Breaking news in from the New York Times, Gao is missing again, please keep him and his family in your prayers. Click here for the full story.
BEIJING — Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human-rights lawyer whose 14-month disappearance at the hands of Chinese security agents stirred an international outcry until his release last month, has again vanished, his friends said Friday.
Associates said Mr. Gao failed to return to a Beijing apartment on April 20 after spending more than a week in Urumqi, the capital of western China’s Xinjiang region, where he had been visiting his father-in-law. Mr. Gao had telephoned his father-in-law as his plane left Urumqi, saying he would call upon his arrival in Beijing, they said.
That was his last contact with the outside world. Li Heping, another Beijing human-rights lawyer and a close friend, said he had visited Mr. Gao’s apartment repeatedly but had not found him.
“There was a thick layer of dust on the door handle,” said Mr. Li, who last went to Mr. Gao’s apartment on Thursday. “No one had been there for a while. I have no idea who to call, or who has taken him.”
Others said they were sure that he had been returned to government custody and that his brief release had been a ploy to try to demonstrate to the outside world that he had not been mistreated while in detention.