UPDATED at 09:20 A.M. EST on 2015-08-07
Human rights and press freedom groups on Thursday called on Beijing to release veteran Chinese journalist Gao Yu, who is currently serving a jail term for "leaking state secrets," amid fears that her health may be rapidly deteriorating.
Gao, 71, currently suffers from chronic heart pain, high blood pressure, and other diseases and has signs of a lymph node growth that could be malignant, an open letter signed by 15 international groups said.
She was sentenced to a seven-year jail term by the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court in April for "leaking state secrets overseas,” but she has repeatedly denied breaking Chinese law, saying that a televised "confession" on which the prosecution based its case was obtained under duress.
A spokesman for the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said the group has identified a number of areas in which the authorities had broken China's own laws in their prosecution of Gao.
"We are doubtful, for a start, about the validity of the charges brought against Gao in the first place," the spokesman said. "There were also a lot of breaches of procedure during the investigation [including] her confession on [state broadcaster] CCTV."
"She is in need of immediate and urgent medical care, and that is the basis on which we call for ... the release of Gao Yu," he said.
Health needs unmet
Maya Wang, China researcher for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that Gao is being held in a place where only the most basic medical facilities are available.
"They can't really meet [Gao Yu's] needs," Wang told RFA. "Her situation is also somewhat lacking in other things, like proper food and nutrition."
"We are very worried that if she stays in the detention center for a prolonged period, this could make her medical conditions worse," Wang said.
Chinese law provides for suspects with "serious health problems" to be released on medical parole, she added.
"This is someone who is 71 years old, and she should never have been locked up there in the first place, because all she was doing was exercising her right to free expression," Wang said.
HRW China director Sophie Richardson said Gao's imprisonment was "unjust" in the first place.
"Gao should be released immediately to get the medical care she needs," Richardson said in a statement posted on HRW's website.
She said the Chinese authorities have shown "cruel disregard" for the health of prisoners of conscience, citing the deaths in custody of rights activist Cao Shunli and of popular Tibetan monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche.
Meetings restricted
The letter, which was signed by HRW, Amnesty International, and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), called on President Xi Jinping to release Gao immediately, along with any others jailed for the peaceful expression of their political views.
Also signed by Human Rights in China, Independent Chinese PEN, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, and several Hong Kong-based rights groups, the letter called for an independent investigation into the deaths of Cao and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, and for visits to Chinese prisons by the United Nations expert on torture.
Gao's attorney Mo Shaoping said fellow defense lawyer Shang Baojun last met with her onJuly 28, but added that the police are still restricting Gao's meetings with her defense team, who have applied for her release on parole.
"We are now at the stage of the second appeal, so for them to restrict my access to Gao Yu is in itself against the law," Mo said, adding that police have tried to put pressure on her to plead guilty with mitigating circumstances in her appeal, and to fire him.
"The police have no right to tell somebody to change their lawyer, nor to demand that the lawyer make a certain sort of defense," he said.
He said that while Gao appears to have access to medication in the detention center, there is no question of her health improving there.
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
CORRECTION: An earlier version said attorney Mo Shaoping had met Gao on July 28.