[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.

____________________