[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 597 Introduced in House (IH)]

113th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 597

Urging the Government of the People's Republic of China to respect the 
freedom of assembly, expression, and religion and all fundamental human 
 rights and the rule of law for all its citizens and to stop censoring 
   discussion of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and their 
                          violent suppression.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 23, 2014

 Mr. Smith of New Jersey submitted the following resolution; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Urging the Government of the People's Republic of China to respect the 
freedom of assembly, expression, and religion and all fundamental human 
 rights and the rule of law for all its citizens and to stop censoring 
   discussion of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and their 
                          violent suppression.

Whereas on June 4, 1989, peaceful demonstrations held in and around Beijing's 
        Tiananmen Square were brutally crushed by the People's Liberation Army, 
        carrying out the orders of China's Communist Party leadership;
Whereas the peaceful demonstrations of 1989 called upon the Chinese Communist 
        Party to eliminate corruption, accelerate economic and political 
        reforms, and protect human rights, particularly the freedoms of 
        expression and assembly;
Whereas by early May 1989, an estimated 1,000,000 people joined the protests in 
        Tiananmen Square and citizens in over 400 Chinese cities staged similar 
        protests for democratic reform, including not only students, but also 
        government employees, journalists, workers, police officers, members of 
        the armed forces, and other citizens;
Whereas on May 20, 1989, martial law was declared in Beijing, China, after 
        authorities had failed to persuade demonstrators to leave Tiananmen 
        Square;
Whereas during the late afternoon and early evening hours of June 3, 1989, 
        thousands of armed troops, supported by tanks and other armor, moved 
        into Beijing to ``clear the Square'' and surrounding streets of 
        demonstrators;
Whereas on the night of June 3, 1989, and continuing into the morning of June 4, 
        1989, soldiers fired into crowds, inflicting high civilian casualties, 
        killing or injuring unarmed civilians;
Whereas tanks crushed to death some protesters and onlookers;
Whereas independent observers report that hundreds, perhaps thousands, were 
        killed and wounded by the People's Liberation Army soldiers and other 
        security forces;
Whereas 20,000 people throughout China suspected of taking part in the democracy 
        movement were reportedly arrested and sentenced without trial to prison 
        or reeducation through labor, and many were reportedly tortured, with 
        many being imprisoned for decades;
Whereas the Tiananmen Mothers is a group of relatives and friends of those 
        killed in June 1989 whose demands include the right to mourn victims 
        publicly, to call for a full and public accounting of the wounded and 
        dead, and the release of those who remain imprisoned for participating 
        in the 1989 protests;
Whereas members of the Tiananmen Mothers group have faced arrest, harassment, 
        and discrimination, with the group's website blocked in China and 
        international cash donations made to the group to support families of 
        victims reportedly frozen by Chinese authorities;
Whereas the Chinese Government undertakes active measures to deny its citizens 
        the truth about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, including the blocking of 
        uncensored Internet sites and weblogs, and the placement of misleading 
        information on the events of June 3, 1989, through June 4, 1989, on 
        Internet sites available in China;
Whereas the Chinese Government continues to suppress dissent by imprisoning pro-
        democracy activists, lawyers, journalists, labor union leaders, 
        religious believers, members of ethnic minority rights organizations, 
        and other individuals in Xinjiang and Tibet who seek to express their 
        political or religious views or their ethnic identity in a peaceful 
        manner;
Whereas Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain peaceful advocates for 
        human rights, religious freedom, ethnic minority rights and the rule of 
        law, and their family members, such as Nobel Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo 
        and his wife Liu Xia, Gao Zhisheng, Wang Bingzhang, Peng Ming, Zhu Yufu, 
        Lobsang Tsering, Ilham Tohti, Yang Maodong (also known as Guo Feixiong), 
        Sun Desheng, Liu Yuandong, Guo Quan, Liu Xianbin, Yang Rongli, 
        Alimujiang Yimiti, Yang Tianshui, Wang Zhiwen, Li Chang, Gulmira Imin, 
        Dhondup Wangchen, and Chen Kegui, nephew of blind human rights activists 
        Chen Guangcheng;
Whereas according the Prisoner Database maintained by the United States 
        Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the Communist Government of 
        China continues to detain over 1,300 prisoners of conscience, though the 
        number may be much higher;
Whereas the Chinese authorities continues to maintain a system of labor camps 
        and ``black jails'' to detain peaceful advocates for human rights and 
        democratic freedoms, harasses and detains human rights lawyers who take 
        on cases deemed politically sensitive, limits the number of children 
        Chinese couples may have, including through the practice of forced 
        abortions and sterilizations, restricts severely the religious activity 
        of Protestants, Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, and Uyghur Muslims, 
        conducted a 15-year campaign to eradicate Falun Gong practice in China, 
        publicly vilifies, and refuses to negotiate with, the Dalai Lama over 
        Tibetan issues, and, forcibly repatriates thousands of refugees to North 
        Korea who face persecution, imprisonment, and possible execution in 
        violation of its international commitments;
Whereas the Government of China maintains tight control of speech, religion, and 
        assembly, and has continually received poor rankings focused on civil 
        liberties and political rights by nongovernmental organizations;
Whereas the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's most 
        recent annual report has found that the ``Chinese government continues 
        to perpetrate particularly severe violations of religious freedom'', 
        with conditions ``worse now than at any time in the past decade'' for 
        religious minorities, findings which again contributed to the Commission 
        recommending that China be designated as a ``country of particular 
        concern'';
Whereas the United States Department of State's most recent human rights report 
        on China found ``extrajudicial killings'' occurred in China;
Whereas the United States Department of State's most recent human rights report 
        on China found that government continued to target ``for arbitrary 
        detention or arrest'' ``human rights activists, journalists . . . and 
        former political prisoners and their family members'';
Whereas freedom of expression and assembly are fundamental human rights that 
        belong to all people, and are recognized as such under the Universal 
        Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and 
        Political Rights; and
Whereas a government of China which respects the individual rights of all its 
        people would be more likely to have productive economic, political, and 
        security relations with its neighbors and the United States: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) urges the Government of the People's Republic of China 
        to stop censoring information about the Tiananmen Square 
        massacre;
            (2) expresses sympathy to the families of those killed, 
        tortured, and imprisoned as a result of their participation in 
        the democracy protests of June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square, 
        Beijing, in the People's Republic of China;
            (3) supports all peaceful advocates for human rights and 
        the rule of law in China for their efforts to advance 
        democratic reforms and human rights during the past;
            (4) condemns the ongoing human rights abuses and 
        persecution by the Government of the People's Republic of China 
        and its efforts to quell peaceful political dissent, censor the 
        Internet, suppress ethnic and religious minorities, limit the 
        number of children had by Chinese couples through coercion and 
        violence, and harass and detain lawyers and freedom advocates 
        seeking the Government's commitment, in law and practice, to 
        international human rights treaties and covenants to which it 
        is a party;
            (5) calls on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to 
        take all appropriate steps to circumvent Chinese internet 
        censorship and to provide information to the people of China 
        about the Tiananmen Square Massacre;
            (6) calls on the United States Government to--
                    (A) make human rights, including religious freedom, 
                a priority in bilateral discussions with the Chinese 
                Government; and
                    (B) instruct the United States representative at 
                the United Nations Human Rights Council to introduce a 
                resolution calling for an examination of the human 
                rights practices of the Government of the People's 
                Republic of China;
            (7) calls on the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China to--
                    (A) end the harassment, detention, torture, and 
                imprisonment of Chinese citizens expressing their 
                legitimate freedom of religion, expression, and 
                association, including on the Internet;
                    (B) release all remaining prisoners of conscience 
                who continue to be detained as a result of their 
                participation in the peaceful pro-democracy 
                demonstrations in 1989, especially around Tiananmen 
                Square;
                    (C) end the harassment and discrimination of those 
                involved in the 1989 protests and their families, 
                permit Chinese citizens to freely commemorate and share 
                information about Tiananmen;
                    (D) allow protest participants who escaped to or 
                are living in exile in the United States and other 
                countries, or who reside outside of China because they 
                have been ``blacklisted'' in China as a result of their 
                peaceful protest activity, to return to China without 
                risk of retribution or repercussion and fully repeal 
                any laws or decrees that deny them the ability to 
                travel to China; and
                    (E) end Internet, media, and academic censorship of 
                discussions of the Tiananmen Protests and events 
                surrounding it;
            (8) calls on the Administration and Members of Congress to 
        take steps to continue to mark the events of Tiananmen Square--
                    (A) meeting with participants in the 
                demonstrations, or their families, who are living in 
                the United States;
                    (B) meeting with others outside of China who have 
                been ``blacklisted'' in China as a result of their 
                peaceful protest activities;
                    (C) signaling support for those in China who demand 
                an independent and credible accounting of the events 
                surrounding June 4, 1989; and
                    (D) supporting those advocating for accountable and 
                democratic governance, human rights, and the rule of 
                law in China; and
            (9) finds that United States relations with China are more 
        likely to further improve once the government recognizes and 
        respects the individual human rights of all its people.
                                 <all>