Gao Zhisheng in 2005. Photograph: Verna Yu/AFP/Getty Images
The Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was kept in isolation for two and a half years and starved before his release from prison a week ago, his wife says.
Gao lost about 50 pounds (22.6kg) while in prison and now can barely eat or talk, Geng He said by telephone from San Francisco on Saturday. In 2006, Gao was convicted of subversion and released several times only to be disappeared again by security agents.
HIs wife said he could eat only soft baby food because he had lost several teeth and others were loose.
She said he could hardly speak on the phone from her sister’s house in Urumqi, in far western Xinjiang province. State security agents were watching him inside the sister’s house, she said.
“He didn’t respond and then the connection went dead,” Geng said. “My sister told me he’s been in a dark room for so long eating just a few vegetables and buns. You have to be patient when you talk to him.”
The 50-year-old lawyer won international renown for defending members of the outlawed spiritual practice Falun Gong and fighting for the land rights of farmers.
After he was detained, he upset authorities by publicly denouncing the torture he said he had suffered.
Geng and Gao’s attorney Jarod Genser are asking that he be allowed to leave China and join his wife and two children in California. His family fled China in 2009 and won political asylum in the United States.
“He’s been in a small cell that’s dimly lit with no natural light,” Genser said. “The guards had strict instructions to not talk to him ... He had no reading materials, nothing in his cell other than his bed and the toilet, a hole in the ground. Under those circumstances, I think any person would be traumatically affected.”
Genser said he was told Gao had been tortured but didn’t have any details about his treatment.
The first thing Gao needed, his wife said, was to fix his teeth so he could eat and regain weight. She said he had put on just a few pounds since his release.
“I’m thankful for everyone who’s showed concern for Gao and for human rights in China,” Geng said. “I really hope he can come and live in freedom.”
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