US Lawmakers Urge China to Account for Rights Lawyer

By Deborah Tate Capitol Hill 23 April 2009

Key U.S. senators are calling for China to account for well-known Chinese human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who disappeared after he was forcibly removed from his home in Shaanxi province by police in February. The lawmakers made their appeals on the Senate floor as Gao’s wife watched from the visitor’s gallery in the chamber.

Gao Zhisheng, who was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, was forcibly taken from his hometown in Shaanxi province early in the morning on February 4 by more than a dozen police officers. Currently, his whereabouts are unknown. Gao has been kidnapped and tortured for his pursuit of human rights in China. Gao sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress dated September 12, 2007, and, afterward, was kidnapped and severely tortured by Chinese authorities for more than 50 days.  Though authorities threatened Gao with death if he revealed the torture he experienced, Gao chose to release publically the details of his experience. It is believed his current disappearance is a direct result of his refusal to be silent.

Sign the petition for Gao Zhisheng’s immediate release at www.FreeGao.com.

Read Gao Zhisheng’s open letter to the U.S. Congress in 2007.

Read Gao Zhisheng’s open letter to the international community regarding his kidnapping and torture by Chinese authorities in 2007.

chinaaid

Dalai Lama calls the CCP immature becuase China is a superpower that is afraid of any differing opinions.

TOKYO (AFP) — The Dalai Lama accused China of “acting like a child” in cracking down on Tibetans and other minorities, saying it lacked the moral authority of a genuine superpower.

The Tibetan spiritual leader told reporters in Japan that while China could boast military, economic and population muscle, it feared even small signs of dissent.

Addressing a Tokyo news conference on a stopover before a speaking tour of Europe and the United States, he said he saw China, “such a big nation, acting like a child.”

He said the government routinely arrested individuals with different views, but stressed that “such a big nation of over one billion people (should have) no need for such sort of fear.”

10 Year ‘anniversary’ of the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

How this continues to be ignored out of convenience and comfort is really inhuman, but I hope eventually some people will do something about this…

BEIJING (AP) — Now entering its second decade, China’s relentless drive to obliterate the Falun Gong spiritual sect has left a human toll ranging from the deaths of followers in custody to the self-exile of others and the beatings of their lawyers.

Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of a protest by an estimated 10,000 practitioners in Beijing that alerted the communist government to the group’s strength and wide appeal.

The April 25, 1999, demonstration was intended to show how Falun Gong believers had learned compassion, forbearance and tolerance, said practitioner Bu Dongwei in a telephone interview from the United States, where he fled six months ago.

But the size and discipline of those who gathered unsettled the communist leadership, ever wary of independent groups that could threaten its authority.

Two months later, the group was labeled an “evil cult” and banned, its leadership arrested, and a campaign launched to forcibly reconvert millions of believers. Anyone practicing Falun Gong or even possessing materials about it could be arrested.

Followers say the crackdown cost the lives of 3,200 practitioners, including 104 last year.

The government says some Falun Gong followers have died in detention because of hunger strikes or refusing medical help. But it denies any have been intentionally killed.

US/Cuba relations “warming”?

I’m so cynical.  This just points out another example of how people only do what’s in their personal interest.  This Cuba thing is just a political game. I would like to think that the US gov’t actually wants to improve things from a moral perspective, but with globalization it is really hard to balance speaking up and making your money.  But it’s sad, people have to castrate themselves in order to make a buck…

I wish country’s could self-sustain that way we could say what we think without worrying about trade relations.  Anyway, I think people should still do what’s right even though it could loose some economic stuff, in the case of gross human rights abuses, it is better to not contribute to that. Dialogue is good, but I don’t want to see greedy politicians being led by the nose by a dictator like the way it is with China.

AP-The U.S. erased restrictions on Americans who want to visit or send money to relatives in Cuba and President Barack Obama said at the Summit of the Americans that “the United States seeks a new beginning” with this country, though he said Sunday that the communist government should release political prisoners, afford greater freedoms and reduce official fees on money sent here from the States.

Likewise, Cuban President Raul Castro said he would be willing to negotiate everything with the U.S. — including such thorny issues as freedom of the press, human rights and the roughly 205 political prisoners that rights observers say Cuba holds.

“Actually, I’m not too optimistic,” said Cardenas, 50. “I don’t know if we’re really prepared for normal relations with the United States because here there’s a whole layer of the population that has a stake in nothing changing.” Thousands of Communist Party members and top government officials who make comfortable livings fueled by official animosity toward the United States — and they may not be ready to give that up, Cardenas said. “I’m not talking about Fidel or Raul” Castro, he said. “I’m talking about a whole mediocre class. Bureaucrats.”

Plenty of people in the U.S. — including the anti-Castro lobby in South Florida — also have a vested interest in strained relations.

Obama says it is up to Cuba to embrace some reforms before bilateral relations can improve. But there has been no move to loosen government limits on free speech or assembly, or to open access to the Internet and other information sources not clouded by communist propaganda. More than political freedoms, many Cubans say they would like the government to loosen its controls on the economy — allowing pockets of free enterprise that could help ordinary citizens pull themselves out of poverty. The state dominates more than 90 percent of the economy and pays workers an average of $19.70 a month.

Don’t be so naive about the Chinese gov’t relationship with the NKorean regime.

I saw these videos a long time ago and I thought they were lost, so I’ll ad the link, but they don’t upload well at all.  Anyway, the footage is of Hu Jintao visiting NK, and the whole country of NK is lining the streets to do choreographed cheers.  They seem to adore Hu Jintao (China’s political system).  I remember how sick this made me when I was first finding out what the communist party of China is about (and NK).  I think that the UN has an extremely naive view of the communist party if they think that the Chinese leaders care much for global peace, they want “harmony” everyone to think alike, in their favour, to thank them for the bullet they put in your head.  So it’s all about the lies and the spying and the terror, so I really don’t think that we should assume that the Chinese gov’t has some altruistic intention with NK, they are allies.

By Evelyn Leopold, at the United Nations, Huffington Post

Until China agrees to tougher sanctions or other ways to discourage North Korea’s military ambitions, the United States and its allies will have an uphill battle other than putting pressure on Beijing itself. After three hours of consultation in the UN Security Council on Sunday, the 15 members were deadlocked on North Korea’s firing of a three-stage rocket, and agreed to consult further on “appropriate action…given the urgency of the matter,” said Mexico’s Ambassador Claude Heller, this month’s council president.

“The United States view is that the most appropriate response to an action of this gravity would be a Security Council resolution,” said Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations. But China, which like the United States, Russia, Britain and France, has veto power in the Security Council, is not so sure. “I think we are now in a sensitive moment,” its UN ambassador, Zeng Yesui told reporters. He said that any action by Security Council had to be “cautious and proportionate.” China, which on North Korean questions is routinely backed by Russia, delivers fuel to North Korea and a good deal of its food and other supplies.

While experts believe Beijing does not want its neighbor to have nuclear weapons (much less face a Japan that could insist on them also), it also fears a collapse of the regime if there is too much pressure. More refugees would stream over its border. And further down the road there could be reunification with the south and American troops on its frontier.

Yuck, sorry about all the nasty pictures…

Chinese rights lawyer’s family makes dramatic escape

The wife and children of leading Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng have escaped from close police surveillance and travelled via Thailand to the United States, a friend and rights groups said Friday. Gao’s wife, Geng He, their 15-year-old daughter and five-year-old son walked into Thailand after fleeing from virtual house arrest in Beijing and crossing a border from southern China, sources said. It was not clear how the family crossed into Thailand, which has no border with China but is accessible via Laos and Myanmar A supporter told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Geng and her family were staying in Phoenix, Arizona. “She’s very tired and can’t talk now,” the supporter said by telephone from Phoenix. US-based Christian support group China Aid said it helped the family to travel to Phoenix via Los Angeles. “We are very thrilled to see their safe arrival to this free nation,” Bob Fu, China Aid’s president, said in a statement. US-funded Radio Free Asia said Geng and her children arrived in the United States on Wednesday to seek asylum. “I left China because my family had been under tight surveillance for a long time,” Geng told the broadcaster. “We experienced in our careers and daily life great hardship and difficulty.” Her daughter “tried to commit suicide several times” because she was unable to attend school, Geng said. Radio Free Asia said the trio left China on Jan 9, arrived in Thailand on Jan 16, before travelling to the United States. Geng said they left Beijing by train but that Gao could not travel with them because he was unable to evade his tighter surveillance by state security police. China Aid and other rights groups said they have heard no news of Gao, who was nominated for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, since police detained him on Feb 4. Geng said she and her children eluded their Chinese surveillance team with the help of friends who were members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, whose legal rights Gao has supported. “It was extraordinarily difficult to get us out of China,” she told Radio Free Asia. “The friends who helped us escape took enormous pains, some even risking their own lives.” Gao, 44, is a self-taught lawyer who built a reputation as a stout defender of people who suffered injustices at the hands of Chinese government officials and the police. He was not afraid to take on the most sensitive cases despite threats, violence and imprisonment by the authorities under China’s ruling Communist Party. In recent years, Gao often called China’s one-party rulers “barbaric” and likened them to “Mafia bosses.” He campaigned on behalf of protesting farmers, dissidents, Christians, AIDS activists and fellow rights lawyers. Gao also came into conflict with police and state security officers through public complaints about constant surveillance and harassment. An English translation of his book, A China More Just, was published in 2007. The government closed his Beijing-based Shengzhi law firm in 2005 after he called via the internet for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong members who were sent to a re-education camp. It tried to silence him by passing a three-year suspended prison sentence for subversion at a closed trial in December 2006.