China dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng 'in Xinjiang jail'
One of China's best known dissidents, missing for 20 months, is now said to be in a Xinjiang prison - Gao Zhisheng, an attorney who's defended activists & religious minorities, is an outspoken critic of the Chinese government. - Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer, was arrested in February 2009, released briefly in March 2010 and disappeared soon after. The official Xinhua news agency reported last month that Mr Gao had been sent back to jail for three years for violating probation rules. On Sunday his brother said he had received a court document saying his brother was in jail in Xinjiang. Gao Zhiyi said he planned to visit his brother in the Shaya County jail in the western prefecture of Aksu later this month. "I did not know where my brother was for over a year,'' he told AFP news agency. ''I always knew that he was not free and he was under control of the government and state security." In the 1950s and 60s, political prisoners were often sent to Xinjiang. Human rights activists, responding to the news, said that imprisoning Mr Gao in the remote area was an attempt to deter visitors.