[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 141 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. CON. RES. 141

  Calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the 
 venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless the People's Republic of China 
       makes significant progress in ending human rights abuses.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 28, 2005

 Mr. Tancredo (for himself and Mr. Smith of New Jersey) submitted the 
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
                        International Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
  Calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the 
 venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless the People's Republic of China 
       makes significant progress in ending human rights abuses.

Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China has a long-standing 
        history of human rights abuses and repressive tactics;
Whereas China began a one-child policy in the late 1970s that has consistently 
        been based on forced abortion and forced sterilization;
Whereas the United States has for the last three years prohibited United States 
        funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), charging that 
        UNFPA's support of China's population planning programs allows Beijing 
        to implement its policies of coercive abortion;
Whereas according to the Department of State's Report to Congress on China's 
        Birth Limitation Policy, dated July 15, 2004: ``A new national Law on 
        Population and Birth-Planning went into effect on September 1, 2002. 
        This law codifies on a national basis, for the first time, China's long-
        standing `one child policy' and specifies a number of government birth-
        limitation measures that amount to coercion.'';
Whereas this report further states: ``China continues to employ coercion in its 
        birth planning program, including through severe penalties for `out of 
        plan births' . . . UNFPA continues its support and involvement in 
        China's coercive birth limitation program in counties where China's 
        restrictive law and penalties are enforced by government officials.'';
Whereas women in China are required to obtain a birth permit from their work 
        unit or local family planning office before ``legally'' becoming 
        pregnant;
Whereas so-called ``social compensation'' fees, imposed by the Chinese 
        Government for violating the one-child policy, range from the equivalent 
        of one half the local average annual household income to as much as 10 
        times that level;
Whereas other coercive measures used to enforce China's one-child policy include 
        loss of employment and cutting off state-funded health care benefits or 
        education for ``out of plan'' children;
Whereas, despite the apparent attempt by China through its Law on Population and 
        Birth-Planning to standardize birth-control policies and reduce 
        corruption and coercion, the Department of State continues to report 
        that China's one-child family planning program remains a source of 
        coercion, forced abortions, infanticide, and perilously imbalanced boy-
        girl ratios;
Whereas the Department of State further reports: ``A high female suicide rate 
        continued to be a serious problem. Many observers believed that violence 
        against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, the 
        traditional preference for male children, the country's birth limitation 
        policies, and other societal factors contributed to the especially high 
        female suicide rate.'';
Whereas other human rights abuses documented by the Department of State include 
        instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of 
        prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy 
        incommunicado detention, and denial of due process;
Whereas human rights groups contend that traditional methods of execution are 
        being replaced by mobile execution vans in which officials execute 
        prisoners by lethal injection, harvest their organs without consent 
        obtained prior to their execution, and then sell the organs for large 
        amounts of money to foreign patients;
Whereas China engages in forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and 
        seizing of humanitarian workers, despite China's knowledge that these 
        refugees face imprisonment, torture, and even possibly execution upon 
        their return to North Korea;
Whereas the July 2002 United States-China Economic and Security Review 
        Commission report to Congress stated: ``China is enhancing its 
        capability to carry out attacks across the Taiwan Strait with its 
        special operations forces, air forces and navy and missiles forces.'';
Whereas China continues to threaten the security of Taiwan's 23 million 
        citizens by targeting Taiwan with approximately 500 ballistic missiles 
        and refusing to renounce the use of force against Taiwan;
Whereas Chinese military officials declared in a December 2004 ``White 
        Paper'' that China has ``a sacred responsibility'' to ``crush'' a free 
        and democratic Taiwan ``at any cost'';
Whereas China recently enacted a so-called ``anti-secession law'' authorizing 
        force against the nation of Taiwan in violation of China's promise to 
        resolve cross-strait differences peacefully, which unilaterally changes 
        the status quo and threatens security in the region;
Whereas in awarding the 2008 Olympic Games to China, the International Olympic 
        Committee (IOC) deceived itself by believing that the Olympic Games 
        would bring greater transparency to what China claims is its improving 
        human rights record;
Whereas the Nazi propaganda machine proudly and arrogantly flaunted the 1936 
        Olympic Games as an example of the leadership of Adolf Hitler and his 
        Nazi party, and the horrible miscalculation of the IOC lent credibility 
        to a man and a regime that later slaughtered more than six million Jews; 
        and
Whereas the IOC made the same mistake again forty-four years later by granting 
        the 1980 Olympic Games to the Soviet Union, and on the eve of those 
        games, the host country launched a war with Afghanistan: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),  
That Congress--
            (1) recognizes the ongoing abuse by the People's Republic 
        of China of the most basic of human rights;
            (2) requests the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to 
        acknowledge that the egregious violations of human rights by 
        China should prevent China from hosting the 2008 Olympic Games; 
        and
            (3) calls on the International Olympic Committee to change 
        the venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless China makes 
        significant progress in ending human rights abuses, including 
        by--
                    (A) ending its one-child policy which results in 
                forced abortions and sterilizations;
                    (B) halting its violent persecution of North Korean 
                refugees and releasing humanitarian workers that it has 
                jailed;
                    (C) discontinuing its intimidation of Taiwan's 23 
                million citizens;
                    (D) making public the number of executions that are 
                carried out each year;
                    (E) halting the practice of parading prisoners 
                through the streets prior to executing them; and
                    (F) no longer holding public executions in stadiums 
                filled with spectators, including those which 
                schoolchildren are required to attend.
                                 <all>