February, 02 2009, 02:17pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
AIUSA media office,Email:,media@aiusa.org,Phone: 202-544-0200 x302
China Must Immediately Disclose Whereabouts of Lawyer, Urge Human Rights Groups
Government Should Confirm Gao Zhisheng is Not Being Tortured or Ill-Treated
NEW YORK/LONDON
The Chinese government should immediately disclose the whereabouts of Gao Zhisheng, a leading human rights lawyer who disappeared two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Human Rights in China said today in a joint statement. The three organizations stressed that Gao was at immediate risk of severe torture and ill-treatment by the Chinese security services and called for his immediate release.
"We are intensely fearful for Gao Zhisheng's safety at this time, given the security authorities' long history of abusing him and his family," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "He has given detailed accounts of how he was tortured in police custody in the past and he may well be suffering more of the same right now."
Lawyer Gao, who had been under constant police surveillance, along with his family, since receiving a suspended sentence for "inciting subversion" in 2006, was last heard from on Jan. 19. According to reliable sources, he was subsequently detained by security forces and is being held at an unknown location.
"On Feb. 9, the Chinese government will undergo a comprehensive review of its human rights record at the U.N. Human Rights Council," said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China. "Coming close on the heels of the scathing review by the Committee Against Torture in November 2008, arbitrarily detaining and torturing a leading rights advocate is no way to show human rights progress."
In Sept. 2007, Gao was detained for several weeks shortly after sending an open letter to the U.S. Congress denouncing the human rights situation in China and describing his and his family's treatment at the hands of the security forces.
Gao detailed his illegal detention in 2007 and severe and sustained torture at the hands of security agents - including violent beatings, repeated electric shocks to his genitals, and having lit cigarettes held close to his eyes over a prolonged period, which left him partially blind for days afterwards. After he was released, acquaintances described him as seeming to be "a broken man," both physically and spiritually.
"China should immediately release Gao Zhisheng," said Roseann Rife, Asia-Pacific deputy director at Amnesty International. "China should demonstrate that its takes its international obligations seriously, in this case specifically the obligations under the convention against torture, which the Chinese government voluntarily took on in 1988."
In Nov. 2008, the U.N. Committee Against Torture (CAT) reported in its "Concluding Observations" on China that it remains "deeply concerned about the continued allegations, corroborated by numerous Chinese legal sources, of routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody."
Amnesty International, Human Rights in China and Human Rights Watch strongly urged concerned governments and intergovernmental bodies to call on the Chinese government to take all necessary steps to ensure Gao Zhisheng's safety and well being while in police custody and to release him at the earliest possible date.
Voted in 2001 as "one of China's top ten lawyers" by a publication run by the PRC Ministry of Justice, Gao is a self-trained legal professional with a history of representing the victims of some of the most egregious and politically controversial cases of human rights abuses by the police and other government agencies. In October 2005, he wrote a series of three letters to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao calling on them to halt the continuing torture and ill-treatment of detained Falun Gong practitioners and the ongoing persecution of underground Christians and democracy activists.
After his 2007 detention, Gao expressed fears that he would be tortured again if he was rearrested.
In June 2007, Gao received the Courageous Advocacy Award of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). His memoirs, A China More Just, were published in English the same year.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Chamber of Commerce Sues to Block FTC Ban on Anti-Worker Noncompete Agreements
"Why does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hate dynamism in the American economy, where workers are free to move to the best opportunities, and companies are free to recruit the best talent?" asked one economist.
Apr 24, 2024
The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday in an effort to block the agency's widely celebrated new rule banning most noncompete clauses, pervasive contract agreements that restrict employees' ability to work for or start a competing business.
The Chamber filed its lawsuit alongside the Business Roundtable and other corporate lobbying groups in a federal court in Texas. The suit came shortly after Ryan LLC, a tax service firm, filed the first legal challenge to the FTC's rule in a separate Texas venue.
"The commission's categorical ban on virtually all non-competes amounts to a vast overhaul of the national economy," reads the Chamber's complaint against the rule, which the FTC finalized in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday.
The agency, led by Biden-appointed Commissioner Lina Khan, estimates that roughly 30 million U.S. workers are subject to a noncompete agreement, limiting their ability to start their own companies or switch jobs in pursuit of better wages and benefits.
"Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned," Khan said in a statement Tuesday. "The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market."
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The Chamber, the largest corporate lobbying organization in the United States, signaled its intent to sue the FTC immediately after the agency finalized its new rule on Tuesday.
"The Federal Trade Commission's decision to ban employer noncompete agreements across the economy is not only unlawful but also a blatant power grab that will undermine American businesses’ ability to remain competitive," Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark said in a statement following the FTC's vote.
While the organization claims to fight for the interests of businesses small and large, a Public Citizen report published earlier this year found that the majority of the Chamber's legal work supports big corporations.
The Chamber acknowledged in response to questioning from a pair of Democratic senators last year that its corporate members use noncompete clauses—though the group did not specify which members.
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Hundreds of people, some wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, linked arms and chanted, "Free, free Palestine!" while blocking traffic and displaying the Seder plate.
"No one is free until everyone is free," read the banner. "Jews say stop arming Israel."
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Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) were the only members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the funding bill. Fifteen Republicans also opposed the bill over its inclusion of Ukraine aid.
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The 79 senators who voted to pass Biden's foreign aid bill/expand Israel's genocide in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/bVQisvOndd
— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) April 24, 2024
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