“Senior Pastors Yang Rongli and Wang Xiaoguang were sentenced to 7 and 3 years in prison respectively, at the show trial.”
“SHANXI–ChinaAid just learned that the trial of Linfen house church leaders in Shanxi province was held from 9:00 AM to about 10:00 PM on November 25 (Beijing time), lasting over 12 hours. Pastors Yang Rongli, Wang Xiaoguang, Yang Xuan, Cui Jiaxing, and Zhang Huamei have been been held in detention since their unwarranted arrests on Friday, September 25, 2009, when they attempted to travel to Beijing an lodge a formal complaint about the destruction of their church to the Central governing authorities. Their trial was held in the No. 12 Trial Room at People’s Court of Raodu District, Linfen City, Shanxi province.”
“The verdicts were severe and were announced immediately following the trial. Two criminal charges were used– the crime of “illegally occupying farming land” and “disturbing transportation order by gathering masses.” Sister Yang Rongli received 7 years severe sentence for both charges; Pastor Wang 3 yrs for the first charge, brother Yang Xuan, 3 and a half years, and Cui Jiaxing earned 4 and a half years for the first charge; Sister Zhang Huamei was found guilty of the second charge, and sentenced to 4 years in prison.”
“Sister Yang Rongli and Pastor Wang Xiaoguang’s son was able to briefly chat with his parents during one recess time near the bathroom outside the court room. Sister Yang and Pastor Wang encouraged their son to stand firm in his faith in Christ. Yang and Wang have led the Fushan church, part of the 50,000 members house church network in Linfen and the surrounding villages, for more than 30 years. The Fushan Church leaders unwarranted arrests, detentions, and severe sentences after the massive church destruction on September 13, marks one of the worst crackdown on house church leaders in the past decade.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: LAOGAI RESEARCH FOUNDATION CALLS ON EU TO SUSPEND PREFERENTIAL TRADE ACCESS FOR CHINA UNDER THE GSP
Bredenbeck, Germany, December 1, 2009- The Laogai Research Foundation (LRF), in association with the International Society for Human Rights (Frankfurt), formally call on the European Commission to suspend the People’s Republic of China’s non-reciprocal preferential access to the EU market provided under the GSP scheme until China stops exporting products to the EU made in the Laogai, China’s vast system of forced labor prison camps.
The Laogai not only serves to suppress dissent; it also functions as a massive source of free labor. Inmates within the Laogai system are forced to labor long hours in abusive conditions. LRF has documented cases where inmates were working 16-18 hours a day in mines with no protective gear, handling battery acid with no gloves, and standing naked in vats of tanning chemicals. The Laogai Research Foundation has documented hundreds of businesses that advertise their products for export to the US and Europe, and Laogai-made goods find their way into these markets on a daily basis. Unfortunately, due to intentional deception on the part of Laogai enterprises, and a patchwork of incomplete and ineffective international regulations, these Laogai enterprises not only continue to operate, but also to profit handsomely by exporting goods made by prisoners who are not compensated for their labor. Although China officially banned the export of forced labor products, this law is not enforced, and international requests for inspections of suspected Laogai facilities are routinely denied.
For this reason, LRF calls on the European Commission to suspend China’s preferential GSP status until China enforces its own laws on the export of forced labor products. Additionally, we call on the EU to consider legislation to ban the import of forced labor products from China.
Peter E. Mueller, European Representative of the LAOGAI Research Foundation (LRF), Washington DC, has already met with several Members of the European Parliament, among them Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the EU-Parliament, Crescenzio Rivellini, head of the EU/China Delegation, Mrs. Helga Trüpel of the Green Party and Mr. Michael Gahler of the Christian Democrats, but foremost with Mrs. Heidi Hautala, Chairwoman of the EU Human Rights Committee. In these meetings, Mr. Mueller urged them to support the suspension of China’s preferential GSP status and consider a ban on the importation of Laogai-made products, noting that the Laogai system of forced labor camps is the PRC’s foremost tool of political repression.
LRF Executive Director Harry Wu commented, “The EU is typically ahead of the US when it comes to human rights, but on this issue they lag behind.” (The US has banned the importation of forced labor products since the 1930s.) Mr. Wu added further, “Basic human rights should not be left behind in the drive to improve economic relations between China and the EU.”
The Laogai Research Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded by former political prisoner Harry Wu in 1992. Its mission is to gather information on and raise public awareness of the Laogai–China’s extensive system of forced labor prison camps. For more information, please visit www.laogai.org, e-mail laogai@laogai.org, or call +1-202-408-8300.
— ChinaAid reports: “500 Wanbang Church Members Meet Despite Leaders’ Detentions”
— “SHANGHAI–On Sunday, November 22, Wanbang church pastors Cui Quan, Cui Longguo, Liu Quanqin, and Huang Yun were detained for over 8 hours and interrogated for allegedly “engaging in illegal organization and activities.” Two church deacons, Piao Longyi and Shi Weidong, were detained over Saturday night to prevent them from leading worship. Despite the detention of their leaders, over 500 dedicated church members assembled outdoors to hold the two scheduled morning worship services. Police tried to intimidate members and prevent them from worshipping, but they stood their ground and refused to stop singing. Shanghai PSB officers have interrogated and detained many of the 2,000 members of Wanbang Missionary Church, but the church continues to meet.”
— “Senior Pastor Cui Quan and the three other pastors were detained for over 8 hours to prevent their attendance. They were released at 2:30 PM on Sunday, Nov. 22. Pastor Liu Quanqin is still in discussion with the PSB station about the injury to his fingers and damage to his personal property, inflicted by the officers.”
— “Despite the detention of their leaders, over 500 dedicated church members assembled outdoors to hold the two scheduled morning worship services. Local authorities reportedly tried to intimidate members and prevent them from attending with threats, but were unsuccessful. Church members refused to stop singing and worshipping. This Sunday’s thwarted attempt to prevent worship was preceded by last weeks video-taped surveillance of the church’s meeting in the park.”
Communist China - despite Communist detention of pastors, 500 of Wanbang church continue to worship (ChinaAid)
The name of our organization, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.), consciously reflects our mission – not only to defend our universal human rights of both equality and liberty – but also to be individually responsible for these human rights. Our mission asserts that one of the most essential parts of the individual human identity is our consistent and credible responsibility for such universal human rights. It is the need for individuals to reclaim this responsibility and to restore a culture where such human rights are a priority that is the highest goal of revitalizing outreach to our fellow human beings.
Furthermore, we view such human rights as inalienable rights. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “all human beings are born free,” and their universal human rights are not limited to the “political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory.” No nation, no political organization, and no ideology has the right to take such universal human rights away. They are inherent human rights. But for their preservation, they are also inherent individual responsibilities.
It is our support for such universal human rights and our belief that defending such rights are the responsibility of “every individual” that is the heart of our mission. The defense of human rights begins with each one of us as individuals. Our collective accomplishments will only matter as long as retain personal responsibility for equality and liberty. This means that we cannot expect “someone else” to solve the human rights problems of the world – whether it is a government, an international body, a culture, a religion, or an ideology – it is our job as individuals – we must be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
Our support for individual human rights responsibility does not demand the ending of all state, charitable, or organizational support to the many who are in need. Without mercy and without dignity for our fellow human beings, any call for human rights would be insincere. Our love for our fellow human beings calls for us both to extend human mercy and defense of human rights. Suffering due to material hardships is just as real as suffering due to denial of equality and liberty.
Such individual responsibility also demands accountability for those ideologies that we identify with that defy such universal human rights.
Accountability matters. Consistency matters. There is nothing “political” about seeking individual accountability on the ideologies that one holds – and how those ideologies do or do not support human rights. We hold people accountable for their racial supremacist views and for their views attacking religious freedom. So we must also call for individual accountability for those who would claim that they can support Communism and support universal human rights to challenge extremism.
Some have told me that in some parts of the world, some ex-Muslims choose to identify with Communist organizations as a way to distance themselves from the theocratic trap of extremism. We respectfully urge them to reconsider their choices in believing that the ideology of Communism is ever an answer to human rights.
Our true power as human beings begins with the power of ONE. Our true freedoms as human beings begins with power of human individuality. The belief that a paternalistic ideology that historically has proven in history that it seeks to crush human individuality, crush human freedom, and crush human liberty – is never the answer to a future where you and your children can be free.
Any “collective” or “caliphate,” with seemingly Utopian objectives, can only be measured by its commitment to individual, universal human rights. History has shown both for extremism and Communism how such individual human rights are readily discarded.
If we truly believe in universal human rights, sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the demands of the many.
If we truly believe in universal human rights, then we must oppose all dictatorships, including those who would call for a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The historical reality in Communist nations is that dictatorship by any name – results in simply another dictatorship.
I have been told that it is not productive to challenge those who promote Communism as an ideology, while they claim to be for universal human rights. I have been told by some that such Communist challenges to extremism are not an unwillingness to criticize Communist China, but simply a focus on where these individuals seek to focus their energies. I have been told that such Communist ideological views are “political” issues and that we must rise above such “political issues” in supporting human rights.
In fact, we do support universal human rights above all political ideologies. But this does not abrogate the need to challenge individuals who claim to support universal human rights, when they promote anti-freedom ideologies.
But the human rights threat of the ideology of Communism is more than a historical concern. It is a very real and mortal threat to the human rights of children, women, and men in the world today. While there are a reported 1.5 billion global adherents to Islam, there are 1.3 billion suffering under the oppression of the ideology of Communism in Communist China alone. There are over1,000 Laogai concentration camps in Communist China holding 6.8 million human beings.
Laogai Forced Labor Camps
There are countless others imprisoned in Communist North Korean concentration camps. The millions that have been starved to death and murdered by Communist regimes in the past and continuing today are incalculable. Communist China, Communist North Korea, and Communist Vietnam are some of the top offenders in human trafficking in the world, including trafficking of children.
So while we appreciate those who would defy extremism as an anti-freedom ideology, we also challenge them to be consistent in their support for universal human rights. It is not credible to claim that we are supporting universal human rights, while turning a blind eye to the historical and present day horrific abuses of human rights by Communist nations.
In challenging “One Law for All’s” leader Maryam Namazie on her support for Communism (Ms. Namazie is a leader in the Communist Party of Iran), she replied: “I am a worker-communist – don’t support the Chinese or any of the totalitarian governments that called themselves communist – but I campaign on matters that are close to my heart because of my experience and field of interest. Anyway not going to be responding on this anymore.”
Maryam Namazie continues to position herself as a proponent of universal human rights for women and children in a rally in London today, challenging Sharia law, while defending Communism. We believe that two wrongs don’t make a right, and that consistency and credibility are essential in promoting universal human rights.
Wang Shouxin refuses to kneel down before being shot to death, but the soldiers force her by kicking her knee (Photo: LI ZHENSHENG)
In alloftheprotestsandcandlelight ceremonies remembering the victims of Communist Chinese and Communist North Koreanauthorities, I have yet to see a single “Worker-Communist” there to remember such victims of human rights atrocities and give evidence to how Communism as an ideology does not seek totalitarianism, does not seek a “dictatorship,” and does not fundamentally deny universal human rights.
It is a message that Communist ideologues cannot honestly state.
The continuing global Communist democides of our fellow human beings are a testimony to Communism’s rejection of our universal human rights.
Individual responsibility for human rights cannot be achieved by expecting our responsibilities to be assumed by Communist governments or other organizations. Such responsibilities are our choice, and our obligation.
As individuals, we must be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
In Washington DC, on November 10, human rights activists testified to Communist China’s pride in “preventing 400 million births,” including the use of forced abortion. Human rights activists also spoke of the “abortion, abandonment, and infanticide of baby girls” due to Communist pressures and the “burgeoning black market in stolen children – 70,000 a year” created by Communist China’s official policies.
Such discussion of methods included:
— Damohuyang: posted “Over 90% of 35-week infants died under induced labor. Most of them died of skull puncture.” “Damohuyang” further described that some that were alive “would be left in trashcans. Some of them could still live for one to two days.”
— Xuexia: “Actually you should have punctured the fetus’ skull. By doing this there will be less damage and also you won’t get an infant born alive.”
Another women testified on November 10, 2009 on Captiol Hill how the Communist Chinese doctors forcibly removed and mutilated her baby from her womb.
The Communist Chinese government’s adoption of the Convention on Children’s Rights was based on the caveat that the Communist government “interprets the Convention as applicable only following a live birth.”
Others testified to how Communist Chinese policies had led to the development of a culture of abandoning those children that the Communist government prohibited, for fear of retribution.
Yet the Communist Chinese government today baldly and unashamedly uses the 20th anniversary of the Convention on Children’s Rights to claim its “love” of children.
For the real love of children, those of us Responsible for Equality And Liberty must condemn the inhuman and horrific violence against babies that has been rationalized by the Communist government and the astounding abuse of children in that Communist country.
The June 2009 U.S. State Department report on human trafficking states that “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.” According to this report, this includes the operation of an “extensive child forced labor network” in one province “with thousands of children as young as seven years old.” Earlier Congressional testimony on the Communist Chinese Laogai concentration camps deaths have included children and infants.
ChinaAid reports that on November 18, when Jiang Tianyong and a handful of other human rights lawyers attempted to meet with U.S. President Obama, the U.S. Embassy told Mr. Tianyong that President would not meet the group. The groups was then surrounded by 200 Communist Chinese “police officers,” and interrogated. The next day, Mr. Tianyong was arrested and his wife beaten in front of their 7 year old daughter.
Human Rights Attorney and Defender of Women's Rights Jiang Tianyong -- Arrested November 19, 2009 by Communist Chinese Authorities
“BEIJIN — At 7:40 AM (Beijing time) on Nov. 19, Jiang Tianyong and his wife attempted to leave their home to take their daughter to school, when they were barred from leaving the apartment building by Public Security Bureau officers assembled at the gate. Before Jiang could speak with them, four officers grabbed him violently and forced him into a police car. A police officer named Wang Tao threw his wife to the ground and began striking her. Jiang’s 7-year-old daughter cried helplessly as she watched her father being dragged away to detention by the officers.”
“Jiang Tianyong was arrested and held in detention at the Yangfangdian PSB office of Haidian District, Beijing for over 13 hours, under the guard of Officers Li Aimin and Wang Tao. He was allowed only one meal during his detention. A dozen human rights lawyers rallied in front of the station to demand Jiang’s release and to show support for their colleague. He was released at 9:26 PM (Beijing time) to return home to his family.”
“Immediately after learning of Jiang’s arrest, ChinaAid contacted the US Embassy in Beijing and several U.S. Congressional offices, notifying them of Jiang Tianyong’s brutal treatment and detention. A US Embassy official quickly responded and said that the Embassy had called the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and formally registered the U.S. Government’s concern and opposition to this action. The embassy further reported the incident to the National Security Council and the State Department, all prior to Jiang’s release.”
“Fearing the lawyers would become targets upon their return, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission co-chair Frank Wolf of Virginia warned against ill-treatment upon the lawyers’ return: ‘If any of them are arrested or harrassed when they get back, I will do everything I can to just create the biggest problem possible for the Obama adminsitration and for the Chinese government.’ ”
“Yesterday, on November 18, Jiang Tianyong and a fellow legal researcher attempted to arrange a meeting with President Obama before he left China, hoping to follow through with the lawyers’ request for US acknowlegement of the current dire situation. After receiving a phone call from the U.S. Embassy, informing him President Obama would not be able to meet with the group of five human rights lawyers who had gathered, 200 police officers immediately pulled up, and interrogated Jiang and one of his colleagues in the hotel for over an hour. They were informed they ‘were not allowed to meet President Obama” and would “be held until he left’ yesterday afternoon.”
“The brutal assault of Jiang Tianyong, his wife, and their daughter is an unjust an inexcusable attack on the rights of peaceful Chinese citizens. Jiang’s family now suffers even more from this abuse, as their well-being was taxed after Jiang’s license to practice law was revoked and his tenure at the Beijing Global Law Firm was terminated in April of this year.”
“ChinaAid denounces the cruel and inhumane treatment of human rights Attorney Jiang Tianyong. We urge the Chinese authorities to stop their harassment of Attorney Jiang and the other human rights lawyers and their families who have been detained during President Obama’s visit.”
“ChinaAid further calls on the international community to pray for healing from this unjust persecution, in the wake of Jiang’s courageous tour in the United States, and to call on American leaders to voice their opposition to human rights abuses in China.Raise your concerns on Jiang’s behalf to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.”
Chinese Embassy Press Secretary Baodong, Tel: 202-495-2218
NOTE: If you are a citizen of another country, please click here to find the contact information of the Chinese embassy in your own nation http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zwjg/2490/.
— New York Times: “Obama skirts Chinese political sensitivities”
— “NYT: President’s low-key approach on human rights means no meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates”
— New York Times: “Whether by White House design or Chinese insistence, President Obama has steered clear of public meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates and even ordinary Chinese during his first visit to China, showing deference to the Chinese leadership’s aversions to such interactions that is unusual for a visiting American president.”
Daily Telegraph reports: “Human rights were also the subject of discussion, with President Obama again espousing his view that freedoms of speech and assembly were ‘universal rights’ that should be enjoyed by all peoples, including ethnic minorities.”
R.E.A.L. attended testimony of human rights activists and of persecuted Chinese women who faced oppression and forced abortion due to the PRC Communist Party of China (CCP) regime’s “One Child Policy.” R.E.A.L. heard women in tears and pleading for the lives of their babies from the cruel and anti-human rights, anti-human life policy of the Communist China regime. To those who use distance, politics, and silence to keep the voice of these women and their very real suffering and human rights abuses from being heard, today in Washington D.C., on Capitol Hill, their voice was given a public hearing, so that world would hear, remember, and call for end to such a genocide against children, and violence against women.
Activist Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers described the horrors in China that persecutes those caught pregnant with a second child. “Women being literally dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night, or even in the middle of the day, strapped down to tables, pleading and crying, and then being forced to abort their babies.” According to human rights activist Reggie Littlejohn, the PRC CCP regime has boasted on of preventing 400 million births with its policy that allows a woman only one child. Littlejohn stated, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life on this issue. No one supports forced abortion because it’s not a choice. ” According to Littlejohn, the actual number of the millions of forced abortions is a tightly-held state secret.
In addition, chairman of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Leonard Leo stated, “Speaking softly to China about human rights is a fool’s errand. History has shown it simply does not work.”
— “One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion.”
— “Yet, coerced abortions, as well as involuntary sterilizations, are commonplace in China, Beijing’s protestations notwithstanding. While the Chinese Communist Party insists that abortions are voluntary under the nation’s one-child policy, electronic documentation recently smuggled out of the country tells a different story.”
— “Congressional members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard some of that story Tuesday, two days before President Obama was slated to leave for Asia, including China, to discuss economic issues. Among evidence provided by two human rights organizations, ChinaAid and Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, were tales of pregnant women essentially being hunted down and forced to submit to surgery or induced labor.”
— “Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China’s one-child policy ’causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth.’ ”
— “I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother — as well as a Yale-educated lawyer — Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable.”
— “Here’s the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn’t have a “birth permit” and has an ‘out of plan’ pregnancy?”
— “The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.”
— “Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: “What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?” ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.”
— ” ‘Xuexia’ wrote: ‘Actually, you should have punctured the fetus’ skull.’ Another poster, ‘Damohuyang,’ wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and ‘would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days.’ ”
— “To be clear, some of the doctors online expressed concern for the rights of the child. Others, however, worried only about potential legal ramifications. Technically, it is illegal in China to kill a baby, one is relieved to learn, but family-planning imperatives sometimes prevail. According to a 2009 State Department report, monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets, creating what amounts to bounties on the unborn.”
— “As recently as July, officials of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission said that the one-child policy ‘will be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come,’ according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.”
— “The violence of these procedures doesn’t only kill the child in some instances. In two of the cases described in a document leaked this past August, the mothers died, too. Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted.”
— “Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005. Named by Time magazine as one of 2006’s top 100 people ‘who shape our world,’ Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year, according to an Amnesty International report.”
— “The one-child policy has created other problems that threaten women and girls. The traditional preference for boys has meant sex-selected abortions resulting in a gender imbalance. Today, men in China outnumber women by 37 million, a disparity that has become a driving force behind sex slavery in Asia. Exacerbating the imbalance, about 500 women a day commit suicide in China — the highest rate in the world, which Littlejohn attributes in part to coercive family planning.”
— “Obviously, the United States is in an awkward position with China, our second-largest trading partner and the largest holder of our government debt. But Littlejohn hopes Obama will “truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights.” She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.”
— “On this much, both sides of the abortion issue can agree: Forced abortion is not a choice. Averting our gaze from China’s horrific abuse of women is.”
