Communist China to lift Internet, phone bans in Xinjiang: state media
— AFP reports: “China plans to restore online access and lift a ban on text messages and international calls in Xinjiang, state media said Tuesday, months after deadly ethnic unrest prompted a communications shutdown.”
— “The official Xinhua news agency quoted the regional government as saying it had restored access to part of the wire’s website as well as parts of the website of the state-run People’s Daily newspaper.”
Category: China
“Argentine Judge Orders Arrest of Top Chinese Communist Party Officials for Crimes Against Humanity”
“Argentine Judge Orders Arrest of Top Chinese Communist Party Officials for Crimes Against Humanity”
Quit CCP reports:
“This decision is particularly historic because it is not only seeking to bring perpetrators to justice after the fact, it is also coming at a time when these crimes are ongoing. The arrest and prosecution of these two men could literally prevent further torture and killing of innocent Chinese citizens.”
Following a four-year long investigation, Argentine judge Octavio Araoz de Lamadrid of Federal Court No. 9 issued a 146-page decision and related orders on December 17. The document offers a detailed and damning assessment of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and the role that the two top officials played.
“The genocidal strategy … comprised a broad range of actions arranged in total contempt for life and human dignity,” says Lamadrid’s decision. “The designated purpose – the eradication of Falun Gong – was used to justify any means used. Therefore, torment, torture, disappearances, deaths, brainwashing, psychological torture were everyday occurrences in the persecution of its practitioners.”
The judge concludes the decision by issuing a national and international order to capture the pair to be carried out by the Interpol Department of the Federal Police of Argentina. As such, should the accused former officials travel to other countries that have extradition treaties with Argentina, they will ostensibly face being detained and transferred to Argentina to be brought before a court.
According to the attorneys who initially filed the case on behalf of Falun Gong victims, Dr. Alejandro Cowes and Dr. Adolfo Casabal Elia, the judge’s decision was based on evidence that included the oral testimonies of 17 victims of torture and other forms of persecution. The judge also took into account the testimony of two medical doctors, United Nations reports, and research by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Communist China Sentences Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in Prison on Christmas Day
— “Liu was one of the primary authors of Charter 08,, a peaceful online manifesto calling for practical democratic reform in China with over 10,000 signatories.” — Laogai Research Foundation
Chinese Activist Liu Gets 11 Years
— WSJ reports:
— “A Chinese court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, China’s most prominent dissident, to 11 years in prison for criticizing the government, an unusually long sentence that rights activists say suggests other activists will also face harsh punishment.”
— “The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court announced Friday its ruling that Mr. Liu was guilty of ‘inciting subversion of state power.'”
— “The 53-year-old scholar had spent more than a year in detention before his trial Wednesday, which lasted less than three hours.”
— “Mr. Liu plans to appeal the decision, said one of his lawyers, Ding Xikui. ‘There were some flaws in the procedures of the trial,’ he said, but he declined to comment further. Appeals on sensitive political charges almost never succeed in China, where political directives often supersede the written law.”
— “Mr. Liu has pushed for democratic reforms since the 1980s, and was a participant in the 1989 protests on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He was detained by authorities last year shortly after he helped write Charter 08, a call for sweeping legal and political change, which hundreds of other scholars also signed.”
— “The letter, which has since attracted thousands of signatures of Chinese citizens, is seen as one of the boldest challenges to Communist Party rule in recent memory.”
China court sentences dissident Liu to 11 years jail for subversion
— Kyodo News reports:
“Prominent Chinese human rights defender and political dissident Liu Xiaobo was sentenced by a Beijing court to 11 years in prison for subversion Friday, his lawyers said.”
Liu Xiaobo sentence criticized as harsh
— UPI: Human-rights groups and governments have condemned the 11-year sentence of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo despite Beijing claiming criticisms are interference in its internal affairs.
— “In Brussels, the European Union said it was ‘deeply concerned by the disproportionate sentence,’ according to a report by the British Broadcasting Corp. U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that the case represents ‘a further severe restriction on the scope of freedom of expression in China.’ ”
— “The Obama administration issued a statement on the America.gov Web site that the trial is ‘uncharacteristic of a great country.’ Philip Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, told reporters just before the sentencing that Liu’s case is “clearly a political trial that will likely lead to a political conviction.’ ”
— Wall Street Journal reports:
— “Chinese leader Hu Jintao is putting Christmas to the most cynical use imaginable: jailing a prominent dissident on a holiday when most of the world’s media and government workers will be preoccupied with family and friends.”
— “While millions of Christians are commemorating the day “grace and truth” became incarnate in Bethlehem, Liu Xiaobo will be sentenced for speaking truth to communist power. This callous exploitation of Christmas should inspire freedom-loving people, whether Christian or not, to keep Mr. Liu and his family in their thoughts over the holiday.”
— “Mr. Liu, a drafter of the Charter 08 manifesto a year ago calling for political reform, is so far the only one of more than 8,000 signatories to be arrested and tried for subversion. His trial comes in the midst of an intensifying crackdown on all forms of dissent. Mr. Liu was subjected to a two-hour “trial” yesterday– his wife, chosen lawyer and outside observers were excluded—and the verdict is due to be announced on Friday morning.”
R.E.A.L. Postings on Liu Xiaobo:
Communist China: China dissident begins second year in detention — Liu Xiaobo
Twitter Campaign to Free Chinese Human Rights Advocate Liu Xiaobo
China Support Network publishes letter to Obama re: China trip upcoming this month
Chinese intellectuals speak up for dissident Liu Xiaobo
Communist China accuses pro-democracy activist Liu Xiabo of inciting a rebellion
Communist China: Dissident writer Liu Xiaobo held after sentence ends
U.S.: John Kusumi, founder of the China Support Network, calls for Chinese people to rise up
Communist China: Arrested Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo to receive prestigious award
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Report: Communist China Mass Murderer’s Image on White House Christmas Tree Ornament
FOX News reports: White House Christmas Decor Featuring Mao Zedong Comes Under Fire
— Communist Totalitarian Mass Murderer’s Image on White House Christmas Tree Ornament
— New York Times: For the Holidays, White House Uses Barneys Decorator
— The Globe and Mail book review by Geoffrey York on Mao: The Unknown Story:
…. a shocking new book has concluded that Mao was the bloodiest mass murderer in history, a sadistic thug who enjoyed torture and was willing to sacrifice half of China’s population for his dream of global domination.
The biography, based on 10 years of archival research and interviews with people in Mao’s inner circle, is a stunning challenge to China’s conventional view of the Communist leader.
The book estimates that Mao caused the deaths of 70 million people in peacetime, making him a far worse killer than Hitler or Stalin. It portrays him as a sociopath who loved killing and allowed millions of peasants to starve to death while he exported food to pay for his nuclear weapons; a man whose legendary achievements in the Long March were an invention; a man who turned China into a cultural desert of misery and violence, while maintaining dozens of luxury villas and a troupe of female sexual partners.
One of the book’s two authors is Jung Chang, the Chinese writer whose family memoir, Wild Swans, became one of the biggest-selling non-fiction books of all time. Her co-author is her husband, Jon Halliday, a historian who gained access to Soviet archives on Mao.
Their 814-page biography, Mao: The Unknown Story, is to be published in Canada and the United States in October. The book is already a bestseller in Britain, where critics have hailed it as a major work. A Chinese translation is planned, although the Chinese edition is unlikely to circulate outside Taiwan and Hong Kong.
China’s rulers have acknowledged that Mao made some ‘serious mistakes,’ but only ‘in his old age.’ And they continue to praise him lavishly, decades after his death. ‘Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist; a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist; a great patriot and national hero,’ President Hu Jintao said on the 110th anniversary of Mao’s birth in 2003.
The new biography, however, paints Mao as bloodthirsty tyrant who was never interested in Marxism or helping China’s impoverished peasants, but was obsessed only with personal power and military dominance. He rose to power because of his ruthlessness and cruelty, and because he was installed and financed by Moscow. Beginning with his earliest purges, in which he ordered the torture and death of thousands of Red Army soldiers in 1929, he believed in violence.
As early as 1927, the biography says, Mao was lauding China’s peasant associations for their use of terror and torture to break down the dignity of their enemies. He exulted that their violence was ‘wonderful’ and ‘a kind of ecstasy never experienced before.’
After seizing national power in 1949, Mao launched a brutal campaign that killed three million ‘counter-revolutionaries.’ Executions were usually done in public. ‘His aim was to scare and brutalize the entire population, in a way that went much further than either Stalin or Hitler, who largely kept their foulest crimes out of sight,’ the authors write.
By the late 1950s, Mao was starving his people to pay for his dream of making China a nuclear-armed superpower. He treated the peasants as dehumanized slave labourers, feeding them less than Auschwitz death-camp inmates. The authors estimate that during the Great Leap Forward, almost 38 million Chinese died of starvation, the worst famine in recorded history.
Another three million people died violent deaths in the Cultural Revolution, and Mao enjoyed seeing films of his enemies being tortured and humiliated, the authors say. In some provinces, the killings reached such a frenzy that cannibalism was practised.
Throughout all of this, Mao repeatedly told his aides that he was willing to let half of China’s population die for the cause of world revolution and his superpower dream.
Even the myth of Mao’s heroism in the Long March of 1934-35 is exposed as a sham. His Nationalist enemies deliberately allowed his army to escape along a prearranged 9,000-kilometre route, and Mao himself was carried most of the way on a bamboo litter.
New York Times: A bleak anniversary : Mao the mass murderer — By Jonathan Mirsky
It is impossible to imagine official homage in Germany for Hitler or in Russia for Stalin. And yet Mao was a destroyer of the same class as Hitler and Stalin. He exhibited his taste for killing from the early 1930’s, when, historians now estimate, he had thousands of his political adversaries slaughtered. Ten years later, still before the Communist victory, more were executed at his guerrilla headquarters at Yan’an.
Hundreds of thousands of landlords were exterminated in the early 1950’s. From 1959 to 1961 probably 30 million people died of hunger — the party admits 16 million — when Mao’s economic fantasies were causing peasants to starve and he purged those who warned him of the scale of the disaster.
Many more perished during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao established a special unit, supervised by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, to report to him in detail the sufferings of hundreds of imprisoned leaders who had incurred the chairman’s displeasure.
One of the chairman’s secretaries, Li Rui, wrote recently, “Mao was a person who did not fear death, and he did not care how many were killed.” The writers of the Kaifang article tell us what this meant for China: “Mao instilled in people’s minds a philosophy of cruel struggle and revolutionary superstition. Hatred took the place of love and tolerance; the barbarism of ‘It is right to rebel!’ became the substitute for rationality and love of peace. It elevated and sanctified the view that relations between human beings are best characterized as those between wolves.”
It is common in academic circles, not only in China but in the West, to consider Mao as a thinker, guerrilla leader, poet, calligrapher and literary theorist. Mao specialists tend to divide his career into two periods: before 1957, when Mao “the visionary” fought his way with tenacity and brilliance to party leadership and set about transforming China from a fragmented, backward society into a unified nation; and after 1957, in which Mao became power-crazed and dragged China into violence and economic stagnation.
The signatories of the Kaifang broadside, however, see Mao whole: “Under Mao, the ideological obsession with ‘attacking feudalism, capitalism and revisionism’ severed links with traditional Chinese culture, with modern Chinese culture and with Western civilization, deliberately placing the country beyond the mainstream of human civilization.”
This seems reasonable. Yet few of Mao’s closest comrades, or their successors today, ever admitted publicly, even after his death, that from his earliest years of authority whatever Mao proposed, encouraged or commanded was underpinned by the threat of death. This was also the secret of Stalin’s power, and of Hitler’s. The Kaifang writers note that “Mao Zedong’s writings poisoned the soul and the language of the Chinese race; and his violent, hate-filled, loutish language remains a problem to this day.”
In 1973 Mao suggested, apropos of Hitler, that the more people a leader kills, the more people will desire to make revolution. Mao would have approved the killing of unarmed protesters in spring 1989 not only in Tiananmen but in dozens of cities throughout China, and would have hailed the party’s “hate-filled” insistence to this day that the 1989 demonstrators were criminals who deserved what they got.
At a recent American seminar on Mao a professor from Beijing who specializes in Mao studies asked me if I was suggesting that the millions of Chinese who admire and love Mao are revering a mass killer. I replied that such veneration was China’s tragedy.
Communist China: Pastor Zhang Mingxuan “Bike” Visits Three Released Brothers in Henan
Communist China: Secretary Clinton Explains U.S. “Pragmatic Policy” on Human Rights — Calls for “Principled Pragmatism” on Communist Abuses
ChinaAid reports on “Secretary Clinton Explains U.S. ‘Pragmatic Policy’ on Human Rights”
December 15, 2009
“WASHINGTON, D.C.–After side-stepping human rights concerns in China earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton firmly outlined the current U.S. diplomatic position on international human in her statement delivered at Georgetown University on Monday, December 14th. Confronting the issue head on, she underscored the State Department’s commitment to human rights with a ‘pragmatic stance,’ asserting that U.S. human rights policy toward political and economic giants like Russia and China is often best conducted behind closed doors.”
” ‘Principled pragmatism informs our approach on human rights, informs our approach with all countries, but particularly with key countries like China and Russia.’ (AFP) Secretary Clinton expounded on the Obama Administration’s commitment to this soft-power type diplomacy, but also asserted that some cases do require a public denouncement or action.”
” ‘In China, we call for protection of rights of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang,’ she said. Later she added, ‘The United States also pushes for the right of people in China to ‘express oneself and worship freely’ as well as for civil society and religious groups to advance their causes within a legal framework.’ The Secretary’s spokesman further called specifically for the release of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese democratic activist facing a 15-year sentence for political dissidence.”
“Still, her strategic comments emphasized the current administration’s cosmopolitan political approach: ‘In every instance, our aim will be to make a difference, not to prove a point.’ ”
“Along with other human rights advocates, ChinaAid President Bob Fu remains concerned about the implications of a U.S. hidden-negotiation approach to human rights concerns in China.”
” ‘In general, Secretary Clinton made good remarks in support of human rights. This is especially encouraging in light of her intentionally pedestrian oversight of human rights concerns, when she pronounced that human rights issues would ‘not interfere’ with security and economic talks in Beijing this February. This time, she has reasserted the equal importance of human rights, pointing to religious freedom and other human rights concerns as related to economic, security, climate issues. This is a right step forward.’ ”
” ‘But the choice of a closed-door approach to China has produced little progress so far, without the simultaneous efforts to speak up publicly about human rights concerns. We can only welcome a principled engagement of ‘pragmatic policy,’ as long as this strategy does not become the means or excuse for shirking our greater responsibilities to defending freedom and principle.’ ”
“Quotes from Secretary Clinton’s address and information were used from article published by Agence-France Presse. Click here to read the ‘U.S. takes a pragmatic rights approach to China, Russia,’ by AFP’s Lachlan Carmichael.”
Read Secretary Clinton’s Speech at Georgetown (Madame Secretary’s Blog).
Read “Clinton Outlines Human Rights Policy,” by David Alexander for Reuters.
December 10: Human Rights Day Videos
Online videos of National Press Club addresses on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2009:
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) – Jeffrey Imm
— Jeffrey Imm – Online Video – Part 1 – Our Universal Human Rights
— Jeffrey Imm – Online Video – Part 2 – Our Responsibility for Equality And Liberty
— Jeffrey Imm – Online Video – Part 3 – The Supremacist Challenge to Human Rights
— Jeffrey Imm – Online Video – Part 4 – Why Love is The Answer to All Supremacist Hate
Pakistan Christian Congress – Dr. Nazir Bhatti
— Dr. Nazir Bhatti – Online Video – Part 1
— Dr. Nazir Bhatti – Online Video – Part 2
Falun Gong – Lisa Tao and Pang Jin
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 1
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 2
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 3
Epoch Times: “International Human Rights Day – Comments Made At National Press Club”
Epoch Times: “International Human Rights Day – Comments Made At National Press Club”
The Epoch Times
December 12, 2009
By Gary Feuerberg
Epoch Times Staff
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/26390/
Jeffrey Imm, from Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.), said nations and individuals should uphold the principles of equality and liberty. (Lisa Fan/Epoch Times)
WASHINGTON — International Human Rights Day, December 10, received scant world attention this year, apart from a handful of people and cities around the globe. In the nation’s capital, a few people spoke at a forum at the National Press Club, using this occasion to call attention to what they said were particularly egregious violations of human rights.
Sixty-one years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations, following the horrors and human tragedies associated with World War II and the Holocaust.
“Universal human rights” has become an accepted concept that encompasses all nations, religions and elasticities. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said last year that the UDHR acknowledged the “inherent dignity and equality of all human beings.”
On Dec 10, we not only remember to support universal human rights, “but also we remember those who have denied them, including totalitarian and supremacist nations and ideologies of the world…,” said Jeffrey Imm, representing “Responsible for Equality and Liberty (R.E.A.L.),” which sponsored the event held at the National Press Club.
R.E.A.L., consisting of all volunteers from the U.S. Canada, UK, and Europe, is a new organization that started this year. R.E.A.L. also sponsored a public meeting acknowledging human rights day in Nuremberg, Germany as well as private meetings in Chicago and Los Angeles. [edit: note I stated New York, not Chicago].
Many Islamic countries in violation of universal human rights
Individuals and nations violate universal human rights when they don’t make “equality and liberty” their number one priority, according to Imm. This is a high standard to meet in today’s world. This forum focused on two major violators of universal human rights: the governments of Moslem majority countries enforcing religious or Sharia law, and totalitarian communist China.
Two countries mentioned most frequently in this event, Pakistan and China, were declared by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), as Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) — a list of 13 nations that are the worst offenders of religious freedom. Egypt, also mentioned often, is on the Commission’s “Watch List.”
The use of blasphemy laws against Christians in Pakistan beginning in the 1980s has damaged the harmony among religious communities, according to Nazir Bhatti, President of Pakistan Christian Congress. Bhatti cited more than 7000 cases of these laws that occurred from 1984 to 2009. “Thirty-two [persons] accused of blasphemy were murdered in jails, police lockups or in streets by hands of radical Islamic elements,” said Bhatti.
Pakistan was declared an Islamic Republic in 1973, and their constitution and legislation proclaimed Pakistan to be home to Muslims only, according to Bhatti. The USCIRF states that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws “commonly involve false accusations and result in the lengthy detention of and violence against Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims on account of their religious beliefs.”
In the 1980s, amendments were added to the blasphemy laws that imposed capital punishment, said Bhatti. Apparently, the law may influence public opinion. Imm cited a Pew Global Research poll conducted in Pakistan last Aug, which found that 78 percent believe in the death penalty for those who made the choice to leave Islam.
“The blasphemy law was used by the Muslim majority in Pakistan to settle personal disputes and business rivalries against Christians…after 1986, said Bhatti. Christian villages “were attacked by Muslim mobs and hundreds of homes set on fire.” He cited 10 towns where the churches were attacked and worshippers gunned down. The Holy Bibles were desecrated, pastors were gunned down and moreover children and women were burnt alive,” said Bhatti. He would like to see the rppeal of the blasphemy laws and the Sharia law on the 20 million Pakistani Christians.
No less incensed by the imposition of Sharia law was Ashraf Ramelah, President of Voice of the Copts, and an Egyptian. He spoke on behalf of Christians of Egypt (known as Copts). “We demand an end to kidnapping minor Christian girls, forcing them to convert to Islam. Those girls are often raped and tortured using inhuman techniques by Muslim extremists.”
Ramelah said: “Any crime committed against a Coptic woman[in Egypt] is treated without morality, conscience and legal deterrence….In examining what happened only in [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak’s era, it’s effortless to point out no single kidnapper was brought to justice, in spite of the gravity of the crime and its frequency.”
Ramelah charged that the reason that nothing is done and why there is no official count of the number of girls harmed is due to the complicity on the part of Egyptian law enforcement and the kidnappers.
Imm expressed his strong disapproval of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) — an organization of 57 nations with mostly Moslem majorities — when in 1990, it created the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI). Imm said the CDHRI is an attack on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bhatti said the adoption of the CDHRI was expressing “no confidence in UDHR” and the supremacy of Sharia law.
“[The OIC] made a conscious decision to deny our unqualified universal human rights, other than those rights allowed by interpretations of Islamic Sharia law,” said Imm.
Recently, the OIC has attempted to pass at the UN a “defamation of religion” resolution, which Leonard A. Leo, chair of USCIRF, called an attempt to “create a global blasphemy law.” Leo said on Oct. 24 that this resolution really “promotes intolerance” and would be used to empowered repressive governments and religious extremists to suppress and punish members of minority religions and sects.
Many of the OIC nations were signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which is a document that applies UDHR principles to children. These OIC countries are on record expressing “reservations” on those rights, according to Imm.
“We have seen a growing problem of child marriages, arranged marriages, and ‘honor killing’ violence in many of these nations that claim to be advocates of children’s rights. …Somalia is a nation where a 13-year-old girl has been publicly stoned to death as punishment by an Islamic Sharia so-called court for being the victim of gang rape. But an epidemic of violence against children is also found in many other OIC countries,” said Imm.
Falun Gong practitioners share experiences of Chinese Communist torture
A local Falun Dafa practitioner, Lisa Tao, discussed some of the ordeals she and other practitioners suffered when they lived in Communist China. Ms. Tao grew up in China and lived through the Great Cultural Revolution, when her father and four other members of her family were killed.
“I was also frequently beaten and many times I was close to being beaten to death,” said Tao. Tao was “guilty” of being born into a wealthy family which the communist regime targeted for special humiliations and punishments.
Lisa Tao (l) and Jin Pang (r) spoke about torture and deaths by the Chinese Communist Party. (Jenny Jing/Epoch Times)
After immigrating to the United States, Ms. Tao became a practitioner of Falun Gong, which China has persecuted since 1999. Tao has become involved in daily protests at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
Tao brought with her to the conference evidence in the form of real people who suffered under the current Chinese regime or are relatives of such persons. Tao introduced Ms. Quiying Wang, who was sent to a labor camp for practicing Falun Gong.
“One day in June 2000 at the Tuanhe Deployment Center in Beijing, police ordered her to take off all her clothes and squat in the sun, from 10 a.m. in the morning until 11. p.m. In the days that followed, she was also forced to stand still from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., 17 hours everyday, for nine days,” said Tao.
Tao introduced Jin Pang, who said that her mother and aunt were sentenced in October 2008 to 10 and 9 years, respectively, for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Pang described the interrogation when her mother was arrested in August 2008 during the Beijing Olympics. Over10,000 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested before and during the Olympics, according to the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, not because the regime was concerned about practitioners interfering with the Olympics, but so it could use the Olympics as a pretext to intensify its persecution of Falun Gong.
Pang said her mother’s interrogation in the Weifang detention center lasted five days. “Six people took turns to interrogate her. During these 100 plus hours, she was not allowed to close her eyes even for a second, and if she did, they would pour cold or hot water on her. They also forced her to continually sit on an iron chair. She was tortured so badly that she lost control of her bowels,” said Pang. They stopped for a day and then resumed the torture for another three nights.
“The Chinese Communist regime is a devil,” said Tao. “Its destructive nature can never change. As long as it exists, it will not stop killing. This persecution can be stopped only if the [Communist] Party dissolves.”
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Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
https://www.realcourage.org
In Washington DC, R.E.A.L. held a press conference at the National Press Club, which included speakers:
* Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.), on women’s and children’s rights, the dual challenge of religious extremism and freedom, the challenges to human liberty by totalitarian ideologies, and growing challenges to racial equality by supremacists
— Jeffrey Imm Human Rights Day Remarks: Adobe Acobat format, Microsoft Word format
* Dr. Nazir Bhatti, Pakistan Christian Congress, on Pakistan’s blasphemy law, threats, attacks, and killings of Christian religious minorities in Pakistan
— Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti remarks: “US administration urged to condition Pakistan Aid with Repeal of Blasphemy Law”
* Ashraf Ramelah, The Voice of the Copts, on the suppression of Christian religious minorities in Egypt, including kidnapping and forced conversion of Coptic Christian women and girls
— Ashraf Ramelah Remarks: “Suppression of Christian religious minorities in Egypt”
* Lisa Tao, Falun Dafa (Falun Gong), on human rights atrocities against the Falun Gong over the past 10 years in Communist China (in Chinese with English Interpreter).
— Lisa Tao Human Rights Day Remarks: Microsoft Word format (English), Microsoft Word format (Chinese)
News Reports on Falun Gong at DC Press Conference
NDTV and Epoch Times provides the following reports on R.E.A.L.’s press conference at the National Press Club and the attendance of Lisa Tao and her translator Pang Jin on the human rights abuses of the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) in Communist China:
— Lisa Tao Human Rights Day Remarks: Microsoft Word format (English), Microsoft Word format (Chinese)
Epoch Times Report (in Chinese)
Remarks by Falun Gong’s Lisa Tao and Pang Jin on Communist China Oppression of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa)
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 1
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 2
— Lisa Tao and Pang Jin – Online Video – Part 3
— Lisa Tao Human Rights Day Remarks: Microsoft Word format (English), Microsoft Word format (Chinese)
— News Reports on Falun Gong at DC Press Conference
— Epoch Times: “International Human Rights Day – Comments Made At National Press Club”
DC Examiner: Protection of religious minorities is major theme of 2009 Human Rights Day News Conference
Protection of religious minorities is major theme of 2009 Human Rights Day News Conference
December 10, 11:15 PM DC Human Rights Examiner Justina Uram
Justina Urman in the DC Human Rights Examiner reports:
“DC-based human rights activists and advocates commemorated Human Rights Day 2009 with a well-attended Human Rights News Conference sponsored by Responsible for Equality And Liberty (REAL) at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. ”
” ‘Not only do we recognize our declaration in support of such universal human rights, but also we remember those who have denied them, including the totalitarian and supremacist nations and ideologies of the world that seek to continue to deny such universal rights today.’ ”
“In his opening remarks, REAL founder Jeffrey Imm called for US ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the end of violence against women as priorities in defending human rights. He also focused on the human rights challenges presented by religious supremacism. ‘We really need a human rights dialogue on the challenges of religious extremist threats to our universal human rights.’ ”
“In his presentation on the persecution of Pakistani Christians by the Muslim majority, Dr. Nazir Bhatti, of the Pakistan Christian Congress, explained that Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws allow the killing of religious minorities to go unchecked.”
” ‘Christians [in Pakistan] are in the process of genocide…The situation of human rights is worsening and persecution of Christians is at a rise in Pakistan.’ ”
“Bhatti warned that Pakistan will continue to breed terrorism unless the United States’ government puts conditions on further aid to Pakistan that include the repeal of their blasphemy laws and an amendment to Article 2 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which declares Islam as the state religion of Pakistan.”
“Following Bhatti’s presentation, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, President of the Voice of the Copts, remarked on the oppression of Egypt’s Christians, particularly women and young girls.”
” ‘Coptic women and girls are targeted for a specific plan of forced Islamization in Egypt…the abduction of Coptic women is not just a passing phenomenon but is part of a widespread plan aimed to clean the Middle East of Christians.’ ”
“In addition to denouncing the forced conversion of Coptic women, Ramelah also called for a repeal of Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution, which declares Islam as the state religion of Egypt.”
“Though both Bhatti and Ramelah’s remarks focused on the human rights abuses faced by religious minorities at the hand of Islam, Imm reminded the group, ‘we do not attack or condemn Islam or all Muslims, but we do challenge all human beings to recognize that we face an extremist challenge to human rights in the world today.’ ”
“The final speaker, Lisa Tao of Falun Dafa turned the conference’s focus in a different direction. Giving a heartfelt presentation in her native language, Tao described the human rights abuses she faced as a young girl at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”
” ‘My father was tortured to death. I was called ‘a child of the Five Black Categories.’ My life was full of humiliation and I had to struggle for many years just to stay alive.’ ”
“Tao, who is now an American citizen, explained that she and her husband began practicing Falun Gong to help them heal from the torture they suffered in China. Tao’s translator, 25-year old Pang Jin, relayed the recent arrest, torture, and prolonged detainment of her mother and aunt for their adherence to Falun Gong. ”
” ‘My aunt was abducted on July 9, 2009 and has been detained since then. On October 18, I was informed that the Weifang City district court, after delaying for a year, sentenced my Mom, Cao Junping, to 10 years.’ ”
“Tao then shared numerous examples of human rights violations by the Chinese government against Falun Gong practitioners and thanked Americans for their support and willingness to hear her story. ”
” ‘I feel that these practitioners are just like my brothers and sisters…We hope Americans, who are kind and righteous, will give a hand to rescue our brothers and sisters and stop this brutal persecution.’ ”
“Clearly, the 2009 Human Rights Day News Conference provided a forum for the discussion of human rights stories and perspectives not often covered by mainstream media. For more detailed information about The Human Rights Day News Conference, please contact the author at The Human Rights Blog. ”
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* Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.), on women’s and children’s rights, the dual challenge of religious extremism and freedom, the challenges to human liberty by totalitarian ideologies, and growing challenges to racial equality by supremacists
— Jeffrey Imm Human Rights Day Remarks: Adobe Acobat format, Microsoft Word format
* Dr. Nazir Bhatti, Pakistan Christian Congress, on Pakistan’s blasphemy law, threats, attacks, and killings of Christian religious minorities in Pakistan
— Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti remarks: “US administration urged to condition Pakistan Aid with Repeal of Blasphemy Law”
* Ashraf Ramelah, The Voice of the Copts, on the suppression of Christian religious minorities in Egypt, including kidnapping and forced conversion of Coptic Christian women and girls
— Ashraf Ramelah Remarks: “Suppression of Christian religious minorities in Egypt”
* Lisa Tao, Falun Dafa (Falun Gong), on human rights atrocities against the Falun Gong over the past 10 years in Communist China (in Chinese with English Interpreter).
— Lisa Tao Human Rights Day Remarks: Microsoft Word format (English), Microsoft Word format (Chinese)