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August 26, 2001
Tour of Washington, D.C.
On the afternoon of August 21, 2001, Congressmen Frank
Wolf, co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Subcommittee and two of his staff
members, met with me, Shixiong Li,
president of CIPRC, in his Capitol office.
Ms. Ciping Huang, former president of the Chinese Independent Students
Association, volunteered to be the interpreter.
“You don’t mind my having my lunch, do you?” This served as Mr. Wolf’s beginning to the
conversation.
“Of course not,” I answered with some curiosity, for I
noticed that his lunch was really very simple, consisting of a sandwich and a
bottle of juice.
I was told we only had twenty minutes for the
meeting. Mr. Wolf then started asking
my opinion on PNTR. I told him I am
against the delinking of trade and human rights. I handed him a picture of my protest against that very situation
before Capitol Hill last year. As he
looked at the picture carefully, he had a pure childlike smile, which made me
recall the sort of beautiful memories I had from before the Cultural
Revolution. It was a smile that has not
been found in the faces of Chinese people since.
Knowing that I had been in a Chinese labor camp
beginning at the age of seven, he asked me whether I had thought I would sit
someday with an American congressman. I told him, “Absolutely not.”
“Is the collapse of China’s dictator closer now than
it was in 1989?” he asked.
“No, it’s further away because nowadays no one cares
about anything except making money,” was the assessment I gave.
He told us that when he attributed the fall of the
Berlin Wall with Star Wars and economic sanctions, a lady told him, “No, it is
the fruit of our daily prayers to God.”
“Now I pray to God every evening before bedtime. I believe the collapse of the dictatorship
is closer now,” he said sincerely.
He then said to me, “I am not saying I don’t trust
you. I indeed used to help a couple of
Chinese, but it turned out they all betrayed me. How can I know that you are not going to be the same? You may choose not to answer this question.”
“I am not escaping from any question. I was put in laogai (reeducation)
camp when I was a child. Since then I
dreamed of having freedom. Now I enjoy
freedom today in this great country.
This experience will certainly prevent me from betraying you like those
you mentioned,” I replied emotionally.
Obviously this pious congressman was hurt by some of the very Chinese to
whom he shows great sympathy.
Then he asked, “What made you carry out this
investigation?” referring to our ongoing investigation of religious persecution
in China.
“Hundreds of thousands of house-church believers
suffer severe persecution. Many of
their children had to drop out of school from the pressure, and had to abandon
their dreams for a better future and succumb to a life without any justice and
warmth on this earth. Thirty or forty
years ago, I was in the same helpless and desperate situation as they are,” I
replied. “By the way, I want you to
help head an ‘America Cares Movement’ by mobilizing American families and
churches to pray and adopt those children who are discriminated against, even
to the point of becoming homeless and desperate, because of their parents’
faith in God. This is not a matter of
money, but love,” I continued, handing him a letter to President Bush, which he
promised to deliver.
The Congressman then asked about my family and how we
make a living here. I told him I used
to support my family by handling political asylum cases. Since devoting all of my time to the investigation
of religious persecution, I have had no income. So my wife has been earning about $10.00 a day by knitting
sweaters. Most of the funds to support
our activities come from the savings of Mr. Yu who is a devoted Christian.
Hearing about that, Mr. Wolf said solemnly, “When the Jewish people were persecuted
in the former Soviet Union, American Jews stood up to rescue them. But the Chinese church chose to be
indifferent toward their own suffering people.” He turned to one of his staffers, saying, “Please call the
Foundation for Democracy right away and ask them to provide help.”
Finally he said, “Please write to me in your name, and
I will read your letter before all of my colleagues in Congress. This letter will be put in the congressional
file record.”
Of course our conversation ended up lasting a good
deal longer than twenty minutes. The
following is the letter I wrote to Congressman Wolf.
September 1, 2001
Dear Honorable Congressman Wolf:
On behalf of the 23, 686 and ever increasing number of Chinese Christian prisoners who have been imprisoned because of their religious faith, I want to extend my deep gratitude to you and your colleagues for your consistent and continual concern for the ongoing religious persecution in China. The meeting we had the other day itself was encouraging in demonstrating that there are still some courageous men and women in this great country who are willing to listen to the voice of the persecuted faithful. Though many of you might have heard in the past few years that China’s human rights and religious freedom record had been “greatly improved,” if you were to let the truth and facts speak for themselves, you would have a different picture. So what has really been happening to millions of the silenced underground church believers in China?
To celebrate its victory in the US Congress of the
passage of PNTR, and correspondent defeat of those like you who had been
concerned with the issue of China’s religious persecution, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has launched more campaigns against religious believers
recently without any concern of international pressure being applied at all. To
the contrary, their response has been to strike harder and more ruthlessly than
ever on house-church believers. If there was any meaningful signal to religious
persecutors in the past, it was the annual congressional review of PNTR which
at least served as a helpful tool, if not the most effective one, to contain
the human right abusers in China, or at least to alert China that the situation
was one of concern to the US. Regrettably, even this, one of the last means to
rein in Chinese human right abuses, has been removed in Congress in the name of
the “American economic interest.” All that you can do now to improve CCP’s “deteriorated”
human rights record is to wait for the collapse of persecutors who are
well-aided by “American economic interest group.”
We are all people under God. Though practicing
different faiths, we all put our trust in the One and only true god. While noting
the importance of economic interest, nevertheless we should never sacrifice
human rights and religious freedom in exchange for bread and toys. Moreover,
according to our independent investigation by some ten thousand house-church
believers inside China, even children have become prey to the Chinese religious
persecutors just because their mothers and fathers are members of the
house-church. How depraved we would be to neglect hundreds of thousands of
crying, scared, hungry children—many of whom have no home to go—just because
their parents are believers in God and members of house-churches! With their
homes destroyed as “illegal religious sites” and their schools rejecting them
as “unfit for communist education,” these children wrote down their stories and
experiences with trembling hands and fearful tears. (Please see the attached
two children’s testimonies written in their own hands.)
Dear Congressman Wolf, here I want you to pay special
attention to one fact: the passage of PNTR has had a grave effect on the fate
of house-church believers. Before the passage of PNTR, in the eighteen years
that we have had records of the Chinese house-church movement, the average
number of believers forced to flee their homes because of persecution was 63
each year. However, that number has increased to 330 just one year after the
passage of PNTR, a five-fold increase. Moreover, before the passage of PNTR,
the average number of people arrested was 1,192 per year, and now that number
has increased to 2,118, a 70 percent increase. In addition, house-church
believers have been experiencing much greater pressure than ever before from
the fact that anyone who is accused as a believer in God is subject to
persecution by local police. Numerous believers have been arrested, tortured,
and imprisoned for distributing church-related materials.
Base on the above facts, I have three specific
requests of Congress:
First, we plead for Congress to ask President Bush to
show his extensive concern over the issue of China’s religious persecution when
he pays his state visit to China next month. He can accomplish that by
submitting to President Jiang Zemin the list of names of Chinese religious
prisoners; requesting their immediate release according to Article 36 in
China’s Constitution which claims “Chinese people have the freedom of religious
belief”; and recommending the Chinese government compensate those who have been
the victims of the persecution.
In addition, we ask President Bush to submit another
list of the at least 789 severe persecutors, including some senior officials
such as Mr. Kun Cao, deputy director of the Public Security Bureau (PSB),
Nongan county, Jilin province; Mr. Lianshen Zhang, deputy director of PSB,
Xinqu district, Tangsha city, Hebei province, and Mr. Qing Guo, director of PSB
of Yeji branch, An county, Anhui province. President Bush should press Chinese
President Jiang to prosecute those criminals, along with the law enforcement
officials who abused their power by carrying out religious persecution using
China’s own Criminal Justice Law and other laws that have been perverted as a
means of persecuting rather than protecting the Chinese citizenry. (Please see
the attached respective lists.)
Second, we ask the US Congress to continue to monitor
China’s deteriorated human rights record, particularly with regard to religious
persecution. Please press the cases of religious prisoners and their children
by seeking their release and justice for them, which should include a trial of
the criminal police.
Our third and final request is that the Congress
continue its moral endorsement and support of those conscientious people who
advocate and help those who are persecuted because of their religious belief;
that it pass legislation to prevent any foreign government or its affiliated
organizations from monitoring, threatening, and harassing the groups and
individuals based in the United States who fight for religious freedom in
China.
May the day of true religious freedom in China soon
arrive!
Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
May God be with you!
May God bless the American Congress and its people!
Shixiong
Li
President
of
Committee
for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China
A
Contrastive Table of Family-Church Believers
June 2, 2001
Testimony One:
Profile:
Shi-Ting Huang, female, sixteen years old.
Hometown: Bao Nan street, Zhaodoing city, Hilongjiang provice.
Attending school: Junior Class 4-1, No. 3 high school, Zhaodong city.
At about 5pm on April 3, 2000, I found a police car parked behind our house when I returned home after class. I was very surprised. I hurried back home and found several policemen conducting an intensive search of our home.
“Do you and your mom still believe in God?” a policeman shouted to me when he saw me come in.
“Yes, is there anything wrong with believing in God?” I replied nervously.
“It’s not a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter that you are not allowed to believe that.”
I was scared to death when one policeman approached me and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Shi-Ting Huang.”
“How old are you? Where are you studying?”
“Fifteen. At No. 3 High School.”
After awhile, I heard one policeman shout to my mom, “You have to come with us today.”
I was left alone, watching my mom being dragged out to the police car. With extreme darkness outside and the echoing of the policeman’s shouting, I burst out crying suddenly. After many hours, my mother came back at midnight and told me that she was told that the matter was not finished. After that I was always afraid that someday my mom would be arrested. And, it did happen at noon on May 15, when I came back home to find the door locked.
“Your Mom was taken away by the policeman,” a neighbor told me. I wandered around the house, waiting for Mom in a long, suffering afternoon without having anything to eat. At about nine in the evening, Mom came back with bruises and told me with tears: “Tingting, Mom has to leave. They (the police) won’t let me stay at home any longer.” I couldn’t accept that. Lying on the bed without sleep, I wondered: Is Mom going back home again? What shall I do? Who will cook for me? Who will pick me up from school? The next morning, I knew Mom was leaving but I pretended not to care about this while a river of tears flowed in my heart.
I found the door was locked and Mom had left that afternoon after class. I was very anxious and desperate so I had to find a place to stay. I went to stay at my cousin’s home.
At that time I thought the school was my only place to find some rest. But the police would not even let me go. In the beginning, they tried to know where my parents were by asking my teachers to question me. The fact is I really knew nothing about that except they were working somewhere in Shenyiang City. Then the police started following me everyday from school to my cousin’s home after class. One day, a policeman rushed into my cousin’s home and threateningly told me, “It’s hard for us to believe that you don’t know where your parents are. It’s impossible that there is no communication between you and your mom. Sooner or later we’ll find and arrest her even if you don’t tell us.” The most terrifying thing happened when two policemen stormed into my cousin’s home the night before I had to take a major entrance exam for high school. They searched everything everywhere, upside down, and warned me before they left, “It’s not possible that your Mom won’t come back when you take this entrance exam. You will be severely punished according to the law if you don’t report it immediately.” My heart was so stirred and terrified that I couldn’t continue to review my class notes. Nobody from my relatives came to meet me the next day after the exam; only a few policemen were watching me with suspicious and evil eyes. They followed me wherever I went. And I failed to enter senior high school. My brother-in-law and all my other relatives could not receive me because of the police’s harassment. How much more pressure could I bear as a fifteen-year-old, teenage girl? Having to throw away the beloved books of my ten years education and ideal without knowing what my tomorrow will be, I am still walking outside my hometown, living life like a real wanderer.
Victim Shi-Ting Huang
June 2, 2001
Testimony 2:
Profile:
Jianjie Ju, male, fifteen years old.
Hometown: Liunan street, Zhaodong City, Heilongjiang provice.
Somebody reported to the public security bureau of Zhaodong City on April 3, 2000 that my whole family believes in God. My parents had to run away from home that night after hearing about that. Suddenly I was left alone in our three-bedroom house that night. I was so terrified that I turned on all the lights in the house. I started crying and asking myself: Is Mom going to come back? How could I live my life after this? How could I bear the suffering of being separated from Mom who always cares most about me?
After that, I had to stay at my grandma’s home. But the police turned their attention onto me in order to find my parents. In the beginning, they tried to get information about my parents’ whereabouts by asking my teacher Mr. Jianchao Lu to question me. Failing to get any information, they started harassing me by following me daily after school. I was so isolated that nobody at my school dared to stay with me because there were always policeman around me wherever I went. Every morning when I walked to school from grandma’s house, a policeman came up and “escorted” me and sometimes interrogated me as if I were a criminal.
Because both my grandparents were over seventy years old and very ill, they were not able to take care of me. And none of my relatives were willing to invite me to stay with them because of the fear of police. I had to leave my beloved school with tears. I am now really a wanderer. Whenever I wander around a school watching other children playing games, I cannot help bursting out into tears. When can I resume my school?
Jianjie Ju