Many NR readers will be well familiar with Gao Zhisheng. I’ve written about him since 2009, I think. He is a human-rights lawyer in China. He defended Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and other persecuted people. This did not sit well with the authorities — who imprisoned and tortured him for ten years. Why he didn’t die is almost miraculous.
He is now under house arrest in a remote rural area. He is allowed very little contact with the outside world. His body has been brutalized, but he has remained sane, thanks to his Christian faith. Gao Zhisheng is one of the noblest and most heroic men in China or anywhere else.
In 2009, his wife and two children escaped the country, going to Thailand and then to the United States. One of those children is Grace, a college senior. She is currently at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and so am I. We sat down for a podcast: a Q&A, here.
Her role has been very, very hard. She did not choose to have this hero father. She did not choose to be a pariah in her native country. But there it is. And her words are interesting, amazing, and inspiring.