[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 159 (Thursday, October 29, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2671-E2673]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CHINESE HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEYS TESTIFY BEFORE THE TOM LANTOS HUMAN 
                           RIGHTS COMMISSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 29, 2009

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of my 
colleagues to the following testimonies of two Chinese human rights 
lawyers who appeared at a hearing today of the Tom Lantos Human Rights 
Commission.

 Written Testimony Submitted to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission 
           on the Rule of Law in China by Mr. Jiang Tianyong

       Dear members of U.S. Congress, ladies and gentlemen:
       How are you? My name is Jiang Tianyong and I come from 
     mainland China. I am an attorney and most of the cases I take 
     on involve religious belief, and are usually referred to as 
     ``sensitive cases.'' I am also a Christian and as such a 
     person, I need to worship God in gatherings with my brothers 
     and sisters in Christ. I am going to discuss three things, 
     and I hope I can give you an idea of the actual status of the 
     rule of law and religious belief in China.
       The first one is an event I would like to share: On the 
     afternoon of Mother's Day of May 13, 2007, I was praying and 
     singing hymns of God with my brothers and sisters in Christ 
     gathering. It was in a private large room in Beijing. 
     Suddenly, several dozen people broke into the room. Only 
     about a dozen of them were wearing uniforms and the rest were 
     in plain clothes. One of them forced us to stop our 
     activities and to remain still where we were. We were not 
     allowed to leave the place. The intruders claimed that they 
     were law enforcement officers from the Beijing Municipal 
     Bureau of Religious Administration. They said that our 
     gathering was an illegal one and abolished it immediately! 
     They sealed our donation box and took videos and photos of 
     many of us. They also recorded the identification information 
     of every one of us. After that, they conducted a long 
     interrogation. It was after 1 AM that I left the site. 
     Between that day and July 2009, I had no place where I could 
     meet with my fellow Christians in a gathering. This is my 
     experience in China as a Christian.
       The second event occurred on April 16, 2009. Attorney Li 
     Fangping and I became the defense counsels for the living 
     Buddha from Burongna Convent in Tibet that day. The living 
     Buddha is the abbot of Burongna Convent and Ya-tseg Convent 
     in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Ganzi of Sichuan 
     province. He was charged with weapons possession and 
     functionary embezzlement. However, after a detailed 
     investigation, we found the living Buddha was actually 
     charged for some other reasons. After the March 14 Incident 
     in 2008, people in the Tibetan prefecture were organized by 
     the government to engage in a ``Campaign of Education in 
     Patriotism.'' Monks and nuns were forced to study in the 
     convents and were kept there for a long time. What, then, was 
     the content of their education? They were commanded to 
     criticize the Dalai Lama and to call him a jackal and to 
     break away from him. Every one of them was commanded to 
     trample on the portrait of Dalai Lama and spit on the 
     portrait before he or she was allowed to pass the test. Given 
     such a situation, over 200 nuns from Burongna and Ya-tseg 
     Convents could no longer endure this, and they finally broke 
     out of the convents on May 14, 2008 and went to protest in 
     the streets, demanding religious freedom. As the living 
     Buddha was the leader of these two convents, he was arrested. 
     His case was tried on April 21, 2009 and both of the 
     attorneys and the living Buddha denied the charges. There is 
     still no result from the case, but we worry about the fate of 
     the living Buddha.
       The third piece of evidence I would like to share is that 
     starting from 2008, I began to defend Falun Gong 
     practitioners in nearly 20 Falun Gong cases. I have found 
     that the crackdown on Falun Gong is indeed a serious human 
     rights disaster. My clients were arrested simply because of 
     the practice. They were tried simply because they gave 
     practice books to others. Some of them were sentenced to 
     imprisonment just because they distributed materials that 
     expose the facts of persecution. They often face torture and 
     there are special funds, special locations, special people 
     and special tools in torturing Falun Gong practitioners. When 
     Huang Cheng from Jinzhou, Liaoning province was tried in 
     court, everybody could see the scars on his body; Chen Xinye 
     from Shenyang, Liaoning province suffered a bone fracture in 
     the beatings; they poured mustard water into the nostril of 
     Li Zhigang from Harbin, Heilongjiang province; Zhou Huimin 
     from Chengdu, Sichuan province was beaten to death.
       When it comes to Falun Gong cases, the law is often 
     trampled and it is hard to safeguard the defendant's right to 
     defense. Sun Feng from Tangshan, Hebei province was deprived 
     of his right to meet with his attorney; Ge Hefei from Handan 
     of Hebei province was sentenced while his attorney was 
     forbidden to intervene. In Falun Gong cases, attorneys are 
     forbidden to defend their clients on the proper application 
     of law or the nature of the incident. They are forbidden talk 
     about the Constitution or human rights. They are only allowed 
     to say whether the defendants did something or did not do 
     something.
       I and other human rights attorneys in China are suffering 
     an increasing level of harassment, suppression, and 
     persecution [by the government], because we serve as defense

[[Page E2672]]

     counsels in cases of safeguarding the freedom of religious 
     belief.
       Respectively in 2006 and 2008, the Beijing Municipal Bureau 
     of Justice intentionally fabricated complications in the 
     annual inspection and registration of my attorney's license. 
     On July 9, 2009, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice 
     announced that my attorney's license was revoked. We [human 
     rights legal defenders] are often stalked, harassed and 
     threatened by the secret police from Domestic Defense 
     Protection Squad. On special occasions or when foreign 
     leaders visit China, we are often forbidden to leave our 
     residences. For example, when President Obama visits China 
     next month, I will be forced to stay at home. My family 
     members are also often harassed and people from the Bureau of 
     Justice often come to talk with us and forbid me to get 
     involved in some cases. Because our landlords can't endure 
     the pressure from the secret police, they refuse to renew our 
     leases, and therefore we often are forced to move out.
       Because we handle cases involving religious belief, Li 
     Heping, Li Xiongbing, Wang Yajun, Tang Jitian, Liu Wei, Wen 
     Haibo, Xie Yiming, Wei Liangyue, Zhang Xingshui, other 
     attorneys and I have still not passed the so-called ``annual 
     inspection.'' Therefore, there is no way we can continue to 
     work as attorneys at this time.
       However, legal professionals, including attorneys, members 
     of house churches and other religious believers, have not 
     abandoned their rights in face of the crackdown. The civil 
     society in China is growing and will become more mature. I 
     think all of you present here today should keep your 
     confidence in this. We also need the attention and support 
     from all of you present here today, and the U.S. government.
       I propose the following:
       1. We recommend that you pay more attention and give more 
     support to the non-governmental forces in China, such as the 
     US State Department's International Visitor Leadership 
     Program, so that more human rights attorneys can participate 
     in the program;
       2. We recommend President Obama and other government 
     officials meet with human rights defenders and attend 
     gatherings of house churches during their visit to China;
       3. We recommend President Obama can talk with President Hu 
     Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and restore the freedom of Liu 
     Xiaobo, Chen Guangcheng, Hu Jia, Guo Feixiong and Guo Quan. 
     We also hope that with President Obama's visit, we will be 
     able to know the whereabouts of Attorney Gao Zhisheng;
       4. We recommend officials in the U.S. Embassy in China make 
     contact with human rights defenders and dissidents more often 
     and more widely, and invite them to attend some activities 
     held at the embassy.
       Thank you!

 A Testimony on the Current Status of China's Law on Religious Freedom

                           (By Mr. Zhang Kai)

       As a human rights attorney in China, I am hereby making 
     this statement concerning the current status of its law on 
     religious freedom as well as some suggestions based on cases 
     related to house churches affairs and their human rights 
     advocacy in recent years.
       Over the past few years, a large number of Chinese people 
     have been seeking faith and have become Christians. However, 
     they are often unable to enact their everyday religious 
     spiritual life under the law. Christian churches in China 
     consist not only of the officially recognized TSPM churches, 
     but also house churches organized by the believers 
     themselves. The development of house churches was a result of 
     the Christian belief that Christ, rather than the government, 
     should be the leader of the church. Because of the 
     theological differences between the TSPM and the house 
     churches, many Christians prefer to have religious gatherings 
     with their relatives and families at their own homes.
       However, members of these house churches are often 
     interrupted, harassed and pressured by the government during 
     religious services while meeting in their homes, with some 
     believers administratively detained, reeducated through 
     labor, and even criminally punished.


    I. illegal intervention in christian belief mainly includes the 
                           following aspects

       1. Banning house churches on grounds of being ``cults.''
       In 2000, the Ministry of Public Security issued The 
     Ministry of Public Security Circular Concerning a Few 
     Questions About Identifying and Banning Cult Organizations. 
     In this regulation, the following are confirmed: there are 
     seven types of cult organizations clearly defined in the 
     documents by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee 
     and the General Office of the State Council, and there are 
     seven types of cult organizations identified and confirmed by 
     the Ministry of Public Security, totaling fourteen types of 
     cults. However, of these fourteen cults, eleven are related 
     to Christianity--including the Shouters, the Disciple Union, 
     and the Total Scope Church. Since this regulation runs 
     directly counter to the basic principle of the modern rule of 
     law concerning the separation of the government and religion, 
     it has further led to the direct crackdown on a large number 
     of house churches composed of bona fide Christians, tried or 
     labeled as cults, in the course of law enforcement.
       In accordance with Item 1 of Article 27 of the Security 
     Administration Punishment Act currently in effect, anyone 
     would be subject to administrative detention or fines (I) for 
     organizing, abetting, intimidating, seducing and defrauding, 
     or instigating other people into practicing cults or 
     superstitious activities or for using cults or superstitious 
     activities to disrupt security and order, and to harm the 
     health of other people; (II) for conducting activities under 
     the pretext of religion or Qigong, to disrupt security and 
     order or harm the health of other people. This article has 
     led to the confiscation and damages of the large amounts of 
     church assets as well as the detention or reeducation through 
     labor of believers.
       2. Punishment on grounds of conducting cross-regional 
     preaching.
       In some local regulations, believers are prohibited from 
     cross-regional preaching. However, one of the characteristics 
     of Christianity, as a religion, is that Christians preach 
     wherever they go and spread the Gospel to every corner of the 
     world. In the Provisional Regulations on the Management of 
     Religious Activities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, it 
     is clearly set forth: ``Professional religious people shall 
     not conduct cross-region, prefecture, city or county 
     preaching without approval from the religious affairs bureaus 
     of the government.'' In one place in Xinjiang, a believer, 
     who went to another church, had barely read one sentence from 
     the Bible when he/she was removed from the position in the 
     church by the Religious Affairs Bureau. In some places, 
     violators of this law are directly given administrative 
     detention and even reeducation through labor.
       3. Banning on grounds that they are not registered.
       At present, the regulations on religious affairs require 
     that the establishment, change, or cancellation of religious 
     organizations be registered in accordance with Regulations on 
     Management of Registration of Social Organizations. However, 
     house churches are unable to register independently. As a 
     result, they are banned by local governments or the Public 
     Security as illegal congregations or on grounds that they 
     were not registered.
       4. Intervening at will in the religious activities of 
     believers.
       According to the surveys conducted in some cities in 
     southern Xinjiang this year, the government religious affairs 
     departments (i.e., Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commissions) 
     of Wensu, Baicheng, and the Aksu area, appointed or removed 
     at will clergymen at the house churches and restricted the 
     normal religious activities such as ``breaking of bread'' and 
     baptism, without going through democratic elections by 
     believers. Even the programs celebrating Christmas by 
     believers must all be reviewed and approved by the religious 
     affairs departments. Some religious venues were illegally 
     shut down without following any legal procedures.
       5. Suspected intention of insulting Christians.
       In 2008, the People's Government of Wensu Town even issued 
     a plaque of ``Peaceful Mosque'' to the Christian Church in 
     Wensu. This action, by blurring the Christian and Muslim 
     faiths, caused a widespread revulsion toward Christians, and 
     may provoke the conflict among peoples of different religions 
     in the future.
       6. Large numbers of facts show that administrative penalty 
     rulings are not issued and that fines were imposed without 
     legal and official tickets.
       For example, Li Enfu, a citizen in the Wushi area who has 
     believed in Christianity ever since he was a child, had been 
     appraised as an ``Excellent Self-employed Individual'' 
     several times, even though he is handicapped. Yet, just 
     because he had participated in religious activities, Li Enfu 
     was fined repeatedly. In 2002, this citizen was fined 4,000 
     yuan and actually paid 2,000 yuan, just because he took a 
     Christian calendar from the Wensu church and this calendar 
     was an official publication of the government. In 2006, he 
     was fined 8,500 yuan for attending a Christian gathering held 
     at his own home. And in March 2009, Huang Ming and Li Enfu 
     were fined a total of 3,000 yuan for holding the gathering 
     and leading the prayers.
       7. Punishing Uyghur ethnic minorities in Xinjiang for 
     believing in Christianity.
       In the Xinjiang region, it is especially difficult for the 
     Uyghur people who believe in Christianity. They basically 
     operate underground. In southern Xinjiang, there are about 
     one hundred Uyghur Christians. They can only hold completely 
     secret gatherings in groups of two or three people. Last 
     year, their leader, Wusiman, was reeducated through labor, 
     and co-leader Alimujiang was criminally punished.


    II. comments on the ineffectiveness of legal relief concerning 
                            christian belief

       When lawyers involved in these kinds of cases provide legal 
     services for believers, they often experience tremendous 
     obstruction. For example, the courts refuse to take the 
     cases; when they do take cases, they don't hold hearings; and 
     when they hold hearings, they do not give rulings.
       It is extremely difficult to file relevant cases with the 
     courts, which do not go through any standard legal 
     proceedings. According to Chinese law, if a case cannot be 
     established, there should be a ruling that the case is not 
     established. And based on that ruling, the party concerned 
     has the right to appeal. However, very often, these courts 
     neither process the filing of these cases, nor give any 
     rulings. This year, in the Hanzhong

[[Page E2673]]

     region in Shanxi, we instituted the relevant administrative 
     proceedings, and the court just refused to take the case. 
     Such phenomena are quite widespread. Although some cases were 
     filed and the litigation fees were paid, the courts kept 
     postponing the hearings. Four years ago, when I started 
     administrative proceedings in the Hanyin area in Shaanxi, I 
     was told by the local political and judicial commission that 
     there wouldn't be any court hearings. Even now there still 
     hasn't been any court hearing.


 III. based on the above facts, we are making the following suggestions

       As the aforementioned facts mainly include the harm 
     directly brought upon house churches by the judiciary or law 
     enforcement, we hope that the international community can 
     give more attention so as to increase surveillance and reduce 
     such harm. We hope that the U.S. government will carry out 
     more specific implementations in the following areas:
       1. Urge and help the Chinese government to draw up the 
     Religious Freedom Law, which should be consistent with 
     universal values.
       2. Have more American officials or those at the U.S. 
     embassy in China attend worship services in house churches in 
     China.
       3. Have American government officials or staff at the U.S. 
     Embassy in China periodically communicate with human rights 
     lawyers to learn about their situations.

                          ____________________