Human Rights

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention demanded the Chinese government to immediately release Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights lawyer who has been detained for nearly a year. The Group said that "the detention violated international law because Gao’s disappearance was punishment for exercising his fundamental human rights and because the government failed to meet even the minimum international standards for due process,” In response, a Chinese FM spokeswoman said she was unaware of Gao's whereabouts, but that the UN should respect China's "judicial sovereignty", as "China is a country ruled by law, with an independent judiciary that handles cases."