Human Rights Foundation Petitions UN On Behalf Of Artist Gao Zhen

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Human Rights Foundation Asks UN Panel to Rule Chinese Artist Gao Zhen's Detention Arbitrary

A prominent Chinese dissident artist whose studio was raided and stripped of more than 100 works is now the subject of a formal complaint to a United Nations body that reviews detention cases. The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has petitioned the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to find that the prolonged detention of Gao Zhen is arbitrary under international law.

Gao, 69, was arrested in China in 2024 on suspicion of“slandering China's heroes and martyrs,” a charge that HRF argues is being used to criminalize an artistic practice built around reworking official imagery and art-historical icons to puncture state mythmaking. During a police raid that year on his studio in Sanhe City, authorities seized more than 100 artworks. Among the works cited in HRF's filing are“Miss Mao,”“Mao's Guilt,” and“The Execution of Christ,” pieces that critique Chinese Communist Party authoritarianism and censorship.

In its April petition, HRF emphasized a timeline it says is central to the case: the three named works were created at least nine years before China enacted its 2021 law prohibiting“slandering” the nation's“heroes” and“martyrs.” HRF said applying the law to earlier artworks amounts to retroactive punishment under a statute it describes as vague and overly broad.

“Applying it retroactively to criminalize Zhen's artwork shows the lengths to which the CCP is willing to go to silence dissent,” HRF said in a statement.

The organization also pointed to the legal process surrounding Gao's prosecution. According to HRF, Gao's trial was postponed three times and ultimately held in a single day on March 30, 2026. HRF said the compressed proceeding suggests the outcome may have been decided in advance. Gao is still awaiting a verdict.

Beyond the charge itself, HRF's submission outlines alleged human rights violations during Gao's detention, including prolonged solitary confinement, denial of medical care, and confinement in overcrowded conditions. HRF said Gao has chronic back pain and has been deemed at risk for a stroke. The organization also alleged that he was at least once held in a crowded 40-square-meter cell with 14 other detainees.

Concerns about Gao's health and legal treatment have been raised by other rights groups as well. In October 2025, Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to drop what it called“baseless charges” against Gao, noting that he is a permanent US resident and in poor health. The organization said he had fainted the previous month.

Details of the 2024 studio raid have also been described by Gao's brother and artistic collaborator, Gao Qiang, who said authorities seized sculptures, paintings, and photographs. He reported that the confiscated works included a sculptural series depicting Mao in shifting, destabilizing forms, including as a woman with breasts and kneeling on the ground, as well as an image of a Chinese firing squad aiming at Jesus Christ.

After Gao's arrest, a petition signed by 181 artists, writers, activists, and intellectuals from China called for his release and drew explicit parallels between the current government under President Xi and the Mao era. The letter invoked the family's own history: during the Cultural Revolution, the Gao Brothers' father was accused of being a“counter-revolutionary” and died in detention.“Today, the Sanhe Public Security Bureau has labeled Gao Zhen's artistic creations as evidence of a crime, repeating the persecutions of the Cultural Revolution,” the petition stated.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which considers submissions from individuals and organizations, can issue opinions on whether detentions violate international norms. While its findings are not court judgments, they are often cited by governments, advocates, and international institutions as a benchmark for due process and human rights compliance. For artists whose work collides with state power, the case underscores how quickly a studio can become a crime scene - and how an artwork can be recast as evidence.

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