![]() But allowances should be made for the polemical style. ![]() Unfortunately too many places in the world could lay claim to that description. People in North Korea or ISIS-controlled territory in Syria or Iraq, for example, may take issue with his suggestion that “the cruel reality of extreme hostility to human rights has made documenting human rights in China the most dangerous cause in the world”. Gao’s analysis could be criticised for hyperbole. China, under Xi Jinping is, he says, enduring “the harshest and most brutal political oppression since the end of Mao Zedong’s rule”. He covers a wide range of themes, from violations of freedom of expression and religious persecution to land rights and police brutality, and describes China as a “killing field”. Somehow despite the Chinese state’s authoritarianism, he was able to compile an analysis of the regime’s human rights violations, drawing on information provided by what he calls “a petitioner in dark nights”. On 7 August 2014 Gao was released from prison, but in August this year he disappeared again. He was then returned to prison for a further three years. On one occasion he was held incommunicado and tortured for six weeks. During his probation period he was forcibly ‘disappeared’ at least six times. He was then sentenced to three years in jail but given a five-year suspended sentence on probation, charged with incitement to subvert state power. Known for defending Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and other vulnerable groups, Gao’s licence was revoked and his law firm closed down in 2006. Gao Zhisheng is perhaps China’s best known human rights lawyer, and certainly one of its bravest. Those in Hong Kong and mainland China who challenge the Communist Party face a far graver fate. I suffered an unpleasant inconvenience, but within 24 hours I was safely home in London, able to see family and friends, and free to speak out. Yet that campaign of repression takes far more serious forms for Chinese activists, in Hong Kong and the mainland, than anything I experienced. My experience helped shine a spotlight on the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy, and on Xi Jinping’s intense repression of any and all dissent. The Global Times, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, argued that any country has a right to refuse entry to anyone who poses a “serious threat to the security, stability and interests of the nation” – correct in principle, but hardly a category I had ever imagined belonging to. I was put on a return flight to Bangkok, just two hours after I had landed, and found myself at the centre of a media storm and diplomatic row. Just under a month ago, I was denied entry to Hong Kong, on the orders of the Chinese government.
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