 Attorney. Activist. Fearless. Faithful.
The story of one man who has taken on the world’s largest authoritarian regime… And, in the eyes of many, won. Born and raised in a cave with only the stars to tell time, Gao Zhisheng rose from poverty to become China’s most important lawyer. He has courageously sought justice for vulnerable groups such as the poor, the disabled, and the persecuted. Yet Gao’s fortitude has drawn the ire of Communist authorities. Today, physical threat and police surveillance are a constant reality for both Gao and his family. Undeterred, he has responded in the nonviolent tradition of Gandhi by launching nationwide hunger strikes to intensify the call for justice and human rights in China. His undaunted resolve and generous spirit have won the hearts of millions. Whispers can be heard in China’s streets, “Will Gao Zhisheng become the next president?” Part memoir, part social commentary, part call to action, A China More Just is a penetrating account of contemporary China through the life of one attorney. Its selection of writings takes readers from a village in rural China to urban courtrooms, mountainside torture chambers, and the halls of a reluctant government. A China More Just is at once witty and raw, touching and wrenching, sober and playful.
| Title: | A China More Just
| | Author: | Gao Zhisheng | | Pages: | 255
| | Size: | 8.2x5.8 inches | | Binding: | Soft cover | | Publish date: | Fall 2007 | | ISBN: | 1-932674-36-5 | About the Author | Reviews | Preface | Excerpts About the Author
Gao Zhisheng rose from utter poverty to become one of China’s most acclaimed lawyers and a leading advocate for the oppressed. Life took a most unlikely turn in 1991 when Gao happened to learn, while selling vegetables by the roadside, that the country was looking to train new lawyers. Though possessed only a middle-school education, Gao taught himself law and passed the national bar examination in 1995.
Gao made headlines in 1999 by winning the largest medical malpractice lawsuit in Chinese history. In 2001, China’s Ministry of Justice named him one of the nation’s top-ten attorneys. A Christian, Gao has since become known for his tenacious pursuit of justice on behalf of China’s most vulnerable—from exploited coal miners to democracy advocates, the poor, and victims of religious persecution.
In 2005 Gao wrote a series of open letters to China’s authorities detailing his investigation into the torture of members of the Falun Gong. Thereafter he found himself “besieged,” as he put it, by infuriated Party rulers. Gao’s Beijing law firm was soon after shut down, his family put under surveillance, and attempts made on his life. In 2006 he initiated a series of hunger strikes that involved thousands worldwide.
Gao’s maltreatment by the Chinese regime has been the subject of formal resolutions by the United States Congress and the European Parliament. Rights groups such as Amnesty International have campaigned to ensure his welfare. He has been featured by The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian and many other prominent media.
In 2006 Gao became the recipient of the Chinese Liberal Culture Movement’s Special Human Rights Award, the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation’s Human Rights Champion Award, and in 2007 was awarded the American Board of Trial Advocates’ Courageous Advocacy Award. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
Reviews “An impressive and important story. We lose sight of the fact that, as Mr Gao's tale so frequently shows, when it's a case of Party or government power against individual rights in China, citizens often don't stand a chance, and that the talk about building a society on rule of law over the last few years has still got a long, long way to go. A sobering reminder of the dark underbelly of modern China that we all too frequently forget.” --Dr. Kerry Brown, Asia Program Fellow, Chatham House, London. “Gao Zhisheng is a man who represents China's Rights Defense movement. The work of Mr. Gao and fellow rights defenders has seriously shaken the oppressive political system of the Chinese Communist Party… Their work has brought hope to distressed and poverty-stricken people in China.
Reading this collection helps to better understand him and the cause of rights defenders.”
--Wei Jingsheng, prominent democracy activist who served 18 years in Chinese prisons.
"Freedom never emerges from the sky or from some benevolent ruler or benign court. Its only source is courage, the courage of individuals who assert their rights in the face of overwhelming power and the courage of those who show solidarity in their struggle for civil liberties by standing together against such oppression. Often it is the lawyers who are in the front line of freedom and this is the difficult position that Gao Zhisheng has occupied in China. His story is a reminder of how far China has to go to achieve some degree of justice and respect for individual freedom, and how much it will owe Gao Zhisheng and people like him when it eventually gets there." --Professor Conor Gearty, Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics Preface (by Gao Zhisheng)
“It is our misfortune to live in the China of this historical period. No one on this earth has ever had to experience or witness the suffering that has befallen us! Yet it is also our fortune to live in the China of this historical period. For we will experience and witness how the greatest people on earth banished this suffering once and for all!”
Such were my concluding remarks on December 21, 2005, offered as stinging tears rolled down my cheeks when I addressed fellow citizens who had come to Beijing to petition the government.
I have never been a man of letters, and so it never occurred to me that I would write a book—much less in times as stifling as these.
In this time when the majority of my fellow Chinese have become numb to, or have even adapted to, the darkness and fallacies of this age, my writings have sparked hatred and fear in those despots who operate in the shadows. When the passion, the edge, and the righteous indignation that mark some of my words (in particular those exposing the infuriating wickedness of this dictatorship) at times pierce through the thick darkness enshrouding my fellow citizens, they—having long since grown acclimated to, or been forced to acclimate to, the darkness—may find the light of my words unsettling. This suggests that I have failed to “acclimate” to the national psyche of China. So be it.
This era is not just about enduring setbacks, however. We also have our share of achievements in this day. For me, someone with merely eight years of formal education, it is an achievement to have written something others want to read, and even more so to see it published in book form.
It’s really not that I am fond of heaviness. But insofar as my writing is undeniably “heavy,” it is because the weight, the burden, that I feel forces me to think and compels me to act, to pick up my pen. I must narrate this story. I am moved by an ardent hope that by articulating it, I may in some way help to relieve China of the crushing burden on her back.
Strictly speaking, I should be counted as an activist, not a thinker; much less am I the founder of some institution. I have sought in my writing a style that delights in its uninhibitedness and that speaks directly from the heart. Much of my writing is improvisational and spurred by circumstance. I myself am surprised at times by the roughness that marks. Whatever the case, these are words that tell a tale both of the people’s violent, sanguinary, bitter pain, as well as of the noble character, dignity, and resoluteness of the freedom fighters who are counted among them. Yet no words, however strong, can possibly describe the darkness and terrible barbarity of today’s dictators in China, nor the tragic annihilation of Chinese culture that they have perpetrated. Though I have strived to convey these qualities through my writing, having attempted to unveil merely one corner of China’s darkness, I cannot help but feel the futility and frailty of language.
In today’s China, where the forces of incivility run rampant, it is common practice to mock what is beautiful and to beautify what is vile. A pathological China is not ready for what I write. But I hope such a China will soon emerge.
It is my sincerest wish that soon a China will exist where there is no need for chronicling such as mine. Excerpts Chapter 1: Growing Up Tender and Strong “Back when I was selling vegetables in 1991 there weren’t any plastic bags available, so a lot of the vendors used newspapers to wrap the vegetables. I remember well the day when I sold a vegetable to someone, and he used half a piece of newspaper to wrap it and left the other half on the ground. As I picked up the other half I saw that it was the Legal Daily News. The paper said that over the next ten years China would need 150,000 lawyers…” Chapter 2: A Lonely Mission “Things in China don’t operate along the same lines as those in countries with an adequate legal system. The way that even very minor cases are handled here ultimately reflects covert, systemic problems. These problems are very real and extremely serious. You never know where you might be able to effect positive, systemic change. Simply wanting to make such changes, however, puts you in a very dangerous position….”
Chapter 3: Advocating for Rights “In the end, we won the case with full success for little Weiyi [who had lost hearing in both ears due to medical error]. The court decided to grant him one hundred and eight thousand dollars in damages, which was the highest sum ever awarded in a medical malpractice suit in China…
“When I took Weiyi for an outing in Dandong, I was touched by the kindness of strangers. Since the local media had reported widely on the progress of the lawsuit, many local residents recognized us and offered assistance in their own way. The taxi driver refused to charge us for the ride. The park offered us free admission. The street vendors refused to accept money when I bought Weiyi something from their stalls. I joked with them that I should consider moving to Dandong because I would have no worries for the rest of my life.”
Chapter 4: Open Letters on Falun Gong
“Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, and all other conscientious fellow Chinese:
“Winter in Changchun is extremely cold, and although I am ‘in hiding’ in a room that has no water most of the time, my blood is boiling hot. I feel this way not because I am again writing an open letter to Hu and Wen; rather, it is the passion of working for the future of one of the greatest nations in the world…
“In this letter, I will not circumvent any of the real problems I saw, even if this means I may be arrested as soon as this is published…
“With a trembling heart and a trembling pen, I am now writing down the tragic experiences of those who have been persecuted in the last six years [since the regime banned Falun Gong]… Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were stripped naked before being tortured…”
Chapter 5: The Siege on My Family: A Journal
“Nearly twenty cars were getting into position outside, bearing license plates from different provinces; these were the vehicles used to tail my family members and keep watch over us. When they saw me coming downstairs and setting out to jog, the plainclothes officers reacted as if up against a formidable foe… It was only after they discovered that I was just getting morning exercise, and wouldn’t cause any ‘harm,’ that they simmered down and reduced the agents following me to four...”
------ “Over the past few years I have done all in my power with each legal case I’ve handled. And in return, the love and support given to me during this critical time has seemed as large as the mighty Yangtze River. My heart has been deeply touched, though I know they never had it in mind to win my gratitude. I feel guilty for not having done enough for them. Even if I were to give all of myself to these people, it wouldn’t be enough.”
Chapter 6: Breaking from the Party “This [Chinese Communist] Party has employed the most savage, most immoral, and most illegal means to torture our mothers, torture our wives, torture our children, and torture our brothers and sisters…
“Today, I, Gao Zhisheng… formally withdraw from this inhumane, unjust, and evil Party. This is the proudest day of my life.”
Chapter 7: The Hunger Strike Movement
“The state of human rights has quickly taken another turn for the worse, with the judicial system itself becoming a cruel force... Citizens whose rights are violated now stand helpless. It is in light of the above, and the larger pattern of brazen, unlawful violations that China’s citizens are being subjected to, that we hereby establish the Hunger Strike Group in Support of Human Rights…
“We cannot fathom how the people of China continue to learn of their fellow citizens being tortured and murdered by Chinese authorities, yet still remain silent. Our relay hunger strike means to call attention to those who have been hurt by tyranny and are alone…
“We hereby show our support to those Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and all citizens who are being persecuted under all kinds of false pretenses by the Party; we support these people no matter how many there might be! We hereby condemn and protest the continued tyranny, the corruption, and the inhumane persecution of innocent citizens. Each of us must be an agent of change!”
Last update : 21-10-2007 21:56
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