Four US senators on Thursday urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to free prominent human rights lawyer and rights advocate Gao Zhisheng on the eve of the 100th day since he was taken by security forces.
"Mr Gao's disappearance appears to be in violation of both Chinese and international law," wrote Democratic Senators Byron Dorgan, Christopher Dodd and Russell Feingold as well as Republican Senator Sam Brownback.
"We urge your government to inform the concerned public of his whereabouts, to guarantee Mr Gao's right to be free from arbitrary detention, and to secure his release," they said in a letter to Hu.
Gao, once a prominent lawyer and communist party member, has been an outspoken defender of people seeking redress from the government including coal miners, underground Christians and the banned Falungong spiritual movement.
In December 2006, he was convicted of subversion and given a suspended sentence of three years in prison, immediately placed under house arrest and put on probation for five years.
State security personnel took Gao from his home village in the northwestern province of Shaanxi on February 4 and he has not been heard from since, according to the New York-based Human Rights in China.
"We fear that Mr Gao's life may be in grave danger, given Mr. Gao's past treatment at the hands of public security officers (and others working under their direction)," wrote the senators.
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