Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China
146-01 Jasmine Ave, Flushing, NY 11355
Tel/fax: 718-358-5605 ; Tel (English): 646-361-5039
Email (Chinese): jiayuan@usa.com; Email (English): ciprc1@yahoo.com
Website: www.china21.org; www.china21.us
Committee for the Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China was founded by
Mr. Shixiong Li in Fall of 2000. Headquartered in New York, it was registered in the state of New York in May 2001 as a non-profit organization. It is consisted of thousands of Christians called upon by God most of whom are secretly investigating and collecting information on religious persecution in China.
Many people, due to some reasons that only God knows, are indifferent towards these brutal persecution facts. Instead, conscientiously or unconscientiously, they listen to lies and believe false facts. In addition, there are more and more influential and prominent individuals have gone to China and visited the government’s showcase places. Having not seen any persecution, they have claimed so when coming back. Corresponding with their business partners in China, then they further deny the persecution facts in China, creating an international media environment favorable for further persecution. Under the cover of new religious policies, Chinese Government is carrying out more and more vicious religious persecution. All these let the persecuted know that the end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, many of them have chosen to suffer silently, praying Lord to judge the world, and have no more intention to reveal the persecution facts to the world, thus making the collection of information more difficult.
It is our mission to tell the world the truth and to provide evidence against false reports and lies about religious status in China. It is our goal to let all the Christians know that millions of their brothers and sisters are being mistreated in modern and “open” China, but not in ancient Egypt under Pharoah. We hope the free Christians can act together to love the least with the love of Christ.
The following is the summary of what we have accomplished in the past years with God’s intervention and helping.
1. We have conducted a large-scale investigation in China involving 560,000 house church Christians from 22 provinces, and have obtained invaluable first-hand information of over-two-million-word materials and many photos. We have done pilot studies and analysis on these materials and have generated some important statistics and reports.
2. One of these reports - “Some Statistics of the Continuous Persecution on House Churches by the Chinese Government” was read to the US Congress by Congressman Frank Wolf, co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, in October, 2001. He also passed this report to Chairman Michael Young of US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly.
3. On February 11, 2002, to cause the attention of the international society, and to urge President Bush to bring up the religious issues when meeting with President Jiang, we submitted the persecution facts to President Bush. And also, we released for the first time to the international society six and half top-confidential Chinese government documents and the White Paper in New York City and Europe. By these solid proofs and facts, we unmasked the true facts behind the religious “golden age” as claimed by the Chinese government. This event and the published information were immediately reported by many US and international media such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Agence France Presse, Times (UK), and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).
4. On February 13th, 2002, we distributed more than 200 bombshell to the US congress while they were holding hearing about religious freedom.
5. On February 28, 2002, we testified for the religion persecution at the conference in Washington D.C., held by Amnesty International.
6. On March 1, 2002, invited by Congressman Frank Wolf, Mr. Shixiong Li spoke about the current religious persecution in China at the Human Rights and Religious Freedom Forum.
7. On March 11, 2002, the most influential evangelical journal – Christian Today, reported our work on the front page.
8. In March 2002, we attended the UN Human Right Meeting in Geneva, bringing with us 200lb bombshell of persecution in China, which were distributed to most of the meeting attendees. The book, Religion and National Security in China based on the top-secret Chinese official documents, was passed to the chief member of UN Human Right Committee, Mrs. Robinson. In addition, we delivered a speech entitled “STATE TERRORISM IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF HUMAN RIGHTS”. Mr. Shixiong Li pointed out during the interview with a French Radio covering the whole Europe that “The most obvious feature of state terrorism is that the people no longer dare to speak out for the truth. The slogan of ‘religious freedom’ is merely the veil that the Chinese Communist Party uses to deceive the international society ”.
9. On April 2, 2002, we handed a name list of 122 persecuted Christians to UN Human Right Committee.
10. On April 23, 2002, we participated the discussion panel of the conference hosted by Amnesty International Temple University Branch. During the meeting we explained to the audients about the current situation of the religion persecution and freedom in China.
11. On May 1, 2002, we delivered in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. an open letter to the visiting Chinese Vice-President Jintao Hu, urging the Chinese government to improve its poor records of religion freedom and human rights. At the same time, we released a confidential document from the Chinese Government, in which it is clearly stated that any illegal (without the approval from the government) gathering of more than three people is prohibited until to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
12. On May 2nd, 2002, we wrote a letter to Mr. Jacques Rogge, the chairman of International Olympics, urging him to be aware of the fact that China is using 2008’s Olympics as a pretext for religious oppression and persecution. We received a response from his chief of staff stating that “the content of the letter has received proper attention and further investigation will be made about this matter…”
13. From September, 2002, we published a serious photographs showing a Christian beaten to death because of unable to pay the ransom, house church being destroyed, “tunnel warfare”, New York anti-terror events, etc. We also reported the arrest of about 600 hundred Christians (including 48 children), which had been further reported by Associated Press, New York Times, and other newspapers.
14. Starting on October 21, 2002, we have published daily one persecution case on our website.
Of course we cannot list all we have done here. We are very encouraged that world media and the American people are becoming more concerned about religious freedom in China, especially among Christians and Christian organizations. Our report was given to each member of the US Congress. President Bush was also properly informed about this matter and raised this issue when meeting with the Chinese leaders. These factual reports about religious persecution in China and the tactics and goals to suppress religious freedom by the Chinese Communist government caused great concerns among many Christians. They not only consistently pray for those persecuted but also tell the facts to the people around. Some had even decided to quit jobs with high salary in order to devote full time to work for this ministry and to help the suffered Christians in China. We pray that more Christians can join our ministry.
What we have done tells that we do not belong to this world and that we have absolutely no political agenda. Our goal is to promote the true religion freedom in China, and to urge the free Christians to love and care those bound brothers and sisters, and to fight for the Gospel to be openly and freely preached throughout China.