[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 14, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H6651-H6652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 END THE PERSECUTION OF CHEN GUANGCHENG

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week one of China's most 
heroic defenders of human rights, Chen Guangcheng, was transported from 
prison to his family's house. This was good news, but only a step in 
the right direction. We must not gloss over the fact that Chen, who in 
2006 revealed to the world the massive violence and brutality of the 
one child per couple policy enforcement campaign in Linyi, Shandong 
province, remains under house arrest, imprisoned in his own home, which 
is surrounded by surveillance cameras and police. Foreign reporters 
attempting to enter his village have been beaten and driven away, and 
Chen is reportedly in need of urgent medical attention, having been 
regularly beaten in prison, where he lost a great deal of weight.
  Just today a Radio Free Asia reporter spoke with Chen and his wife 
over a cell phone. Chen's wife said, and I quote, ``He has a sort of 
haunted look. And for the first few days after his release he couldn't 
speak at all.'' Think about it. This is a very, very tough and 
articulate man, yet for the first few days after his release he 
couldn't speak at all. Such was the brutality of Chen's imprisonment.
  So it is all the more inspiring to read Chen's words. The Chinese 
Government may have broken his body in the laogai, but they have 
absolutely not broken his spirit. Chen got on the phone and called on 
``international organizations and people of conscience'' to react to 
his continued arrest in a united manner. That's the house arrest. And, 
``If they can help me today,'' he said, ``their actions will help 
another person tomorrow.''
  A few words about Chen, Mr. Speaker. He is a self-taught lawyer, 
having been denied the benefits of higher education due to his 
blindness, and was known in Linyi for advising his neighbors on how to 
resist the government's injustices. In 2005 and 2006 he took the brave 
step that changed his life. He began interviewing people and gathering 
evidence about the massive violence and brutality of the one child per 
couple policy and its enforcement campaign that shook Linyi in 2005. 
What he uncovered was shocking: 130,000 forced abortions and 
sterilizations in Linyi County in that year alone, in addition to mass 
detentions and beatings.
  In order to stop Chen's investigation, officials placed him under 
house arrest. But he managed to slip away and travel to Beijing, where 
he met with journalists from Time magazine and conferred with legal 
scholars about filing a large class action suit against officials 
responsible for the campaign. Officials soon abducted him back to 
Shandong, returned him to house arrest, and then convicted him on 
trumped up charges of property destruction. Chen served the full term 
of his 4-year, 3-month sentence, despite health problems indicating the 
appropriateness of medical parole.
  Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Government's relentless pursuit of Chen 
corresponds to the continued violence of the one child per couple 
policy, which Chen bravely exposed. Sadly, what he documented in 2005 
and 2006 is still going on today all over China. This year alone we 
have reliable reports of large-scale forced abortion and sterilization 
campaigns in Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi 
provinces. The campaign in Guangdong province was widely reported, the 
story having been broken by The Times of London in April of this year.
  In Guangdong's Puning County, officials rounded up women and men, as 
well as the relatives of any resisters, detained them in cramped 
conditions, and working 20-hour shifts for 20 days, forcibly sterilized 
their quota of almost 10,000 people.
  Mr. Speaker, Chen Guangcheng documented the fact that Chinese women 
are immensely traumatized by these campaigns and by the entire one 
child per couple policy. It's been estimated by the World Health 
Organization that some 500 women per day commit suicide--not per week, 
not per month, but per day commit suicide--in China, largely 
attributable to this horrific and barbaric policy called one child per 
couple. It is invasive. There is a crude surveillance of women's 
reproductive cycles, including monitoring their cycle per month. The 
strict birth limits drive sex selection abortion and the tragedy of 
what we call gendercide--the missing girls in China, which may be as 
many as 100 million girls since 1979, when this barbaric policy was 
first pushed on China by the West and by the United Nations.
  It's been estimated that upwards of 40 million men will not be able 
to find wives by 2020 because they had been forcibly aborted as part of 
the China policy.
  Finally, I appeal to our government, I appeal to our President, 
please speak out on behalf of Chen Guangcheng for his release so that 
this terrible nightmare he has had to endure will end.

                            [Sept. 14, 2010]

             Radio Free Asia: Blind Activist Calls For Help


 A Chinese lawyer is under constant surveillance following his release 
                              from prison.

       Hong Kong.--Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of 
     Shandong are holding a Chinese legal activist under house 
     arrest though his jail term ended on Monday, prompting him to 
     call on concerned citizens to support him in protest.
       Chen Guangcheng, 38, had exposed abuses by local family 
     planning officials, leading to a jail term of four years and 
     three months for ``damaging public property and obstructing 
     traffic'' handed down by a Linyi municipal court in August 
     2006.
       Chen served the full term of four years and three months in 
     spite of repeated requests for medical parole.
       ``Now that I have come out of jail, the authorities are 
     putting a lot of effort into keeping me under close 
     surveillance,'' said Chen, calling on the international 
     community to protest his treatment by the Chinese government.
       ``I am hoping that international organizations and people 
     of conscience will react to this in a united manner,'' he 
     said.
       ``If they can help me today, their actions will help 
     another person tomorrow,'' Chen said, calling on rights 
     activists and ordinary people to come to his house and 
     photograph the security personnel with their mobile phones.
       ``If they take away A's cell phone, then B can take a 
     photo. If they go for B's cell phone, then C can record it,'' 
     he said.


                           Layers of security

       Chen's wife Yuan Weijing said there are four different 
     layers of security personnel watching the family home.
       ``Between the national highway and our home, there are four 
     layers of surveillance,'' she said. ``Yesterday I wanted to 
     go out to buy some food but they wouldn't allow it.''
       ``I told them we have to eat, and that maybe they should 
     buy food for us, but they said that wouldn't do either.''
       ``The moment I went outside, about 20 people got to their 
     feet and started to surround me,'' Yuan said.
       She said friends and relatives who tried to bring food to 
     the family were being refused entrance as well, and only 
     Chen's 76-year-old mother was being allowed out to buy food 
     for the entire family.

[[Page H6652]]

       Yuan, whose repeated requests for medical parole for Chen 
     were ignored by prison authorities, said she is still very 
     concerned about her husband's health.
       ``I am most worried about the continuing diarrhea and the 
     persistent cough,'' Yuan said. ``For the first few days after 
     his release he couldn't speak at all.''
       She said Chen had lost a lot of weight in jail. ``He has a 
     lot of grey hair and he has a sort of haunted look,'' she 
     said.
       Chen suffered beatings while in Shandong's Linyi municipal 
     prison in June 2007 for ``being disobedient'' after launching 
     an appeal against his conviction to a higher court.


                       ``Give his freedom back''

       Chen, a self-taught lawyer, was detained repeatedly, 
     beaten, and kept under surveillance after he helped local 
     people take legal action against the Linyi municipal 
     government in cases of alleged forced abortion.
       Beijing-based civil rights lawyer Li Subin said Chen should 
     have his freedom back now that his jail term has ended.
       ``Instead, the state-run prison has followed him back home, 
     where he is still imprisoned under house arrest,'' Li said. 
     ``We have been working towards democracy and the rule of law 
     for 30 years in this country, and we can still see cruelty 
     like this today.''
       ``But if everyone takes this issue seriously, I don't see 
     how the gangster behavior of the local government and the 
     banditry of the local judiciary can carry on for too long.''
       Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a senior member of the 
     U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in a statement 
     called on the Chinese government to release Chen from house 
     arrest.
       ``The prison release of Chen Guangcheng, one of China's 
     most heroic human rights defenders, is good news but only a 
     step in the right direction,'' said Smith.
       ``The fact that Chen remains under house arrest, imprisoned 
     in his own home, and is reportedly in need of urgent medical 
     attention, must not be ignored. I appeal to the Chinese 
     government to let Chen move about freely and ensure that he 
     has access to the care he needs.''
       Chen Guangcheng's work exposed a culture of secrecy and 
     impunity among Chinese officials about the enforcement of 
     China's population control policy.
       Local officials have admitted to taking draconian measures 
     when they have difficulty meeting population targets imposed 
     by Beijing.

                          ____________________