smugglers nearly $6,000 to smuggle her and two children over the border.  After an exhausting journey, they ended in Thailand.  The US government granted refugee status to the family, and they are now in Los Angeles.

Gao Zhisheng’s wife, Geng He said their life is unbearable in China.  The family live under constant surveillance, and two children are not allowed t go to school.  Their 15-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son had been deeply traumatized.  The15-year-old daughter tried to commit suicide and talked about it.  “She cut her arms with a knife and slashed an artery. It bled a lot. She still has scars today,” she says.

Geng He did not say goodbye to her husband, who was not at home in Beijing during the time.  She wrote a note to him, “I’ve taken the children so they can get schooling.”  With the help of a network of people, Geng He and two children managed to get to the southwestern border province of Yunnan in early January.  Then, she paid the traffickers to smuggle her and the children across the border by motorcycle. They moved mostly at night, along winding mountain roads.

“From a wife’s perspective, I really wish that I could stay and take care of him,” Geng said tearfully. “But I had no choice. For the children’s good, I had to take them away with me.”

As to for Gao Zhisheng’s safety, sources say he was interrogated three times after his family fled. He was escort away by police on February 4, and he has not been seen since then.

A Chinese law expert at New York University, Jerome Cohen, says Gao Zhisheng’s case shows a new trend of “prison at home” in China.  He urged International Community to pressure the Chinese authorities to release Gao immediately.  “In light of the terrible, obscene tortures to which he was previously subjected, I think there’s a reasonable question as to whether he’s alive, and I think the Chinese authorities ought to be called upon to produce him,” he says.

For more information, please see:

AP – Dissident lawyer’s family flees China to US asylum – 13 March 2009

AFP – Chinese rights leader’s family ‘defects to US’ – 13 March 2009

NPR – Family Of Chinese Activist Lawyer Escapes To U.S. – 16 March 2009

Radio Free Asia – Chinese Dissident’s Family Defects – 12 March 2009

Reuters – China dissident’s family flee to U.S. – 13 March 2009