Gao Ke (高科), 72, was a retired elementary school teacher in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in February 2024 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline persecuted in China since July 1999.
Mr. Gao, a retired teacher of Yumin Primary School in Harbin’s Daowai District, took up Falun Gong at the end of 1996, according to Minghui, a Falun Gong-affiliated reporting network. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, he was repeatedly targeted. Minghui records sixteen arrests between 2000 and 2023 and five terms of forced labor. His first arrest came on December 12, 2000, after he traveled to Beijing to appeal; he was given one year of forced labor and released ahead of time on September 30, 2001. In March 2002 he was arrested again and given three years at the Changlinzi Forced Labor Camp, where, according to Minghui reporting, he was held in a confinement cell inmates called “the kennels” and tortured until he vomited blood. In February 2008, again at Changlinzi, guards strapped him to an iron chair for ten days after he urged a camp official to quit the Chinese Communist Party; the ordeal nearly left him disabled, according to the same reporting.
On September 14, 2022, Mr. Gao was arrested for distributing calendars bearing information about Falun Gong. He was released on bail days later after a physical examination found high blood pressure, but when police ordered him to report to the Daowai District Procuratorate in February 2023, he refused and went into hiding. Officers harassed his wife and son and posted watchers outside his apartment building. On June 16, 2023, an officer who recognized him seized him while he was grocery shopping in Bin County. He was taken to the Yaziquan Detention Center in Harbin, where, according to Minghui, two inmates watched him around the clock, beat him, and denied him restroom use; he went on hunger strike, was force-fed on the seventh day, went into shock, and was rushed to a hospital. Four days later guards brought him back to the detention center although he could barely care for himself.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in February 2024; no charge article and no trial details were reported in the available sources. He was first held in the Hulan Prison training camp and later transferred to Tailai Prison in Qiqihar, where Minghui reported his admission in January 2025.
On May 10, 2026, Minghui reported that Mr. Gao had died on April 20, 2026, at Tailai Prison after suffering a mental breakdown in custody. Separately, the Issue 131 rights-defense roster dated August 31, 2026 lists “Gao Ke” among its reported current-custody cases. The two dated claims conflict: the death account is a Minghui report that has not been independently verified, and the roster listing is a dated source claim that may be stale. His status as of late 2026 should therefore be treated as contested, not settled.
All allegations of torture, forced feeding, and abuse in the paragraphs above come from Minghui reporting and the related investigation notice by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong; they are reported claims, not independently verified facts. No court judgment or official record of his case has been located.
Sources: Minghui.org, February 5, 2024 and May 10, 2026; Minghui.org January 2025 Tailai Prison reporting; Clearharmony, 2008. See the Media Profile & Archive for full source detail, reporting chronology, and provenance.
View the Gao Ke (高科) Media Profile & Archive for full source detail, reporting chronology, and provenance.