[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 599 Engrossed in House (EH)]

H. Res. 599

                In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

                                                          May 28, 2014.
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 to 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 continue 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 the 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.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.