[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H804-H805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HOLOCAUST: THE CHINA PARALLEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier, and I just want to take a 
little time after the 1-minute to really urge Members to get a copy of 
the Washington Post piece by Walter Reich called, ``Holocaust: The 
China Parallel.''
  The writer is a physician, the director of the U.S. Holocaust 
Memorial Museum. He points out that what is taking place in China is 
parallel to the Holocaust that took place in some respects in Nazi 
Germany. Now, this Congress last year was going to do something with 
regard to China. It passed a bill with regard to putting some 
restrictions on China and dealing with Radio Free China. Frankly, 
nothing has happened to it. This year the Congress I think is obligated 
on both sides of the aisle to do something to deal with the issues of 
religious persecution and what is taking place in China.
  As a couple of examples, and I will submit them for the Record, 
Freedom House has documented 200 Christian Leaders in prison since 
April 1, 1995. A Christian ministry in the United States had delegates 
recently to visit a house church during a recent visit to China. The 
leaders in these churches have to be itinerant in their own country. 
They cannot meet with their own families. They have no permanent home. 
Many leaders have been jailed, beaten, fined, tortured, or sent to 
labor or reeducation camps for their religious beliefs.
  Quite frankly, I wish that Ronald Reagan were back in the White House 
whereby we could have somebody who could come out and stand up and 
raise these issues. Frankly, since the Berlin Wall has fallen and since 
Ronald Reagan has left the White House, neither the administration, the 
Bush administration, nor the Clinton administration, nor Republican 
Congresses or Democratic Congresses, have done anything with regard to 
human rights in China and many of the other countries.
  Quite frankly, the business of the Clinton administration is 
business. It is not human rights. They do not care if Catholic priests 
are being persecuted and bishops are going to jail. They don't care if 
evangelical ministers are being put in prison. They don't care if 
Buddhists are being put in prison.
  Mr. Speaker, does the Congress care? We know that Clinton does not 
care. We know that Secretary Christopher does not care, because we have 
seen no action out of the State Department. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the 
sound of silence that has come from the Clinton administration on 
religious persecution is deafening. Mr. Speaker, to be fair, the sound 
of silence coming from the Republican Congress on this issue is 
deafening.
  Now, all one had to do was watch ``60 Minutes'' Sunday night where 
they showed Chinese children tied to beds, mainly female children, and 
they starved them to death, similar to what the Nazis did before World 
War II. Had that happened in the 1980's, had Ronald Reagan been able to 
see that, had Senator Jackson of Jackson-Vanick been able to see it, 
leaders who have fought on both sides of the aisle for human rights, 
this Congress would have passed a resolution on it. This Congress would 
have debated this issue. But frankly, Mr. Speaker, this Congress, along 
with the Clinton administration, has done absolutely nothing.
  It would be my hope and prayer that both parties would have a plank 
in their platform this year for religious freedom from dissidents 
around the world, for persecution of all religious beliefs, whether 
they be Buddhist or Christian or Jews. This issue should be on the 
forefront of the burner of both political parties.
  As I again urge my colleagues after they read the article in today's 
Washington Post, I will close with what the author said. He said, ``If 
the Human Rights Watch report can be verified by international 
inspections, the parallels between the Chinese orphanages and the Nazi 
programs that killed disabled children are alarming. These parallels 
remind us that human beings, including physicians and other caregivers, 
are extraordinarily vulnerable to inhuman acts and extraordinarily 
capable for justifying their behavior on what they see as rational 
grounds. And they remind us that countries in which democratic 
institutions are forcibly forbidden and human rights systematically 
quashed are ones in which human life becomes, quite simply, 
expendable.''

[[Page H805]]

  This issue is not going to go away. If the Clinton administration 
does not deal with it, I hope and pray that at least this Republican 
Congress will deal with it.



                  China Steps Up Religious Repression

       December 22, 1995.--The Chinese government is subjecting 
     unauthorized Catholic and Protestant groups to intensifying 
     harassment and persecution as social tensions in the country 
     increase, says Human Rights Watch/Asia in ``China: Religious 
     Persecution Persists,'' released today.
       ``During the last two years, the Chinese government 
     broadened its drive to crush all forms of dissent. In 
     addition to targeting prominent dissidents such as Wei 
     Jingsheng, who last week was sentenced to fourteen years in 
     prison, all religious believers, and especially Christians, 
     are seen as potential security risks,'' said Mickey Spiegel, 
     research consultant for Human Rights Watch/Asia.
       Chinese authorities have issued new directives requiring 
     all congregations to register with religious authorities, 
     stepped up pressure on evangelists, and tightened controls on 
     contact with foreigners and on distribution of religious 
     materials. Individuals suspected of linking religion to 
     political activity have received the harshest treatment. The 
     extensive crackdown on Protestants and Catholics violates 
     both the Chinese constitution and freedom of religion as 
     guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
       As Communist ideology has lost public support, interest in 
     religion, particularly evangelical Protestantism, has spread 
     rapidly in China. But since the early 1990s, a new 
     development has emerged which the country's leaders consider 
     even more ``subversive'': a growing alliance between 
     underground Christian churches and pro-democracy activists, 
     many of whom have converted to Christianity in recent years. 
     Dissident groups such as the League for the Protection of the 
     Rights of Working People (LPRWP), some of whose members are 
     Protestants, have been particularly targeted for official 
     repression, with President Jiang Zemin describing the LPRWP 
     as ``the most counterrevolutionary organization in China 
     since 1949.'' After witnessing the role of the Catholic 
     Church in undermining Communist power in Eastern Europe, the 
     authorities have renewed their determination to eradicate all 
     autonomous religious activity in China.
       For example, Xiao Biguang, a thirty-three-year-old former 
     professor of literature at Beijing University, was one of the 
     main drafters of the charter for the LPRWP. He was arrested 
     on April 12, 1994, and put on trial this past April 1995 on 
     criminal charges including ``swindling'' and creating a 
     ``negative atmosphere'' among his students at a theological 
     seminary. As of mid-December 1995, he had not been sentenced 
     and was still being held in a Ministry of State Security 
     lockup in Beijing. Meanwhile, Xiao's wife, Gou Qinghui, has 
     been continually harassed, subjected to periodic 
     surveillance, and forbidden to continue seminary teaching or 
     to meet with co-religionists at home. She has been detained 
     at least four times in May 1994 and May 1995.
       The most recent crackdown began in January 1994, when 
     Premier Li Peng signed new regulations tightening the 
     existing requirement that all church groups in China register 
     with the state-controlled Religious Affairs Bureau. This 
     policy, which violates international standards on freedom of 
     expression and association, has forced Christians and other 
     religious believers to choose between registering their 
     congregations lawfully, which often exposes their services to 
     intrusive surveillance and official control, or continuing to 
     operate underground, thereby risking fines, arrests, and even 
     prison terms. The January 1994 regulations also reiterate 
     China's ban on proselytizing and other public religious 
     activities by foreigners, depriving Chinese believers of 
     their right to associate with their co-religionists from 
     overseas.
       Local authorities seeking to suppress unauthorized church 
     groups have often violated China's own laws and regulations, 
     acting even more brutally than the national religious policy 
     allows. Christians in many rural areas are routinely and 
     often repeatedly harassed through arbitrary detentions, 
     beatings, and confiscations of property. Those considered 
     ``ringleaders,'' especially Protestant preachers with a large 
     popular following, are at risk of arrest and imprisonment.
       In one case, Huang Fangxin, a twenty-nine-year old 
     seminarian from Yongkang County, Zhejiang Province, was 
     sentenced without trial to three years of ``re-education 
     through labor'' in April 1994, after organizing a group of 
     young people from the country into a ``gospel team'' to 
     recruit new members to the local church. Several of his 
     followers have since faced further harassment, including 
     mandatory ``study classes'' at which they are lectured, 
     fined, and sometimes physically abused.
       Similar abuses against underground Protestant groups, 
     including raids on churches and mass arrests, have been 
     reported throughout China, particularly in Henan and Anhui 
     provinces where the evangelical movement is especially 
     strong. Roman Catholic bishops who maintain ties to the 
     Vatican have also faced harassment and arbitrary detention.
       Foreigners suspected of promoting Christianity among 
     Chinese citizens have become a major target of the new 
     crackdown, especially those caught bringing Bibles and other 
     religious literature into the country illegally. During the 
     Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 
     September 1995, foreign participants were warned to bring in 
     no religious materials other than those for personal use. 
     Leaders of Protestant ``house churches'' in Beijing were 
     warned to avoid contact with conference delegates arriving 
     from overseas, and one Catholic leader. Bishop Jia Zhiguo, 
     was removed from his home and detained until the day after 
     the conference ended.
       The presence of foreigners was in part responsible for a 
     mass arrest in Hubei Province on April 18, 1995, in which 
     security officials, armed with electric batons, broke up a 
     theological training class for new pastors and arrested at 
     least sixty-seven Chinese and three overseas Protestants. The 
     detainees were interrogated, some of them were badly beaten, 
     and some of the men had their heads shaved.
       Human Rights Watch calls on the Chinese authorities to lift 
     all official controls on religious activities, including the 
     compulsory registration of church groups, and to thoroughly 
     investigate all reports of illegal mistreatment of religious 
     believers, including beatings, ill-treatment, and torture. 
     All those held for participating in religious activities 
     outside the official churches should be unconditionally 
     released, including those convicted of violating state 
     security laws or the laws on counterrevolution.
       Human Rights Watch also urges the international community 
     to exert pressure on the Chinese government to allow greater 
     religious freedom. The U.S., European Union, Japan, and other 
     governments should sponsor and vigorously promote a 
     resolution censuring China at the United Nations Human Rights 
     Commission in Geneva next March. Among other abuses, the 
     measure should specifically call for an end to religious 
     repression. In addition, the United Nations Special 
     Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance should be invited to make 
     a second visit to China early in 1996, following his previous 
     visit to Beijing and Tibet in November 1994; he should seek 
     to visit those Chinese provinces where the persecution of 
     Christians is most severe. Human Rights Watch/Asia urges 
     delegations of parliamentarians and trade delegations to 
     China to make specific inquiries about cases of religious 
     activists still in custody and those detained, ill-treated 
     then released. They should call for the immediate repeal of 
     all official restrictions on free expression of religious 
     belief and practice.
       Copies of the report are available from the Publications 
     Department, Human Rights Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, 
     NY 10017 for $6.00 (domestic) and $7.50 (international).


                        human rights watch/asia

       Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization 
     established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of 
     internationally recognized human rights in Africa, the 
     Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of 
     the Helsinki accords. It is supported by contributions from 
     private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no 
     government funds, directly or indirectly. The staff includes 
     Kenneth Roth, executive director; Cynthia Brown, program 
     director; Holly J. Burkhalter, advocacy director; Robert 
     Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; 
     Gara LaMarche, associate director; Lotte Leicht, Brussels 
     office director; Juan Mendez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, 
     communications director; Jerera Rone, counsel; Joanna 
     Weschler, United Nations representative; and Derrick Wong, 
     finance and administration director. Robert L. Bernstein is 
     the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. 
     Its Asia division was established in 1985 to monitor and 
     promote the observance of internationally recognized human 
     rights in Asia. Sidney Jones is the executive director; Mike 
     Jendrzejczyk is the Washington director; Robert Munro is the 
     Hong Kong director; Jeannine Guthrie is NGO Liaison; Dinah 
     PoKempner is Counsel; Patricia Gossman and Zunetta Liddell 
     are research associates; Joyce Wan and Shu-Ju Ada Cheng are 
     Henry R. Luce Fellows; Diana Tai-Feng Cheng and Paul Lall are 
     associates; Mickey Spiegel is a research consultant. Andrew 
     J. Nathan is chair of the advisory committee and Orville 
     Schell is vice chair.

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