Special to WorldTribune.com

Chinese dissident and top civil rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said he was brutally tortured during three years confined in prison and could barely walk upon his release in August 2014.

“Every time we emerge from the prison alive, it is a defeat for our opponents,” Gao, who was imprisoned for subversion, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

The 51-year-old lawyer gained international fame and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for his defense of the banned Falun Gong movement and standing up for farmers in land rights disputes. Gao, a Christian, has been in and out of confinement since 2006.

Gao said that an electric cattle prod to his face was among the types of torture he endured.

“I thought about giving up and giving my time to my family, but it’s the mission God has given me” to stay in China, said Gao, who told the AP he managed to survive three years in solitary confinement through his faith in God and ultimate hope for his country.

At one point during his time in the Xinjiang prison, Gao said authorities installed a loudspeaker in his cell that blared socialist propaganda for 68 weeks straight.

“You cannot imagine the mental harassment they inflicted upon me,” Gao said.

Faxed questions from AP to the Chinese ministries of public security, justice and foreign affairs on Gao’s allegations of torture were not answered.

Gao’s wife, daughter and son, are living in the United States. His wife, Geng He, has questioned whe Gao remains under house arrest in China.

“I don’t understand why the government has to imprison him. He is just a lawyer. His legal profession requires him to help and serve others. Why is he being treated like this?” she said . “He is standing up for greater freedom in China.”

Geng He had said she would like to see Gao’s case discussed when Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama meet in Washington, but then posted on Twitter that Gao had sent her a letter asking that she decline an invitation to meet with a U.S. deputy secretary of state ahead of the Xi-Obama summit.

In the letter, Gao told Geng He that meeting with American officials while U.S. politicians glad-hand the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was not worth the effort.

Gao wrote that, since the administration of President Bill Clinton, “the American political class has disregarded the basic humanitarian principles and muddied itself by getting so close to the sinister Communist Party.”

Gao said he wants to be reunited with his family but that he feels he must stay in China.

“My wife is suffering, but I can do nothing,” he said. “I understand those persecuted souls who have left China and I am glad for them, but I cannot be among them. I cannot go.”

  Chinese rights lawyer describes torture with cattle prod to the face in prison, Falun Gong, Gao Zhisheng, WorldTribune.com, Xi Jinping