On April 6, I received a tape of a conversation between attorney Gao Zhisheng and Hu Jia. Initially, I didn't know what to think of the conversation. As I listened to attorney Gao describing how Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities persecuted him and his family in the last few months, I wept.

Three years ago, I met Gao at a human rights event in Guangzhou, China. Gao's openness, humor, and bold criticism of the CCP impressed me. After that, we stayed in touch. Being a Radio announcer at the Sound of Hope and a special reporter for The Epoch Times, I interviewed Gao many times and we became close friends.

During my interview with Gao, he told me of a conversation he'd had with a judicial official. The official told Gao that The Epoch Times was a Falun Gong website. Gao smiled and told the supervisor, "Then that must be a good website!"

In 2004 Gao started to pay more attention to the plight of the Falun Gong practitioners. He told me that many of the persecution cases against Falun Gong shocked him deeply and saddened him. He also felt desperate to try and help them

Gao's sympathy towards Falun Gong got him in a lot of trouble. For a long period, special agents from the national security administration asked to meet him everyday, and sometimes these meetings lasted hours. At the end of 2004, the national security officials arrested Gao and detained him for three days. At the time Gao wouldn't let me reveal this story to the public. Till now, not many people knew much about this incident.

Gao's comment on Jiang Zemin stepping down was most likely the cause of his arrest in 2004. Gao said in one of my interviews in September 2004, "The Chinese people's hatred toward Jiang has come to a climax because he's done the most evil possible ... Jiang's ruling has caused the total collapse of the judicial system, judicial belief, and judicial righteousness. If the CCP collapsed one day, Jiang would have been the number one contributor, and he would have definitely accelerated this process."

Gao also said, "People were excited about Jiang's stepping down. Though in China, the opinion of people is not important, the mainstream voice was strong enough to finally restrain the dictator. Jiang's stepping down is a result of the CCP's fear, not respect for the people's opinion. The CCP's system doesn't have this kind of self-awakening element."

A lot of media posted Gao's candid analysis and it drew attention from high-level Chinese officials. Two weeks later, Gao was arrested and was released three days later. He told me on the phone the national security arrested him while he was out. They tortured and interrogated him nonstop for three days in order to stop him from defending Falun Gong practitioners.

Gao didn't tell me what the national security did exactly; he only mentioned that it was a deadly test for him. I asked whether his family knew about this, he said he didn't tell his family and he didn't want to cause them worries. I heard Gao sobbed on the other side of the phone thinking about how his family might get into trouble for what he was involved in. He is a tough man on the outside and a loving family man on the inside. His love for his family was making him suffer for his decision.

I still don't know what happened to Gao in those three days, but I know Gao must have let the CCP know what a courageous man is like. The CCP had no other way but to go against public opinion and aim the persecution towards Gao's family and relatives. Gao is a good husband and a good father. The CCP had to make him choose between justice for society and responsibility for his family. I thought to myself at that time that Gao might never be able to appeal for Falun Gong again.

However, not long after Gao was released, he started to provide legal help to the Shijiazhuang residents and a Falun Gong practitioner Huang Wei who was in a forced labor camp. After his appeal was denied by several courts in Zhijiazhuang, he published his first open letter for to the People's Republic of China (PRC) People's Congress to appeal for Huang Wei.

I have personally known Gao for three years. I have never seen him weighing any self interest into the work he's done for others. He always prioritized others' pain above his own. His wife Ms. Geng told me that Gao would see anyone who came for his help no matter how busy he was. Gao once told her, "It's not about whether I can help them or not, I just can't let them lose their hope to live on."

I understood then that between his life and justice, he would always choose the later without the slightest hesitance. That is why the evil CCP made his family choose between justice and life. That was a great blow on Gao, who loves his family deeply.

The CCP used all means to damage Gao's reputation because it knew Gao was famous and a great leader of all human right activists in China. Because the CCP has to keep suppressing human rights in China in order to keep in power, the evil regime destroyed Gao's will to help those in most need in China—the persecuted

I want to tell attorney Gao who is currently in Beijing that what you have done has made you a good husband, good father, and a good lawyer. Your responsibility to your family, your virtue, courage, and true insight in front of the most evil political power will shine and be recorded in the history of human conscience forever.

Note: The author is the first to have reported on the CCP's abuses against Gao Zhisheng.