Extra Bio Info:

Gao Zhisheng remains forcibly disappeared for his work defending human rights and religious minorities.

On August 13, 2017, Gao, a human rights lawyer, was forcibly disappeared from his home in Jia County, Yulin Municipality, Shaanxi Province.  His exact whereabouts and condition are unknown.

Gao has previously served time in prison and been subjected to forced disappearance.  He was well known for representing Christians and Falun Gong practitioners and criticizing the state's treatment of them. In August 2006, Gao was forcibly disappeared and then later found guilty of subversion.  He was sentenced to three years in prison; however, the sentence was suspended. In December 2011, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court ordered Gao to serve that three-year sentence after he was accused of allegedly violating the terms of his suspended sentence. Up until his most recent disappearance, authorities had placed Gao under home confinement following his release from prison in August 2014.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA, Ret.) advocated for Gao as part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission's Defending Freedoms Project. 

Extra Bio Info:

Chunmei Wang was imprisoned for her religious activity. 

On May 27, 2020, Kaiyuan City police arrested Wang, a retiree from Kaiyuan City, Yunnan Province who worked at the Honghe Power Supply after she allegedly talked to people about Falun Gong. She was initially held at the Honghezhou Detention Center.

On June 10, 2020, Wang was indicted. Her family was reportedly allowed to hire her a lawyer but was unable to visit her. 

On December 9, 2020, Wang was sentenced to three years and six months in prison on unidentified charges. 

In late February or early March 2021, Wang was transferred to No. 2 Women's Prison in Yunnan Province.

In May 2021, Wang was reportedly able to talk to her husband very briefly on the phone.

Wang should have been released in November 2023. 

Wang has previously served time in prison for her religious activity.  In 2014, she was arrested for sharing Falun Gong information and VPN access with street vendors.  She spent three years in jail.

Extra Bio Info:

Ilham Tohti is imprisoned for his ethnoreligious identity and activism. 

On January 15, 2014, authorities arrested Tohti, an economics professor, after police raided his home and seized his laptop and books.

In September 2014, Tohti was found guilty of "separatism" and sentenced to life in prison.  Prosecutors accused him of promoting independence for Xinjiang on his his Chinese-language website, Uighur Online, which he founded to to cultivate Uyghur-Han understanding.  Additionally, all of Tohti's assets were frozen.

Since 2017, Tohti has been held incommunicado.

On July 17, 2019, President Donald Trump met with Tohti's daughter, Jewher Tohti, at the White House.

Tohti has been previously targeted by the state.  In 2009, he was forcibly disappeared after authorities accused his website of helping to incite the July 2009 Urumqi Riots.  He was subsequently released. 

Rep. James R. Langevin (D-RI, Ret.) advocated for Tohti as part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission's Defending Freedoms Project.