IV 111th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1650 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES September 22, 2010 Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Pitts, and Mr. Fortenberry) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Calling on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately release Chen Guangcheng and his relatives from house arrest and to cease persecuting and harassing Chen Guangcheng, his relatives, and supporters.

Whereas Chen Guangcheng, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, overcame great obstacles, including the loss of his sight due to a childhood disease, to become a self-educated lawyer; Whereas in 2005, Chen collected testimony and evidence on a one-child policy enforcement campaign in Linyi county, Shandong province, which resulted in 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations, according to press reports cited by the United States Department of State; Whereas in 2005, Chen met with legal scholars and foreign journalists to discuss filing a class-action lawsuit against those responsible for the one-child policy enforcement campaign in Linyi county and to publicize the enforcement campaign; Whereas in 2005, Chinese officials placed Chen under effective house arrest, surrounding his house with police officials, not permitting him to leave freely, and restricting others’ access to his home and village; Whereas in August 2006, Chinese officials convicted Chen of property destruction and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic and sentenced him to four years, three months in prison; Whereas Chinese officials announced Chen’s trial date several days before the trial, detained the lawyers he had selected to represent him, and refused to permit them to enter the courtroom; Whereas Chen was beaten by his fellow prisoners, prevented from communicating with his family, and suffered chronic and serious illness while in prison; Whereas since 2005, Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, has been placed under varying degrees of house arrest, surveillance, and visitors to their house have been beaten and harassed, and their children prevented from enrolling in school; Whereas, on September 9, 2010, the date Chen’s sentence expired, Chinese officials transported Chen from prison to his house, which officials have surrounded with police and surveillance cameras; Whereas Chen has called on “international organizations and people of conscience” to react to his continued house arrest “in a united manner … If they can help me today, their actions will help another person tomorrow”; Whereas in 2006, Chen was included in Time magazine’s list of 2006's Top 100 People Who Shape Our World in the category of Heroes and Pioneers, and in 2007, Chen was recognized with the Ramon Magsaysay Award, which cited, his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law; Whereas the violence that Chen sought to document in 2005 is ongoing, and in 2010 there are reliable reports of large scale and violent abortion enforcement campaigns in Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces; Whereas it is not known that the Government of the People’s Republic of China has ever punished an official for forcing a woman to undergo abortion or sterilization; and Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China links officials’ job promotion with their ability to meet or exceed population planning targets, evaluates officials by a system that rewards them for overseeing compulsory abortions, and frequently urges officials to rigorously enforce compulsory abortion on pregnant women who do not have a birth permit: Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives— (1)calls on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately release Chen Guangcheng and his relatives from house arrest and to cease persecuting and harassing Chen Guangcheng, his relatives, and supporters; (2)calls on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to ensure that Chen Guangcheng has access to medical treatment; (3)calls on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to investigate the one-child policy enforcement campaign held in 2005 in Linyi county, Shandong province, and to punish those responsible for the massive human rights violations perpetrated in connection with that campaign; and (4)condemns the birth limitation policy of the Government of the People’s Republic of China, particularly the enforcement of birth limitations through policies that encourage officials to physically force women to have abortions or to be sterilized or both.