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74–543 PDF 2012

THE CASE AND TREATMENT OF PROMINENT 

HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER GAO ZHISHENG 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 14, 2012 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

House Senate 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Chairman 

FRANK WOLF, Virginia 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

TIM WALZ, Minnesota 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Cochairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

JAMES RISCH, Idaho 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

SETH D. HARRIS, Department of Labor 

MARIA OTERO, Department of State 

FRANCISCO J. SA ́ NCHEZ, Department of Commerce 

KURT M. CAMPBELL, Department of State 

NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Agency for International Development 

PAUL B. PROTIC, Staff Director 

LAWRENCE T. LIU, Deputy Staff Director 

(II) 
(III) 

CO N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from New 

Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................ 1 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from Ohio; Cochairman, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 4 

Wolf, Hon. Frank, a U.S. Representative from Virginia; Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ............................................................. 5 

Geng He, wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng .......................................... 8 

Li Jing, wife of democracy advocate Guo Quan .................................................... 10 

Genser, Jared, Founder, Freedom Now and Managing Director, Perseus Strategies, LLC ............................................................................................................. 11 

Fu, Bob, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association ...................................... 14 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

Geng He .................................................................................................................... 28 

Li Jing ....................................................................................................................... 30 

Genser, Jared ........................................................................................................... 34 

Fu, Bob ..................................................................................................................... 39

Smith, Hon. Chris .................................................................................................... 68 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod ............................................................................................... 70 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Article from the Epoch Times titled, ‘‘An Open Letter to China’s National 

Peoples’ Congress—Gao’s First Letter to CCP’s Leaders,’’ dated December 

31, 2004, published March 25, 2006, submitted by Geng He ........................... 72 

Article from the Epoch Times titled, ‘‘Stop Persecuting Believers of Freedom 

and Mend Your Ties With the Chinese People—Gao Zhisheng’s Second 

Open Letter About the Persecution of Falun Gong,’’ dated October 18, 

2005, published October 24, 2005, submitted by Geng He ............................... 76 

Article from the Epoch Times titled, ‘‘We Must Immediately Stop the Brutality That Suffocates Our Nation’s Conscience and Morality—Gao 

Zhisheng’s Third Open Letter to Chinese Leaders,’’ dated December 15, 

2005, published December 16, 2005, submitted by Geng He ........................... 83 

‘‘Dark Night, Dark Hood and Kidnapping by Dark Mafia,’’ by Gao Zhisheng, 

submitted by Geng He ......................................................................................... 98 

‘‘AP Exclusive: Missing Chinese Lawyer Told of Abuse,’’ by Charles Hutzler, 

Associated Press, dated January 10, 2011, submitted by Geng He ................. 103 

Gao Zhisheng’s Statement Withdrawing From the Chinese Communist Party, 

dated December 13, 2005, submitted by Geng He ............................................ 110 

Freedom Now Media Release titled, ‘‘Imprisoned Chinese Human Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Legal Team File Petition With United Nations Urging 

His Immediate Release,’’ dated January 25, 2012, submitted by Jared 

Genser ................................................................................................................... 111 

Written Statement of Michael Horowitz, Senior Fellow, the Hudson Institute, 

submitted by Bob Fu ............................................................................................ 119 

Gao Zhisheng’s Open Letter to the U.S. Congress, dated September 27, 2007, 

submitted by Hon. Chris Smith .......................................................................... 119 

(1) 

THE CASE AND TREATMENT OF PROMINENT 

HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER GAO ZHISHENG 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, 

Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 12:31 p.m., in 

room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Representative Chris 

Smith, Chairman, presiding. 

Also present: Senator Sherrod Brown; Representative Tim Walz; 

Representative Frank Wolf. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chairman SMITH. The Commission will come to order. I want to 

welcome all of our distinguished panelists and guests, and thank 

you for being here. 

Ladies and gentlemen, as President Obama welcomes Vice President Xi Jinping, Chinese Leader-in-Waiting, to the White House 

today, our Commission will hear testimony from two wives who are 

appealing for the immediate release of their jailed husbands, great 

human rights leaders back in China. We will also hear from two 

human rights experts as well who will give great insight and detail 

as to the issues before us. 

As Chairman, I hope that President Obama does not put human 

rights last on the agenda, or not at all, as he did when President 

Hu Jintao visited the White House on January 19, 2011. 

One of the wives, Li Jing, says that ‘‘only the United States can 

make this case to China,’’ that is the case of her husband and the 

case of the disappeared and incarcerated human rights leaders. 

Please, President Obama, listen to these courageous women, Geng 

He and Li Jing, and act decisively. 

The China Commission hopes that the issue of human rights 

abuses in China will be raised in a serious and visible way during 

the Vice President’s visit, and particularly that the detention of 

Gao Zhisheng, Liu Xiaobo, Chen Guangcheng, Guo Quan, Liu 

Xiabin, Pastor Yang Rongli, and Alimujiang Yimiti, and others is 

raised often and discussed in detail. 

This important and timely hearing recognizes one of China’s 

most important human rights leaders and lawyers, Gao Zhisheng. 

In early 2000, Mr. Gao, a self-trained lawyer, emerged as a champion of human rights causes and a defender of marginalized groups 
2 

in China. Today, we know little about Mr. Gao’s current condition 

or his whereabouts. 

Then the issue of Guo Quan, who is an academic and professor 

who published an open letter to President Hu calling for multiparty elections, posted a charter for a new democracy party online 

and called for the end of China’s notorious reeducation through 

labor system. For that, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

Gao Zhisheng’s brilliant legal advocacy on behalf of marginalized 

groups in China, including religious practitioners, the Falun Gong, 

and others, Christians, rural workers, human rights activists, and 

more, resulted in him being sentenced on trumped up inciting subversion charges in 2006. 

He was sentenced to three years imprisonment, but granted a 

five-year suspended sentence or period of parole. During this time, 

however, Mr. Gao was subjected to years of brutal torture and he 

repeatedly ‘‘disappeared.’’ An outspoken Christian, Mr. Gao has 

been disappeared into official custody since February 2009, with 

only a brief reappearance under official supervision in March and 

April 2010. 

Information on Mr. Gao’s enforced disappearance and current 

condition remain a closely guarded secret. For months and years 

we heard nothing of Mr. Gao’s ongoing detention or torture. Two 

months ago, however, Chinese officials announced that Mr. Gao 

would be forced to serve out his original three-year criminal sentence a week before he should have finished his five-year parole period. 

The announcement claimed that Mr. Gao violated the conditions 

of his parole. Of course, no details were provided. One can only 

wonder what violations Mr. Gao committed since he has been held 

incommunicado during a majority of his parole period and has 

been, as I said, brutally tortured by the Chinese Government 

throughout. 

In the past month, his brother and other family members have 

been turned away in their attempts to visit Mr. Gao. We have received no word on his health or condition. An expert witness will 

demonstrate the official case against Gao Zhisheng is not only rife 

with villainy, but also bereft of any semblance of humanity. 

In an account of Mr. Gao’s torture, made public by the Associated 

Press in January 2011, Mr. Gao disclosed to that reporter the excruciating details of his detention: 

The police stripped Gao Zhisheng bare and pummeled him with handguns in holsters. For two days and nights they took turns beating him and did things he refused to describe, it was that horrific. He recalled for 48 hours ‘‘my life hung by a 

thread.’’ Authorities reportedly threatened to kill Mr. Gao, to dump his body in a 

river. Authorities taunted him by saying, ‘‘You must forget you are human.’’ 

To the Vice President of China: We will not forget. We do not 

know if Mr. Gao is alive or dead. In solidarity with Mr. Gao and 

his family and his lovely wife, who is here today, we know that we 

will honor Mr. Gao’s accomplishments, his rights advocacy, and his 

brave witness for the truth. We will not let those who hold Gao 

Zhisheng destroy his legacy. We will not allow these criminals to 

dispose of his significance. We will not forget him, not now and not 

ever, and we will continue to press for his release. 
3 

We are also honored to hear from two specialists with unique insights, including Jared Genser, founder of Freedom Now and a 

member of Gao Zhisheng’s international pro bono legal team. Mr. 

Genser will discuss the recently filed petition with the UN Working 

Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Mr. Gao which seeks an 

opinion on whether his imprisonment violates international law. 

We will also hear from Pastor Bob Fu, founder and president of 

ChinaAid Foundation. Pastor Fu, who also spent time in the laogai 

when he was still in China, will discuss the ‘‘Free Gao’’ campaign 

and the need to hold China accountable for its ongoing harassment. 

The case of Guo Quan, a former criminal court officer and university associate professor, illustrates how Chinese officials target 

citizens who attempt to form independent political parties or use 

the Internet to organize or to pose online opinions deemed too politically sensitive. 

In 2007, Mr. Quan began posting a series of open letters to top 

government leaders, advocating on behalf of laid-off workers, demobilized military cadres, and displaced farmers. He also wrote letters calling for a multi-party rule and for democratic reforms. Because of his writings, because they were considered too critical of 

the government, he lost his university professorship, and then he 

was further demoted from a Communist democratically state-approved party, and then formed his own party. For that and these 

other things, he has gotten a 10-year prison sentence. 

The hearing today continues the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s work to monitor China human rights and the 

rule of law developments and to give voice to the persecuted. In the 

past year, the Commission has consistently raised China’s ongoing 

violations of international law and human rights standards in its 

reports and events. Recent hearings have been able to boldly shine 

a light on some of China’s gravest human rights abuses and injustices and on its darkest policies. 

In December 2011, just a few months ago, our Commission held 

a hearing on Liu Xiaobo, a year after he was awarded the Nobel 

Peace Prize in absentia. No one, not even his wife, was allowed to 

travel to Oslo to receive that coveted award and he remains incarcerated unjustly by the Chinese Government. 

In November 2011, last year, just a couple of months ago, we 

held a hearing on the illegal detention and abuse of Chen 

Guangcheng and his family. A self-trained legal advocate, Mr. 

Chen was wrongfully imprisoned for exposing China’s brutal forced 

abortion policy and his heroic activism on behalf of the women victims in Linyi which caused the ire of the dictatorship to come down 

with full force. 

As I think we all know, China’s one-child-per-couple policy is 

state-sponsored cruelty and constitutes a massive crime against 

humanity. The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunals properly construed forced abortion as a crime against humanity. Nothing in 

human history compares to the magnitude of China’s 33-year assault on women and children. Chen spoke out. Chen and his wife 

continue to pay a price. 

That policy, as we all know, has made brothers and sisters illegal. It has led to the absence of upward of 100 million girls who 

have been killed by way of sex selection abortion as part of this 
4 

one-child-per-couple push, and that has led to a massive increase 

in human trafficking because the women simply are not there. 

We held a hearing at which we heard that between now and 

2020, something on the order of 40 to 50 million men will not be 

able to find wives because they have been systematically killed as 

part of the one-child-per-couple policy. So, it is a very serious policy. Chen spoke out and paid the price. 

I would also note that I and members of our staff have tried to 

visit Chen Guangcheng. We have appealed repeatedly and applied 

repeatedly to the Chinese Embassy here for a visa to go and visit 

him. Turned down. It is an ongoing request. My hope is that they 

will grant it, and grant it soon. 

Again, I want to thank our distinguished witnesses. I would like 

to turn to my good friend and colleague, Cochairman Brown, for 

any opening comments you might have. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM OHIO; COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. 

Thank you all for attending today’s important hearing on the treatment of Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. 

We are here to show support for a man who has devoted his life 

to defending the rights of his fellow citizens. A special thank you 

to his courageous wife, Ms. Geng He. Thank you very much for 

being here today. We look forward to hearing from you about your 

husband’s life and career defending marginalized groups in the 

People’s Republic of China and know that his and your life’s devotion to human rights is a source of inspiration for so many people 

in the United States and China and across the world. Thank you. 

Thank you also to Li Jing, the wife of imprisoned Chinese dissident Guo Quan. She, too, will share her husband’s story of standing up for basic human rights in the face of intimidation and imprisonment. Today’s hearing comes at an important time in the relationship between the United States of America and the People’s 

Republic of China. 

As the Chinese Vice President attends meetings just minutes 

away from here with our top officials, we are reminded that the 

real China is represented by the brave individual imprisoned in 

China under a cloud of secrecy who is the focus of today’s hearing. 

In understanding Gao’s story we understand not only what Gao 

stands for, but the challenges that we face in China today. Mr. Gao 

has devoted his life to trying to make the law work for those he 

represented—the underprivileged and the underserved. He stood 

up for those kicked off their land by greedy and corrupt officials 

and developers. He stood by factory workers protesting low wages 

and long hours. He spoke out for persecuted practitioners of Falun 

Gong. 

In stark contrast, Chinese authorities showed no concern for Mr. 

Gao’s rights or the law. They disbarred him, they jailed him. They 

have tortured him and somehow made him disappear. Chinese authorities have used Mr. Gao to send a chilling message to other 

would-be human rights defenders: Stay quiet, don’t challenge us, 

don’t hold us accountable, or else. 
5 

Mr. Gao himself would say that his case is about more than just 

his own experience. As he wrote in his book, ‘‘A China More Just,’’ 

behind each case in China are systemic problems. From the problems that Mr. Gao has faced, the utter disregard for the rule of law 

by his government and the Communist Party, we see why our Nation faces so many systemic problems with China today. 

Mr. Gao’s case and the cases he worked on show us how easy it 

is for Chinese officials to cheat, to bend the rules, to game the system. They show us how easy it is for China to ignore labor laws 

and environmental standards, hoard raw materials, manipulate its 

currency. They brazenly tell us and then sell us—with the help of 

some of our own companies, I might add, in this country—toxic 

toys, tainted pet food, consumer products made by overworked and 

underpaid workers. 

While I and others in our government are doing what we can to 

ensure the safety and health of our citizens in a fair trading relationship with China, we know that we cannot do it alone. We need 

brave citizens like the men each of you are married to to defend 

their rights to make sure they have a fair and living wage, their 

food is safe, that their environment is clean. 

That is why Mr. Gao’s case is so important, because if Chinese 

citizens can defend their rights we all benefit. We all benefit in my 

State, in my country, and around the world when we know the 

products we buy from China are made by workers who are treated 

well in good, cleaner conditions. 

We all benefit from a rule of law that ensures the citizens of 

China the possibility to hold their government accountable and to 

petition grievances to effect change. But until Mr. Gao and countless other political prisoners in China are released from their 

shackles, that day will remain in the distant future. That is why 

we on this commission and our government must continue to do all 

we can to spotlight these cases and secure Mr. Gao’s release. We 

want to help in any way we can. Treatment of basic human rights 

deserves nothing less. 

Thank you, all of you, for joining this hearing. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Senator Brown. 

I yield to Ranking Member Tim Walz. 

Representative WALZ. I yield to the chairman of the Lantos 

Human Rights Commission and an outspoken advocate on behalf 

of human rights in China; Frank Wolf. 

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK WOLF, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative WOLF. I want to thank you, Mr. Smith, and also 

Senator Brown, for your work on these issues. I do have a statement I want to read, and say I woke this morning to read a powerful but thoroughly unsettling piece by China dissident Yu Jie that 

was in the Washington Post. He opens with the following. He said, 

‘‘Chinese dissident writers exiled to the West today get a very different response than Soviet writers received not long ago.’’ 

I would even go further than Mr. Yu. Chinese defectors get a 

very different response, as evidenced by a story that broke days ago 

about a senior Communist Party official in China that reportedly 
6 

attempted to defect to the United States and was turned away 

after his request for asylum was rejected. 

Returning to Yu Jie, this soft-spoken man who I recently met endured beatings and torture from Chinese secret police. He asserts 

that ‘‘China is a greater threat than the Soviet Union ever was, but 

now the West,’’ he said, ‘‘lacks visionary politicians such as Ronald 

Reagan to stand up to that threat.’’ I could not agree more. 

In fact, just last week, along with a number of other Members, 

we urged President Obama in a letter signed by a number of Members to do what Reagan has done. We urged him to meet with the 

families of these dissidents. We urged the President to publicly and 

privately raise the cases of six prominent Chinese citizens who 

have suffered greatly at the hands of their own government, among 

them, Gao. 

We will have the honor of hearing his wife momentarily. We also 

urged the President and the Vice President to meet with Mr. Gao’s 

wife prior to the meeting with China’s Vice President to hear firsthand about the plight of these dissidents. 

While the Vice President’s trip to the United States is already 

under way, the administration could still get Gao’s wife the courtesy of a meeting—the courtesy of a meeting—after the fact, given 

that they rolled out the diplomatic red carpet for the very government who has imprisoned and tortured her husband. So can’t they 

now meet with her, even if it’s afterward, if they ignored it before? 

It’s clear that the current approach to China is not working. We 

are losing jobs. Quiet diplomacy whereby grave human rights and 

religious freedom abuses are reportedly discussed in private meetings, but rarely if ever raised publicly, has not yielded any results 

and in fact has emboldened—it has emboldened—the Chinese Government. 

We should not forget the persecuted church. The Cardinal Kung 

Foundation says that 25 Catholic bishops in the underground 

church are under house arrest. Protestant pastors are in jail. A Tibetan nun just set herself aflame on Sunday because of the activity, and the list goes on. 

But when you look at this in context with this next thing, these 

issues would have featured, I am sure prominently, in a trip that 

Suzan Johnson Cook, the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large 

for International Religious Freedom, was ready to take to China 

last week. It is my understanding that her trip has been canceled. 

Her request to meet with Chinese Government officials was denied and a visa was denied. So the special ambassador for this administration cannot get to China, cannot even get a visa. And yet 

when you have people who are putting people in jail and torturing 

people, it begs the question, has the department protested this action? Has the Secretary or the White House protested that their 

own ambassador cannot even get a visa to go to China? 

I have more, Mr. Smith, but I will end on this last comment. Dr. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, ‘‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.’’ 

America is a friend to the imprisoned human rights lawyer. America is a friend to the young Tibetan nun who just set herself 

aflame. America is a friend to the tortured human rights advocates, 
7 

the Catholic bishops, the Protestant pastors, and we should not be 

silent, as this administration has been. 

I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Wolf. 

I would like to now introduce our distinguished panelists. 

Just very briefly, Geng He, who is the wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Geng completed her university studies in accounting in China. She and Gao Zhisheng married in August 1990. 

Between 2000 and 2006, she worked as a paralegal and accountant 

at a Beijing law firm, a law firm founded and directed by her husband. 

In March 2009, a month after Chinese officials reportedly detained her husband, Geng left China with her two children. Since 

arriving in the United States, she has advocated tenaciously on behalf of her husband through interviews and by, today, of course, 

testifying. But she has been just everywhere, speaking out for her 

persecuted husband. 

We will then hear from Li Jing, wife of human rights and democracy advocate Guo Quan. She has a B.A. from Nanjing Normal 

University in Nanjing City. She and democracy advocate Guo Quan 

married in November 1999. She worked for Modern Express newspaper for five years. Li also worked in import and export businesses. She arrived in the United States in January of this year, 

2012, and has publicly advocated on her husband’s behalf. 

Guo is currently serving a 10-year sentence for subversion of 

state powers, as I said before, after a court found that he used the 

Internet to organize an illegal political party and to publish, allegedly, reactionary statements online. 

We will then hear from Jared Genser, who is the founder of Freedom Now, an independent nonprofit organization that works to free 

prisoners of conscience worldwide. He is also managing director of 

Perseus Strategies, a law and consulting firm focusing on human 

rights and humanitarian projects. 

He was a partner in the Government Affairs practice of DLA 

Piper and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. 

He has worked with this Commission, as well as with my committee. I chair the Subcommitte on Africa, Global Health and 

Human Rights of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of 

Representatives. He has been a great source of actionable information concerning human rights in general, but political prisoners in 

particular. 

Then we will hear from Pastor Bob Fu, who was one of the leaders of the 1989 Student Democracy Movement in Tiananmen 

Square, and later became a house church pastor and founder, along 

with his wife. In 1996, authorities arrested and imprisoned them 

for their work. 

After their release, they escaped to the United States and founded ChinaAid Foundation. He has been, again, like Mr. Genser, a 

great source of information that is accurate as well as actionable. 

So, I thank him for his leadership on behalf of people of all faiths, 

including and especially Christians who are suffering so much in 

the People’s Republic of China. 

I would like to now ask Geng He if she would present her testimony. 
8 

STATEMENT OF GENG HE, WIFE OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER 

GAO ZHISHENG 

Ms. GENG. Good afternoon, everyone, and happy Valentine’s Day. 

Greetings, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cochairman. Thank you for inviting me to speak about my husband, imprisoned Chinese human 

rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. I would like to thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for holding this hearing 

today and everyone in attendance for your interest in Zhisheng’s 

case. 

My husband, Gao Zhisheng, is a lawyer in China. He represented 

some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. He represented 

plaintiffs who lost their land to development projects like the 2008 

Summer Olympics. He defended factory workers that were arrested 

after they demonstrated against low wages and long hours. 

He also represented members of Christian house churches and 

practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. His 

righteous actions have brought him persecution by the Chinese authorities. As lawyer Gao Zhisheng once said, ‘‘You cannot be a 

rights lawyer in China without becoming a rights case yourself.’’ 

In November 2005, the government suspended Zhisheng’s lawyer 

license and closed his law firm after he refused to drop his most 

sensitive cases. He was convicted of inciting subversion in 2006, 

after confessing in the face of threats against our children. 

Since then, our lives have been turned upside down. The government placed our family under constant surveillance and police 

moved into our apartment building and followed us everywhere. 

The government has repeatedly abducted and tortured Gao 

Zhisheng—more than six times in the past few years. 

In September 2007, authorities disappeared Zhisheng and held 

him for over 50 days after he wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress exposing human rights abuses in China. Policemen covered 

his head with a black hood and took him into a room, where they 

stripped him naked and beat him. 

They used electric batons to shock him all over his body, especially his private parts, which turned his skin totally black. It was 

so painful that Zhisheng was rolling around on the ground. After 

losing consciousness from the torture, he woke up covered in urine. 

Later, his captors used cigarette smoke to burn his eyes so severely that he could not open them. They even stabbed his genitals 

with toothpicks. Zhisheng asked them to lock him up in prison, but 

they refused. They said ‘‘You are simply dreaming if you want to 

go to prison. We can make you disappear whenever we want to.’’ 

That is what they have done. This torture lasted more than three 

days. 

In order to protect our children, I escaped with them to the 

United States in January 2009. The next month, authorities abducted Zhisheng again. This time the government held him for over 

a year before he briefly reappeared the following spring. 

In an interview with the Associated Press, Zhisheng described 

even more torture during the disappearance. Police beat him with 

handguns for two days and nights. He said this was the worst beating he had ever endured, that his life hung by a thread. Soon after 

the interview, he disappeared again. 
9 

I last spoke to Zhisheng on April 17, 2010, on the birthday of my 

daughter, Grace. Since then, our family has been burdened with 

constant uncertainty. Zhisheng’s absence has caused my daughter 

severe emotional anguish. She often dreams that her father is 

dead. My son has tears in his eyes on Father’s Day. He tells his 

teacher that he does not have a father. Recently, we were forced 

to endure rumors that the guards had tortured Zhisheng to death. 

Then in December 2011, less than one week before Zhisheng’s 

probation was scheduled to end, Chinese authorities added to our 

uncertainty by claiming that he would spend the next three years 

in prison in Xinjiang. This news came just before the holidays. 

Some people have asked us if we are relieved because the government says that he is alive, but the news has not brought us any 

peace of mind. In fact, we are more worried than ever before. How 

can we trust them? How many times have they lied to us? We do 

not know what to believe. We do not know if he is still in prison 

in Xinjiang. 

This morning, Vice President Xi Jinping was meeting with President Obama and Vice President Biden. Before their meeting I requested to meet with them, but I did not get any reply. I was very 

disappointed. I am so grateful that the United States has provided 

protection to my family from the Chinese Government. 

I also need to ask all of you, including President Obama, Vice 

President Biden, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to continue 

to call on the Government of China to respect human rights for all 

its citizens. Actually, I would like to request a meeting with them 

to tell them the story face to face. 

I ask you to continue to report on this case so the truth about 

Zhisheng’s treatment at the hands of the Chinese Government will 

be known to the world, and I hope and pray that with your help 

my husband will regain his freedom and my family can be together 

once again. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak here 

today. I welcome any questions you may have. 

At the end, I would request that the Commission include the following articles for the record. The first one is Cai Zhuohua’s case, 

regarding the persecution of Christians in China. The second is 

three open letters by lawyer Gao Zhisheng. This is about Falun 

Gong’s persecution. The third is a letter that lawyer Gao Zhisheng 

wrote. The title is ‘‘Dark Night, Dark Hood: Kidnapped by the 

Black Mafia.’’ The last one is an interview with the Associated 

Press by lawyer Gao Zhisheng. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Ms. Geng, thank you very much for your very 

moving testimony, an appeal of a wife on behalf of her husband 

who has been persecuted and disappeared, and the terrible, devastating impact it is having on you, your family, and, of course, on 

Gao Zhisheng as well. 

Without objection, the request you have made for those documents to be made a part of the record, they will be made a part 

of the record. 

I would include another one, one that I remember we received on 

September 27, 2007, that was actually used against Gao Zhisheng. 

It was an open letter to the U.S. Congress, a very incisive letter 

with quotations from Madison, the quotation from Dr. Martin Lu-
10 

ther King, Jr., where Dr. King said ‘‘injustice anywhere is a threat 

to justice everywhere.’’ Without objection, that, too, will be made a 

part of the record. 

I would like to now invite our second wife whose husband is 

being unjustly persecuted, Li Jing, for your testimony. 

[The articles submitted by Geng He appear in the appendix.] 

[The letter from Gao Zhisheng to the U.S. Congress appears in 

the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF LI JING, WIFE OF DEMOCRACY ADVOCATE 

GUO QUAN 

Ms. LI. Distinguished Mr. Chairman, Cochairman, ladies and 

gentlemen, and friends, my name is Li Jing. I would like to thank 

you for giving me this opportunity to speak out on the persecution 

of my husband and our family. My husband, Guo Quan, is currently in prison serving a 10-year sentence for peacefully expressing his opinions about democracy and human rights. 

After several years of harassment, my son and I arrived in the 

United States three weeks ago. We are exiled in this country, currently enjoying freedoms here that hopefully will someday be enjoyed by everyone in China. 

Because I now have the freedom to speak, I want to tell you a 

little about my husband’s case. He is an academic and a professor 

at Nanjing Normal University, with a degree in law and a doctorate in philosophy. He started to publicly advocate for great democracy and human rights in 2007. 

Because of his public advocacy, my husband suffered. He cannot 

teach again. He was stripped of his associate professor’s salary and 

allowed to work for only minimum wage. It makes him feel that 

human rights have not improved and have gotten even worse. Of 

course, this demotion did not stop his advocacy. 

In less than a year’s time, he published online the ‘‘Herald of Democracy,’’ a collection of 347 articles criticizing a one-party dictatorship, spreading the ideas of democracy and constitutional government. 

To push democracy in China, on December 17, 2007, my husband 

posted the ‘‘China New People’s Party Charter’’ just online, announcing the founding of this party. Even without action and members he suffered. On November 13, 2008, Nanjing police detained 

my husband on the charge of ‘‘subversion of state power.’’ He was 

formally arrested on December 19, 2008, and sentenced on August 

7, 2009, to 10 years in prison, with three years’ probation of political rights. 

I was also forbidden by Nanjing police to go to the trial or speak 

to the international media about this case. He is currently serving 

his prison term at Nanjing Pukou Prison. From the first published 

letter, my family experienced the continued harassment by police. 

Our lives have been turned upside down for the simple expression 

of political opinion. 

Our home was raided several times in the middle of the night, 

and they forcibly confiscated our computers and some of my husband’s manuscripts which were never returned. They even do not 

give us our house rights certification that belongs to my family. My 

employers told me that the public security officer submitted to him 
11 

three times and he was asked to monitor my activities. I had no 

opportunity to be promoted and my career also came to an end. 

My husband’s advocacy also affected the life of our nine-year-old 

son. He was continually blamed by some teachers. Before his father 

was arrested he held some leadership positions in his class and in 

his school, but he has been stripped of this. Previously active and 

outgoing, he has become more and more withdrawn and lacking in 

confidence. 

My husband is innocent. He loves our country. He is a college 

professor who thinks he has a commitment to our country, but a 

devoted Christian whose conscience leads him to advocate peacefully for rights and freedoms that are universal. 

For this, he was given a 10-year prison term. This is egregious 

political persecution. His mother is elderly and sick and his son 

and I miss him greatly. I cannot imagine my son not being able to 

see his father for another seven years. 

I am very grateful to ChinaAid for helping me in the United 

States to live in exile. I appeal to the U.S. Congress and the U.S. 

Government to help reunite my family and to urge China’s leaders 

to release my husband immediately and without condition, as well 

as the many other political prisoners who are penalized for speaking out. Thanks be to God. Thank you all. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you so very much for joining us and for 

your very courageous appeal on behalf of your husband. I hope that 

the White House, the House and the Senate, and I hope that Xi 

Jinping is listening to this appeal from two wives for your individual husbands, but also all the other left-behind family members 

on behalf of the tens of thousands of political prisoners and religious prisoners in China. So, thank you for your outstanding statement. 

I would like to now ask—— 

Ms. LI. Sorry. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes? 

Ms. LI. I also want Congress to keep my husband’s articles, the 

347 articles and 2 letters to Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. 

Chairman SMITH. All right. Thank you. We will receive those articles. 

Ms. LI. As congressional record. Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Genser? 

STATEMENT OF JARED GENSER, FOUNDER, FREEDOM NOW 

AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, PERSEUS STRATEGIES, LLC 

Mr. GENSER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cochairman, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with all of you 

today. I want to begin by thanking the Congressional-Executive 

Commission on China, and in fact all the members and staff here 

today, for the really fabulous work that you are doing on behalf of 

the United States. It is a real service to our country to have such 

scrutiny of the Chinese Government’s human rights record. 

As international pro bono legal counsel to imprisoned Chinese 

lawyer Gao Zhisheng, I want to provide you with a brief overview 

of his case and my explanation as to why his continued detention 

violates both Chinese and international law. 
12 

I will also reflect on why, although Mr. Gao is only one of many 

Chinese prisoners of conscience, his case is a bellwether that deserves especially close attention. Gao Zhisheng was a prominent 

Chinese lawyer who ran afoul of the government after he took on 

politically sensitive cases, particularly those of religious minority 

groups. 

In 2005, the government shut down his law firm. In August 

2006, the authorities arrested Mr. Gao and accused him of inciting 

subversion, a charge frequently used to silence government critics 

like 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is also a pro 

bono client of mine. 

The government prevented the family’s chosen lawyers from 

meeting with Mr. Gao and used threats against his wife and children to extract a confession. The trial lasted less than a day and 

the government failed to even notify the family or their chosen 

counsel of the proceedings. 

On December 26, 2006, the Beijing First Intermediate People’s 

Court handed down a suspended three-year sentence, subject to a 

five-year probationary period. Despite the formal suspension of his 

sentence, Mr. Gao was not free. Over the next five years, the government repeatedly disappeared and tortured him. In September 

2007, authorities disappeared him for 50 days after he publicly 

criticized China’s human rights record. 

Then in February 2009, the government again abducted Mr. Gao, 

shortly after his family sought asylum in the United States. Denied 

access to a lawyer, Mr. Gao was held in secret for more than a 

year. Although he mysteriously reappeared in March 2010, Mr. Gao 

disappeared again a few weeks later. He has not been seen or 

heard from since. 

On November 19, 2010, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, an independent and impartial body, including experts from 

Chile, Norway, Pakistan, Senegal, and Ukraine, issued opinion 

number 262010, finding his ongoing detention to be in violation of 

international law. 

After 20 months without credible information regarding Mr. 

Gao’s whereabouts or well-being and just days before the probationary period was to end, Chinese state media announced last 

December that Mr. Gao would now serve his three-year prison sentence. The government claimed that Mr. Gao violated his probation, and he was therefore taken to Xia County Prison in remote 

Xinjiang Autonomous Region. 

Prison authorities turned Mr. Gao’s family away after they traveled some 22 hours by train to see him, incredulously claiming that 

Mr. Gao did not want to see his family and that he could not receive visitors during a three-month ‘‘educational’’ period. No independent party has been able to confirm Mr. Gao is alive or actually 

at that prison. 

The government’s imprisonment of Mr. Gao, if in fact he is at the 

Xia County Prison, is illegal for three reasons. First, Mr. Gao has 

already spent more than three years in government custody since 

his arrest in 2006 on subversion charges. Quite simply, he has already served his full sentence. 

Second, the charges against Mr. Gao for inciting subversion arise 

out of his written and spoken criticism of the Chinese Government. 
13 

Imprisoning Mr. Gao for exercising his fundamental right to freedom of expression is a flagrant violation of China’s international 

obligations and its own Constitution. 

Finally, the prosecution of Mr. Gao failed to meet international 

standards for due process. During the trial the government relied 

on a forced confession and denied Mr. Gao the right to counsel of 

his own choosing. Thus, in revoking Mr. Gao’s probation we have 

subsequently seen that the government has acted without any legal 

process whatsoever yet again. We filed a new petition to the UN 

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, urging it to find this new 

period of detention is also in violation of international law. 

Although he is only one of many Chinese prisoners of conscience, 

Mr. Gao’s case is an important bellwether for three reasons. First, 

Mr. Gao is not a traditional dissident, he is a lawyer. A vanguard 

of the Weiquan, or rights defending, movement, Mr. Gao attempted 

to promote the rights of his clients from working within the system. His case shows the government’s willingness to persecute 

those that promote the rule of law from within, but he is not alone. 

The government continues to hold prominent lawyer Chen 

Guangcheng under strict house arrest with his wife and daughter. 

Chen, also a self-trained lawyer, rose to prominence after he organized a class-action lawsuit exposing abuses under China’s onechild policy. The government is also moving forward with the prosecution of Ni Yulan, a well-known tenants’ rights lawyer. 

Second, the continued detention of Mr. Gao is instructive because 

it is part of a larger crackdown in which the Chinese Government 

continues to stifle freedom of expression. As Ambassador Locke 

noted last month, repression in China has only worsened since the 

uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. 

In December and January, activists Chen Wei, Chen Xi, and Li 

Tie all received long prison sentences of 9 or 10 years and authorities put a fourth activist, Zhu Yufu, on trial. Each was charged 

with subversion or its incitement. This larger crackdown will only 

be exacerbated by the government’s incredulous moves to potentially legalize disappearances like Mr. Gao’s under Chinese law. 

Such a cynical move would render the whole idea of the rule of law 

meaningless. 

Finally, Mr. Gao’s case is striking for how brazen the government 

has become in its willingness to publicly and transparently lie 

about the circumstances of his detention. After the government disappeared Mr. Gao in 2009, a security agent told the family that 

Mr. Gao had ‘‘lost his way and went missing.’’ 

Later, the Foreign Ministry spokesman indicated that Gao was 

‘‘where he should be,’’ an ominous reference, but when pressed 

later smiled and said he didn’t know where Mr. Gao was and 

couldn’t be expected to know the whereabouts of all of China’s 1.3 

billion people. 

Then the government released a photograph of Mr. Gao purporting to show him alive and well, but in it Mr. Gao was wearing 

a distinctive bracelet he had given his daughter Grace before she, 

Geng He, and their son Peter fled to the United States. 

After his wife Geng He pointed this out in an interview, an unknown woman tried to steal this bracelet from Grace on a New 
14 

York City subway. Now authorities are claiming that Mr. Gao, a 

loving husband and father, would rather not see his family. 

The Chinese Government’s treatment of Mr. Gao and his family 

is nothing short of shocking, and its contradictory claims show a 

total disregard for the international community. If the government’s lies are not publicly and directly confronted, it sends a message to Beijing that respect for the rule of law and basic human 

rights are no longer a priority. 

I thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you 

today and would of course welcome any questions. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you so very much for your incisive testimony. 

I would like to now ask Pastor Fu if you would proceed. 

STATEMENT OF BOB FU, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, 

CHINAAID ASSOCIATION 

Mr. FU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cochairman, and the 

honorable members of the CECC. Thank you for the Commission’s 

professional staff and for your excellent work in documenting and 

pursuing the human rights issue in China. 

ChinaAid’s mission is to promote the establishment of a loving 

and just civil society in China that abides by the rule of law. In 

pursuit of this mission and out of a profound respect for Gao 

Zhisheng and to support his work, ChinaAid has spared no effort 

in launching a worldwide campaign aimed at winning Gao’s release. 

Over the past five years we have expended huge manpower and 

financial resources in ceaselessly mobilizing efforts in this regard. 

As a very small NGO, we are limited in what we can do but we 

know that our efforts have some value in the same way that those 

voices against slavery before the American Civil War eventually led 

to the full awakening of the forces of justice. 

Three years ago, we set up the Free Gao Zhisheng Web site 

called ‘‘FreeGao.com’’ to draw attention to Gao’s plight and to 

launch a worldwide petition on his behalf. So far, we have collected 

more than 150,000 real name signatures from 196 countries. We 

printed out the signatures today and we want to give them to the 

CECC for the record. 

These names, these voices, these people spoke up. From Sudan 

to Afghanistan, from South Africa to Norway, from China to America, 150,000 people of conscience coming from various faith backgrounds, political systems, and family backgrounds of different occupations and of all ages have signed this petition. 

For more than three years we have been looking night and day 

for Gao Zhisheng. We have never stopped asking, where is Gao 

Zhisheng? How is he doing? I, myself, have traveled all over the 

United States and to Europe many times, calling for Gao’s release. 

Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse. We do not even 

have a way of confirming that Gao Zhisheng is still alive today. 

Our fears grow with each passing day, so we earnestly hope that 

the free Western world will abandon its so-called quiet diplomacy 

and speak up and urge China, a country that is a signatory to both 

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International 

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to abide by both its own do-
15 

mestic law as well as international laws to abolish the use of torture and to immediately release Gao Zhisheng and stop persecuting 

his family because of him. China should be held accountable for 

Gao’s case. 

On the occasion of the visit to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping, the next leader of China and the Chinese Communist Party, we are filled once more with some hope, hoping that 

these meetings between America’s top leader and Xi Jinping can facilitate Gao Zhisheng’s release. 

We do not forget that without the countless Americans who, 

under the leadership of President Abraham Lincoln, died to free 

the black slaves, and without the price paid by Dr. Martin Luther 

King, Jr. and his supporters, the first African-American President 

in U.S. history would not be sitting in the White House today. This 

glorious history reminds us that those who have been freed must 

not forget the virtue of those who fought for freedom. 

Furthermore, they have the obligation to carry on this tradition 

and to show compassion and support for those around the world 

who are still being oppressed. This is the spirit of Martin Luther 

King and Gao Zhisheng, and it is a noble reason that should compel us to continue to fight for their cause. 

Mr. Chairman, I was very much moved this morning by the actions of my friend, Michael Horowitz, on behalf of the ‘‘China Six’’ 

prisoners of faith and all other Chinese prisoners of conscience, and 

I think Mr. Horowitz is here today. 

I was especially moved by his effort to cause the Obama administration to deal with the human rights issues with the priority attention that such leaders as President Reagan and the late Tom 

Lantos gave it. Michael was arrested in front of the White House 

this morning for engaging in a quiet and respectful demonstration. 

As I saw the police place handcuffs on him and drive him away 

in a squad car, I realized how great America’s heart can be. I also 

realized the great things that America’s friends of freedom can do 

for oppressed people in China and elsewhere. Before his arrest, Michael prepared a statement which I hope can be entered into the 

hearing record. 

As you know, Michael played an important role in working with 

you, Mr. Chairman, and with Congressman Wolf and others on 

such legislation as the International Religious Freedom Act and the 

North Korea Human Rights Act. His statement reflects a great understanding of what a determined America can do through peaceful 

means to make China and the world a better and a safer place. 

Let me conclude with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

himself: ‘‘And if America is to be a great nation, this must become 

true.’’ 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Pastor Fu, thank you very much. Without objection, your request to include the statement by Michael Horowitz 

from the Hudson Institute will be made a part of the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fu appears in the appendix.] 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appears in the appendix.] 

[The Free Gao petition is retained in Commission files.] 
16 

Chairman SMITH. Like you, I do greatly admire his work as well 

on behalf of human rights. Today’s action is just another discernible manifestation of that deep concern for fundamental human 

rights in China and everywhere else, so thank you for your testimony. 

Just to begin the questioning, let me just ask Ms. Geng He, if 

I could: You point out in the testimony that Gao Zhisheng once 

said that ‘‘you cannot be a human rights lawyer in China without 

becoming a rights case yourself.’’ I would say this as to Ms. Li as 

well. 

When we express dissatisfaction with a policy or with our government, we may get an editorial that is damning. As politicians, 

we may come under some kind of press scrutiny that we might not 

welcome, but nothing, nothing that even comes close to the consequences, the deleterious consequences that men and women who 

promote human rights face in China. 

I think Americans need to become much more aware of the systematic use of torture, the systematic use of all means—I mean, 

there are no trials. They are all show trials. There is no due process of law in the People’s Republic of China. It is a dictatorship. 

Yet, both of your husbands spoke out boldly, knowing that there 

might be severe and long-lasting consequences to themselves and 

to their families. What motivates that kind of courage? Because 

you have it as well. You bear the brunt and the scars of the dictatorship as well. 

Ms. GENG. Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. If you could answer, why do they do it? Where 

does that courage come from to speak out when the iron fist of the 

secret police is waiting with a baton and with the implements of 

torture? 

I would note parenthetically, in the 1990s I chaired a hearing in 

my Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights. We 

invited six survivors of the laogai, including Harry Wu, Paul 

Dingiatsu, who is a Tibetan monk, and they brought in the implements of torture that are routinely used against political and religious prisoners. Your husband spoke out. How and why did he do 

it? 

Ms. GENG. My husband, Gao Zhisheng, grew up in the poor countryside. When he was eight years old, his father died. He hoped he 

could bring change to China, and he later started working very 

hard to obtain his law degree. He hoped to use the law to help 

more people, to help China. He was very happy that he could use 

his knowledge of the legal system to help many Chinese people. Actually, the first case he took was for poor people and he did it pro 

bono. 

He successfully handled a case and he actually helped the victims get about 800,000 yuan Renminbi in rewards. So after this 

successful case, many people in China came to him to seek legal 

support. So because of this one case, people traveled more than 

1,000 miles to Xinjiang in order to seek lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s 

help. 

Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s assistant met them immediately, and 

helped them settle down. Then they talked about the case and discussed what to do. Each time lawyer Gao Zhisheng met these kinds 
17 

of people he always recalled his mother who always helped people 

while she herself was in very difficult conditions. So, lawyer Gao 

Zhisheng has done so many good deeds in China. He still faces 

such severe persecution. 

Even my family suffered a lot from it, and my daughter actually 

had to take the police bus to go to school. In class, the police sat 

behind her and there was almost 24-hour surveillance of her. So 

when we arrived in the United States, the first day my daughter 

did not choose to go to school. She actually chose to go to the hospital because she suffered tremendously mentally. 

My children and I support lawyer Gao Zhisheng wholeheartedly 

because what he did is right and we believe in the righteous power 

in the world. 

I also want to add here that his courage is also from his faith. 

He believes human rights are bestowed by Gods and cannot be deprived by any government. His book that was published in the 

United States is titled, ‘‘A China More Just,’’ and its original Chinese title is ‘‘Fighting for Justice, With Gods Aside Us Shoulder to 

Shoulder.’’ He believed that we will prevail because Gods will win 

over the evil. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Li? 

Ms. LI. I think for my husband, first, we are a Christian family. 

The key word in the Bible is love. I think love is not just a feeling, 

but it is a commitment. For my husband, he wants to help the poor 

people to have a voice, so he did that. After the first persecution 

for him, he started to think, why can they treat him like this? It 

is because there is only one party. 

He started thinking over this matter. Without the division of 

power, without checks and balances, they can do everything they 

want, so he started to support democracy in China. Every time 

when I saw him in prison he always told me, I am not wrong. Actually, if he promises he will not continue to write when he gets out, 

maybe the government will release him faster. But he always says 

no, I am not wrong. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Out of love. It is based on a faithbased conviction, which is an enormous motivator, and I thank you 

for sharing that, because it is the why of it. Even people like Lech 

Walesa, it was his faith that powered him to fight for solidarity in 

Poland. We know throughout China there are people of faith who 

are paying a very significant price, so I thank you for giving us an 

insight as to the why. 

Let me ask you just a couple of questions before yielding to my 

friend and colleague Mr. Walz, and then to Mr. Wolf. In your testimony, Ms. Geng, you make the statement that it is no small irony 

that while you are speaking here on Capitol Hill, Chinese Vice 

President Xi Jinping is just up Pennsylvania Avenue meeting with 

President Obama at the White House. 

You did point out your disappointment that you believed that 

your husband’s plight has been down-played by the White House. 

I would say for the record, and I want this very clear, I have been 

in Congress 32 years, both Mr. Wolf and I have been, and we have 

never seen human rights issues as partisan issues. 
18 

If George Bush was dropping the ball as we thought he was 

doing, especially in the run up to the Olympics with regard to 

human rights in China, we spoke out very loudly. We even went 

there right before the Olympics to raise individual cases and set up 

a meeting with the White House with six dissidents before Bush 

went there, including Harry Wu and Wei Jinsheng and others to 

ensure that the human rights focus never left. 

I have been concerned, and I say this and I know it is shared 

by many others, that this administration has been indifferent to a 

large extent, relying on lower level dialogues and conversations. I 

would respectfully submit that quiet diplomacy is just another 

name for indifference. This needs to be raised. 

As I said in my opening, Hu Jintao came here. There was not 

one public expression by President Obama about human rights, 

and there he was, meeting with the captor and the jailer of Liu 

Xiaobo, who got the Nobel Peace Prize, and President Obama had 

gotten it just one year before. 

So I would wonder, and perhaps the wives might want to speak 

to this, but maybe our other distinguished leaders here, because I 

think Ms. Li, you made a very profound insight when you said 

without U.S. leadership on human rights, few in Beijing will be listening. The United Nations certainly has not raised its voice in any 

reasonable way or any powerful way, so the United States really 

needs to be the ones to do it. 

You said only the United States can make this case to China. If 

either of the two gentlemen or the two wives might want to speak 

to that, how would you rate how we are doing, how the White 

House is doing? Because it seems to me this is on a back burner, 

if it is even on that. 

Mr. GENSER. I will begin by expressing my disappointment that 

we did not receive a response from the White House to the request 

to have Geng He meet with the Vice President. It is unfortunate, 

from my perspective, that the Vice President did not meet any actual victims of Chinese human rights abuses directly, or their families. 

While we are grateful that Assistant Secretary Posner at the 

State Department has been repeatedly and persuasively relentless 

himself, the only way that we are going to see movement on these 

cases is by having the highest level of government officials engaged 

directly with the Chinese Government. I would submit that we 

have here today in the audience Dr. Yang Jianli, someone who I 

represented for five years and who Congressman Smith and Congressman Wolf—— 

Chairman SMITH. If he could stand just to be recognized. We all 

know him. 

Mr. GENSER. Congressmen Smith and Wolf were both deeply engaged over years on his case. The way he got out, was President 

Bush raised the case twice to Hu Jintao, Secretary Rice raised it 

twice, Secretary Powell raised it once, and the U.S. Government 

had to be relentless. Without that kind of direct engagement, we 

are not going to see the release of people. 

What I would say about quiet diplomacy is, I would be all for 

quiet diplomacy if it worked. If it was working, then I do not feel 
19 

the need to speak out in quite the same way. But if it is not working, clearly we need to change our strategies. 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Fu or Ms. Li? 

Mr. FU. Yes. I agree, Mr. Chairman, with your overall assessment. But in the past three years the so-called quiet diplomacy of 

the administration is in essence indifference diplomacy. Obviously 

this administration has put human rights, and especially religious 

freedom, on the backseat from day one. After two years of Obama 

in power, the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious 

Freedom was not even appointed. 

The first official visit of hers was not really met with even the 

courtesy of assistance, I think, from the Chinese Government. I 

suspect the State Department or the White House, I think, have 

not done anything to protest this insult by refusing a presidential 

appointee, an ambassador, to visit her counterpart in China. 

I think this almost self-humiliating attitude certainly emboldens 

the dictator’s persecution and indirectly, I think, increases their 

human rights abuses in China. 

Ms. GENG. For the past few years, the persecution of my husband, Gao Zhisheng, has gotten worse and worse. I strongly request to meet with high-level leaders in the U.S. Government. I 

feel it is very important because Gao Zhisheng’s case is critical, 

and it is critical for breaking through the current situation. 

Because, like last year, China arrested many human rights lawyers, like Jiang Tianyong and others, and the authorities actually 

asked them, ‘‘Have you heard of Gao Zhisheng? You probably know 

him, but so what? His wife, Geng He, who knows her? She went 

to the United States. So what? We can still make Gao Zhisheng 

just disappear. We have enough money.’’ That is what the local authorities tell the human rights lawyers that are being arrested. 

Right now it is very difficult for us to get any lawyers to help 

Gao Zhisheng, even if we wanted. We are willing to pay, but no 

lawyers can take the case. Nowadays, human rights lawyers in 

China all pay close attention to Gao Zhisheng’s case because they 

know if this case improves, then the situation may be different. I 

really wish that I could have an appointment with the leaders in 

the United States so that we can move this case forward. 

Chairman SMITH. And you have tried, but they have not gotten 

back to you, including Vice President Biden? 

Ms. GENG. Yes. We tried to contact them with our lawyers, but 

no response yet. 

Chairman SMITH. That, frankly, is totally—— 

Mr. GENSER. Yes. Let me just clarify. We did hear back from the 

State Department on the request to meet with Secretary Clinton. 

We were offered a meeting with Assistant Secretary Posner. 

We have now been offered a meeting with Under Secretary 

Otero, which, of course, we will be happy to take, but we did not 

get a response from the White House. We sent in a request not just 

to the scheduler, but to numerous staff at the NSC [National Security Council] and the Vice President’s office several times and got 

no response at all, not even a ‘‘sorry, we can’t meet you.’’ 

Chairman SMITH. That is very disappointing, to say the least. I 

would say that when you juxtapose that with the Vice President’s 

statement in China, when talking about the horrific one-child-per- 
20 

couple policy and its reliance on forced abortion. He said, ‘‘I am not 

going to second-guess the policy,’’ and then sent out an email to 

some group suggesting that he’s not really for the policy. But the 

damage was done. Those words—words do matter. 

Meeting with individuals and getting fully informed about the 

plight of the wives and their husbands, that should have been a 

meeting that was sought after by the Vice President and the President’s office, not declined. 

I would like to now yield to Chairman Frank Wolf. 

Representative WOLF. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

I think this administration has been a total failure, and quite 

frankly, I think all the groups around this country should know 

this and not pretend it is not true. The Coptic Christians in Egypt 

should know this administration has failed them. The Iraqi, Assyrian, and Chaldean Christians should know this administration has 

failed them. The Vietnamese in Vietnam, both Buddhists and 

Catholic, ought to know this administration has failed them. Of 

course, the Catholic bishops in China and the Protestant house 

church leaders in China should know that this administration has 

failed them. And the Dalai Lama ought to know that this administration has failed them. Eleven. 

Now, Buddhists monks and nuns have set themselves aflame. 

But I want to bring it back to this, and I did not know that you 

had made a request. I would like to ask both of the wives if they 

would say publicly—I see the media here looking. What would you 

say? Because there is still an opportunity to meet after the Vice 

President from China leaves. 

What would you say if you had an opportunity to meet with 

President Obama? And shame on them both if they do not meet. 

You know that President Reagan would have met with you. You 

know President Clinton would have met with you. You know President Bush would have met with you. You know President Jimmy 

Carter would have met with you. So, shame on them if they do, but 

maybe they won’t. So this may be the only opportunity. What 

would both of the wives want to say if they were talking to President Obama and Vice President Biden? 

Ms. GENG. If I had the opportunity to meet President Obama and 

Vice President Biden I would tell them my husband, Gao Zhisheng, 

is a good person and he always does good deeds. What he has done 

in China is to actually comply with the world’s standards, international human rights standards. So why, in China, does he have 

to be persecuted? Why does he have to suffer from all kinds of torture? Please help me secure his release immediately. 

Ms. LI. If I have the opportunity to see President Obama, I want 

to say my husband is innocent. Because of love he did some things, 

but it is the way to show how he loves his country. So, please help. 

Representative WOLF. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Let me ask our witnesses if there is anything further. Mr. 

Genser, if you want to perhaps touch on what the United Nations 

is doing or not doing. I mean, the United States does play the lead, 

but certainly the European Parliament and other parliaments and 

lawmakers and leaders ought to be raising their voices on behalf 
21 

of the disappeared and the persecuted leaders of the human rights 

movement in China. 

Mr. GENSER. Sure. Let me just say, briefly, the United Nations 

is engaging on a number of key cases. The High Commissioner for 

Human Rights is trying to go to China. It seems unlikely it’s going 

to happen before the leadership transition, but clearly she should 

go and needs to raise her voice. She has, to her credit, raised her 

voice loudly on Gao’s case and a number of other cases. 

But the United Nations, frankly, needs to do a lot more. Gao’s 

case has gotten a lot of attention internationally. Bob and many 

others, and myself, have raised the case in the European Parliament, all around the world, in lots of different contexts. There 

is a lot of support, of course, for Gao Zhisheng. 

But I want to underscore that Geng He and her children live in 

the United States now. They have protection from the United 

States. This gives this case in particular a special connection to our 

country. We have given them asylum status in the United States. 

Gao himself has residual asylum status based on his family’s status, which means that if we can reappear him and if he is willing 

to go, he could immediately come to be free in this country and to 

live his life with his family. So we need the United States to recognize the special responsibility that we have taken on, to our great 

credit, as a country to Gao Zhisheng and his family and to raise 

this case at the highest levels. 

The last thing I will just note is, my biggest fear about the President and Vice President or Secretary of State not meeting Gao’s 

wife, Geng He, is not exclusively about the optics of that meeting 

taking place and the message it would send to the Chinese Government, though that is very important. 

My biggest fear is that the Chinese Government has repeatedly 

and publicly lied about what is going on with Gao Zhisheng and 

the United States and other countries around the world have not 

publicly responded by saying ‘‘You are lying. You are not telling the 

truth.’’ We have to speak truth to power and we have to tell the 

world what is really happening with this person’s situation. 

So it is not sufficient, in my view, to have a meeting with the 

Assistant Secretary at the State Department to see the kind of 

progress that we want to see on this kind of case. 

Chairman SMITH. Pastor Fu? 

Mr. FU. Before Vice President Xi’s visit, I was invited, along with 

a few other leaders, to have a meeting with Ambassador Locke at 

the State Department. I was, on the one hand, glad to hear that 

he had made some very straightforward efforts to pursue Gao’s 

whereabouts when he was missing, but on the other hand I hope 

that the U.S. Embassy or consulate can send a diplomat, if not the 

Ambassador himself, to go to the Shaya Prison and to verify or ask 

the Chinese Government to accept a representative from the International Red Cross. 

The problem is, we do not know whether he is alive or not. I 

think the policy of just diplomatic courtesy or informality cannot 

work anymore. I remember, in 2005 when one of the pastors in Beijing, Pastor Cai Zhuohua, was about to be sentenced to 15 years 

imprisonment for printing Bibles, according to the lawyers who had 

knowledge with the court judge. 
22 

It was when that news came out and I communicated with the 

National Security Council of the Bush administration and President Bush was on the way to visit Beijing. On his stop in Tokyo, 

he made a pointed speech and specifically mentioned about that 

case. Later, of course, attorney Gao Zhisheng was one of Pastor 

Cai’s attorneys at that time. He was later sentenced to three years 

imprisonment instead. 

I think it is time, yes, to break the silence. I give you one illustration of the wrong signal that the administration, especially the 

President, has sent. When he visited China, that one morning I received a phone call from a few human rights lawyers. They said 

they heard the President is waiting to meet with them. So they 

were waiting outside the embassy compound. 

So I was on the phone with the consulate general or deputy general consular of the U.S. Embassy, coordinating, telling him where 

they are. The consular actually asked me to wait and call back, and 

I was waiting. 

A half an hour later, instead of the U.S. consulate or anyone 

coming out to visit them, this group of human rights lawyers, including attorney Jiang Tianyong, including Dr. Fan Yafeng, who 

was later kidnapped and tortured, and they were met with more 

than 200 Chinese military police and they were rounded up. 

The President chose to visit the Great Wall. I was told by the 

consular later that because there is no guarantee for security, for 

the President’s security, so he could not meet with these human 

rights lawyers outside the compound of the U.S. Embassy. I 

thought, What kind of a signal do you want to send to the Chinese 

dictators, to these oppressors? ’’ I think that certainly emboldened 

them and made the human rights record worse. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, I would just point out, Pastor Fu, that 

the signals of indifference and really being uninformed about how 

powerful, if used, the leverage and the voice of the President, Vice 

President, and Secretary of State could actually be in getting people out of prison who are suffering unjustly. 

I remember when the Secretary of State was en route to Beijing, 

or to China for her first visit. She said I’m not going to allow 

human rights to interfere with peddling U.S. debt and global climate change. That threw the dissidents under the bus. Any 

amount of reparative statements that might be made later—and 

there weren’t many—certainly doesn’t undo the damage in terms of 

what is really in the heart. 

My hope springs eternal that this administration will see what 

they are doing to the cause of democracy and the individuals who 

suffer for it, a grave injustice by its indifference and wrong signal 

sending. I would ask the question, how will China ever matriculate 

from dictatorship to democracy if all of the lawyers like Gao 

Zhisheng and others who might go that route—but it does have a 

chilling effect on what they might do if they know that you are 

going to be met with torture and disappearance, and the same 

would go with Ms. Li and her husband. The intellectuals, the professors, knowing that they, too—Liu Xiaobo, the others. We need 

to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, not with the oppressor. 

Regrettably, we are doing just the opposite. 

I would like to ask Chairman Wolf if he has any final comments. 
23 

Representative WOLF. No. 

Chairman SMITH. I would like to ask our distinguished witnesses, starting with you, Pastor Fu, if you have any final comments and leave the final words to our two distinguished wives 

who are here, very strong and brave women, and we thank them 

especially for their testimony. 

Pastor Fu, anything? 

Mr. FU. I think real change will depend on two factors. The most 

important factor is of course from inside China. I think in spite of 

the increasing persecution—last year was perhaps the worst in two 

decades—we still are hopeful. We are still seeing some signs. It is 

not because of any relaxation of the totalitarian regime, but I think 

because of the growing rights awareness and consciousness by the 

Chinese people. 

Look at what happened to the Wukan village in Guangdong province, and 50,000 people. When they were united, they were able to 

win the fight, at least temporarily. They were allowed to have their 

first free and democratic election and elect their own leaders in 

that 50,000-person village. It’s a small step, a baby step, but it 

shows the people’s power. 

I think of the thousands—hundreds of thousands—of Chinese petitioners, who in spite of the black jails and imprisonment, arbitrary arrests and torture, they still organized and went to the Chinese leadership compounds in Shanghai and Beijing. 

And hundreds of house church members, like Beijing Shouwang 

House Church, in the past 10 months, since April of last year, 

every Sunday—every Sunday—in the capital city of Beijing, there 

are arrests, from 20 to more than 100 members of this church have 

been arrested every Sunday for simply going outdoors for worship. 

All the leaders, including Senior Pastor Jin Tianming and all 

their five elders, had been under house arrest without any freedom 

of movement. But the members are still going there every Sunday, 

knowing that they are going to be arrested. I think these are the 

hopeful signs which we can count on. 

Of course, I think of the secondary contribution for China’s democracy and freedom is outside, external. I think we do need the 

external aid. I think the Chinese persecuted people will be greatly 

encouraged and their morale would be greatly bolstered if they 

hear from the President of the United States of America tell the 

Chinese dictators clearly and unwaveringly that we are with you, 

we are with the persecuted instead of the persecutors. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Pastor Fu. 

Jared? 

Mr. GENSER. Thanks so much. I just want to make three brief 

closing comments. The first, is to emphasize a point that, Mr. 

Chairman, you made earlier, which I agree with fully but needs to 

be emphasized. 

This is not a partisan issue. This is something that there is 

strong bipartisan support to keep pressure on the Chinese Government to improve the fundamental situation of human rights in the 

country. This is a core value of this country, which this country 

was built upon. For us as a country, we need to stay true to our 

fundamental values. 
24 

Second, I wanted to say to the administration that there’s never 

a wrong time to do the right thing. Frankly, it’s not too late. We 

may be disappointed. I personally am disappointed that we did not 

get these meetings that we wanted for Geng He. 

But it is an opportunity at this moment to turn the ship around, 

or to at least change its course, and to recognize that at the end 

of the day any administration, I believe, should be measured by results and not by effort. I do not care how hard any administration 

tries, I care about what they achieve. 

I think it is quite clear that, regardless of efforts being made— 

and we might disagree on how strong those efforts are—the results 

are not there yet. At the end of the day you need to change your 

tactics if you want to get the results, because clearly this approach 

is not working. 

Last, I just want to thank both of you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. 

Wolf, for your tremendous leadership on these issues in the Congress, not just on China but on human rights around the world. It 

is a pleasure to work with both of you and with your offices. You 

take tremendous leadership on behalf of the U.S. Congress on all 

these issues and it is greatly appreciated by me. 

Most importantly, of course, it is appreciated by the victims of 

human rights abuses around the world who see the United States 

as a shining example of what they want their own countries to become. We may be imperfect as a Nation, we may have a lot of flaws 

and problems that we need to work on, and that is all true. But 

we cannot forget where we come from and both of you deserve huge 

credit for your ongoing efforts over so many years. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Genser. 

Ms. Li? 

Ms. LI. I will speak Chinese. 

I feel the Chinese Government right now is a vast interest group. 

Even though they may realize how gigantic the problems they are 

confronted with, it is extremely difficult for them to overcome these 

problems and to make amends. Therefore, in order to change China 

it indeed calls for more and more people to be able to stand up and 

speak out. 

As was pointed out by my husband before he was put in jail, the 

mines have to be explored and have to be trod on for them to explode. If you do not test the field, you will never know the borderline and you will never know how Chinese democracy will emerge 

and whether or not China can be democratized. Therefore, it falls 

on common effort made by all of us. 

As was pointed out in my testimony today, the United States of 

America plays an extremely important role in all of this. I very 

much hope that the United States of America will help China to 

make amends and to make a change. Thanks. 

Ms. GENG. The suffering of my husband, Gao Zhisheng, and my 

family actually showcases the widespread problem of human rights 

abuse in China. I repeatedly requested to meet with the highest 

leaders in the United States, President Obama, Vice President 

Biden, and also Secretary Hilary Clinton. I wish I could meet with 

them. 

I also hope that the embassy in China can send a delegation to 

meet Gao Zhisheng and to at least verify whether he is alive or not. 
25 

I really hope that the highest-level leaders in the United States can 

pressure China to release Gao Zhisheng unconditionally so that our 

family can be reunited sooner. Thanks. 

I firmly believe that 1.3 billion Chinese people still do not have 

basic human rights right now. If this situation still continues in 

China, the whole human civilization will not have a perfect civilization. 

So, I hope that the whole Western world and civilized world can 

give more support to China’s human rights situation and can support those human rights advocates and warriors in China so that 

they can be consoled when they are fighting in the dark. 

This kind of support not only can bring China’s human rights efforts into a brighter era, this will also encourage support for more 

people to bring out their human nature, the light of human nature, 

and it will also provide tremendous courage for all the human 

rights warriors in China when they struggle in the dark. Hopefully 

this kind of support can bring much more encouragement to these 

warriors. I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank 

you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you so much for your testimonies. The 

people of China deserve better than what they are getting from the 

dictatorship. Your husbands, and you and the others like you, who 

are languishing in prison are the future of China and we need to 

stand in solidarity with you and with them. So, thank you so much. 

Bob Fu? 

Mr. FU. Yes. Just to make one more point to bring true change 

to China. I think it is very important for Congress to work together 

to pass the Global Online Freedom Act. I thank the leadership of 

Congressman Wolf to champion this. That will provide a tremendously efficient tool to break down this firewall in China and certainly will enhance and improve the chance for rapid democratization in China. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

As you know, Mr. Fu, that bill, the Global Online Freedom Act, 

we hope to be marking that up very shortly in my subcommittee. 

It is an idea whose time has come. The enabling of high-tech to enable a dictatorship to find, apprehend, and incarcerate people of 

faith, the Falun Gong, the Christians, the Uyghurs, and to destroy 

dissident movements throughout the world calls out for this legislation, so I hope to have this bill out of committee very shortly. So, 

I thank you for bringing that up. 

I would like to thank our distinguished witnesses again, and 

without further ado the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m. the hearing was concluded.] 

(27) 

A P P E N D I X 
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PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GENG HE

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Greetings Mr. Chairman and Mr. Co-Chairman. Thank you for inviting me to 

speak about my husband, imprisoned Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. 

I would like to thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for holding 

this hearing today and everyone in attendance for your interest in Zhisheng’s case. 

Zhisheng, a well-known lawyer in China, represented some of the country’s most 

vulnerable citizens. He represented plaintiffs who lost their land to development 

projects like the 2008 Summer Olympics. He defended factory workers that were arrested after they demonstrated against low wages and long hours. He represented 

members of Christian house churches and practitioners of the banned Falun Gong 

spiritual movement. But as Zhisheng once said, ‘‘you cannot be a rights lawyer in 

[China] without becoming a rights case yourself.’’ 

In 2005, the government suspended Zhisheng’s law license and closed his law firm 

after he refused to drop his most sensitive cases. He was convicted of inciting subversion in 2006 after confessing in the face of threats against our children. Since 

then, our lives have been turned upside down. The government placed our family 

under constant surveillance. Police moved into our apartment building and followed 

us everywhere. Even worse, the government has repeatedly abducted and tortured 

Zhisheng. 

In September 2007, authorities disappeared Zhisheng and held him for over 50 

days after he wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress exposing human rights 

abuses in China. Policemen covered his head with a black mask and took him into 

a room where they stripped him naked and beat him. They used electric batons to 

shock him all over his body—specifically his private parts—turning his skin black. 

After losing consciousness from the torture, he awoke covered in urine. Later, his 

captors used cigarette smoke to burn his eyes so severely that he could not open 

them. They even stabbed his private parts with toothpicks. Zhisheng asked them 

to lock him up in a prison, but they refused. They said, ‘‘You are simply dreaming 

if you want to go to prison. We can make you disappear whenever we want to.’’ And 

that is what they’ve done. 

In order to protect our children, I escaped with them to the United States in January 2009. The next month, the authorities abducted Zhisheng again. This time the 

government held him for over a year before he briefly reappeared the following 

spring. In an interview with the Associated Press, Zhisheng described even more 

torture during the disappearance. Police beat him with handguns for two days and 

nights. He said these were the worst beating he had ever endured—that his life 

‘‘hung by a thread.’’ Soon after the interview he disappeared again. 

I last spoke to Zhisheng on April 17, 2010, my daughter Grace’s 17th birthday. 

Since then, our family has been burdened with constant uncertainty. Zhisheng’s absence has caused my daughter severe emotional anguish; she dreams that her father 

is dead. My son has tears in his eyes on Father’s Day. He tells his teachers that 

he doesn’t have a father. Recently, we were forced to endure rumors that guards 

had tortured Zhisheng to death. 

Then in December, less than one week before Zhisheng’s probation was scheduled 

to end, Chinese authorities added to our uncertainty by claiming that he would 

spend the next three years in a prison in Xinjiang. All they said was that Zhisheng 

violated his parole; they didn’t even say what he supposedly did wrong. This news 

came just before the holidays. In the past we tried to avoid the holidays, in no mood 

to celebrate without news about Zhisheng. But this year it was even worse. 

Some people have asked us if we are relieved because the government says that 

he is alive. But the news has not brought us any peace of mind. In fact, we are 

more worried than ever. Zhisheng’s brother and my father traveled a long distance 

to the prison in Xinjiang, but authorities rejected their request to see him. They 

claimed that he could not have visitors because he is undergoing a three-month 

‘‘education period’’ and that he didn’t want to see any family. The government has 

lied so many times that we don’t know what to believe. We don’t know if he is at 

the prison in Xinjiang. We don’t know if guards are torturing him again. We don’t 

even know if he is still alive. 

Today, I would like to ask for your help. Please help my children get their father 

back. Please help free a voice for China’s most vulnerable. 
29 

Zhisheng is a lawyer. His sense of justice and outstanding eloquence moved even 

the hearts of judges in the Chinese communist system. Zhisheng’s case shows that 

the Chinese communist regime is simply lying when it claims to respect the rule 

of law—the rule of law that Zhisheng fought so hard to protect. By locking him 

away, the government has silenced his voice. Now, the international community 

must speak out on his behalf. I have brought with me some of Zhisheng’s writings 

and an Associated Press article about the torture he faced and ask that they be included in the record so that Zhisheng’s own words will be a part of these proceedings. 

It comes as no small irony to me that while I am down here speaking to you, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is just up Pennsylvania Avenue meeting with President Obama at the White House. While I am always pleased to be among such great 

friends and champions for human rights, I would have wanted just a moment with 

Vice President Xi to ask why he and the Chinese government has to continue to 

torture my husband, me, and my two young children. 

I am so grateful that the United States has provided protection to my family from 

the Chinese government, which we so desperately needed. I only ask that you continue to call on the Government of China to respect the human rights of all its citizens, including Zhisheng. I ask that you continue to report on his case so that the 

truth about his treatment at the hands of the government will be known to the 

world. And I hope and pray that with your help, my husband will regain his freedom and my family can be together once again. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. I would welcome any questions you may have. 

Finally, I request that Congress keep the following articles as a permanent record 

of the case (for understanding human rights lawyer Mr. Gao Zhisheng and the rescuing effort of Mr. Gao Zhisheng): 

1. Case of Cai Zhuohua (the case regarding a Christian) 

2. Three open letters to Mr. Hu, the Chinese President (the case regarding Falun 

Gong) 

3. ‘‘Dark Night, Dark Hood and Kidnapping by dark mafia’’ by Gao Zhisheng (the 

case regarding torture) 

4. An interview with the Associated Press. 

Thank you! 
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM

NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

As President Obama welcomes Vice President Xi Jinping, China’s leader-in-waiting to the White House today our Commission will hear testimony from two wives 

who are appealing for the immediate release of their jailed husbands—great human 

rights leaders—back in China. 

As Chairman, I hope that President Obama doesn’t put human rights last on the 

agenda—or not at all—as he did when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the 

White House on January 19th, 2011. 

One of the wives, Li Jing, says that, ‘‘only the United States can make this case 

to China.’’ President Obama, listen to these courageous women—Geng He and Li 

Jing—and act decisively. 

The China Commission hopes that the issue of human rights abuses in China will 

be raised in a serious and visible way during Mr. Xi’s visit, and particularly that 

the detention of Gao Zhisheng, Liu Xiaobo, Chen Guancheng, Guo Quan, Liu 

Xianbin, Pastor Yang Rongli, Alimujiang Yimiti and others are raised often and discussed in detail. 

This important and timely hearing today recognizes one of China’s most important human rights lawyers, Gao Zhisheng. In the early 2000s, Mr. Gao, a selftrained lawyer, emerged as a champion of human rights causes and a defender of 

marginalized groups in China. Today, we know little about Mr. Gao’s current condition and whereabouts. 

Guo Quan is an academic and professor who published an open letter to President 

Hu calling for multiparty elections, posted a charter for a new democracy party online and called for the end to China’s notorious reeducation through labor system. 

For that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

GAO ZHISHENG

Mr. Gao Zhisheng’s brilliant legal advocacy on behalf of marginalized groups in 

China—including religious practitioners, rural workers, and human rights activists—resulted in being sentenced on trumped-up ‘‘inciting subversion’’ charges in 

2006. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment, but granted a five-year suspended sentence, or period of parole. During this time, Mr. Gao has been subjected 

to years of brutal torture and has been repeatedly ‘‘disappeared.’’ An outspoken 

Christian, Mr. Gao has been ‘‘disappeared’’ into official custody since February 2009, 

with only a brief reappearance, under official supervision, in March and April 2010. 

Information on Mr. Gao’s enforced disappearance and current condition remains 

a closely guarded secret. For months and years, we heard nothing on Mr. Gao’s ongoing detention. 

Two months ago, however, Chinese officials announced that Mr. Gao would be 

forced to serve out his original three year criminal sentence, a week before he 

should have finished his five-year parole period. The announcement claimed that 

Mr. Gao violated the conditions of his parole. No details, however, were provided. 

One can only wonder what ‘‘violations’’ Mr. Gao committed, since he has been held 

incommunicado during the majority of this parole period and has been brutally tortured throughout. 

In the past month, his brother and other family members have been turned away 

in their attempts to visit Mr. Gao. We have received no word on his health or condition. 

As expert witnesses will demonstrate, the official case against Gao Zhisheng is not 

only rife with villainy, but also bereft of humanity. In an account of Mr. Gao’s torture, made public by the Associated Press in January 2011, Mr. Gao disclosed to 

a reporter the excruciating details of his detention: ‘‘The police stripped Gao 

Zhisheng bare and pummeled him with handguns in holsters. For two days and 

nights, they took turns beating him and did things he refused to describe.’’ He recalled, ‘‘For 48 hours my life hung by a thread.’’ Authorities reportedly threatened 

to kill Mr. Gao, to dump his body in a river. And, authorities taunted him by saying 

‘‘You must forget you’re human.’’ 

To Vice President Xi, we will not forget. We do not know if Mr. Gao is alive or 

dead. In solidarity with Mr. Gao and his family, we know, however, that we are 

here to honor Mr. Gao’s accomplishments, his rights advocacy and his image. We 

will not let those who hold him kill Gao Zhisheng’s legacy. We will not allow these 

criminals to dispose of his significance. And, we will not forget Mr. Gao’s profound 

humanity. 
69 

We are also honored to hear from two specialists with unique insights into Gao 

Zhisheng’s case and the ongoing international advocacy efforts on his behalf. We 

will hear from Jared Genser, founder of Freedom Now and member of Gao 

Zhisheng’s international pro bono legal team. Genser will discuss the recently filed 

petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf 

of Mr. Gao, which seeks an opinion on whether Mr. Gao’s imprisonment violates 

international law. And, we will hear from Pastor Bob Fu, the founder and president 

of the China Aid Association. Pastor Fu will discuss the FreeGao campaign and the 

need to hold China accountable for the ongoing harassment and detention of Gao 

Zhisheng. 

GUO QUAN

The case of Guo Quan, a former criminal-court officer and university associate 

professor, illustrates how Chinese officials target citizens who attempt to form independent political parties, use the Internet to organize, or post online opinions 

deemed too politically sensitive. In 2007, Mr. Guo began posting a series of open 

letters to top government leaders, advocating on behalf of laid-off workers, demobilized military cadres, and displaced farmers. He also wrote letters calling for multiparty rule and for democratic reforms. Because his writings were considered too critical of the government, however, Mr. Guo later lost his university professorship and 

was expelled from the China Democratic League, a state-approved ‘‘democratic’’ 

party under the direction of the Communist Party. Chinese authorities frequently 

detained Mr. Guo, because of his online articles and open letters to top officials. In 

2008, Mr. Guo announced the formation of the China New Democracy Party. Authorities later detained Mr. Guo and sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment for 

‘‘subversion of state power’’ for organizing an ‘‘illegal’’ political party, for recruiting 

members for the party, and for other acts to ‘‘overthrow’’ the socialist system. Despite his appeal, court officials upheld the verdict. Today, Mr. Guo is serving out 

his sentence in a Nanjing prison. His wife and young son have fled the official harassment and abuse they suffered in China, and they are now in the United States. 

The hearing today continues the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s 

work to monitor China’s human rights and rule of law developments and to give 

voice to the persecuted. In the past year, the Commission has consistently raised 

China’s ongoing violations of international law and human rights standards in its 

reports and events. Recent hearings have been able to boldly shine a light on some 

of China’s gravest injustices and its darkest polices. 

In December 2011, the Commission held a hearing on Liu Xiaobo—a year after 

he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia. The hearing highlighted China’s 

increasing crackdown on inspiring human rights advocates and peaceful reformers. 

In November 2011, we held a hearing on the illegal detention and abuse of legal 

advocate Mr. Chen Guangcheng and his family. A self-trained legal advocate, Mr. 

Chen was wrongfully imprisoned for exposing China’s brutal forced abortions and 

for his heroic activism on behalf of victims of China’s one child policy. Since his release, Mr. Chen and his family have been maliciously deprived of basic freedoms— 

and repeatedly beaten. They remain confined to their home, under an illegal form 

of house arrest and under the watchful eye of armed thugs. We are unsure of 

whether Mr. Chen, like Mr. Gao, is even still alive. Our prayers are with him and 

his family. As Chairman of this Commission, I and staff have made repeated attempts to visit Mr. Chen in Shandong province, but the Chinese government has 

denied our access, as well as access to the many human rights advocates in China 

that have tried to see Mr. Chen. Even actor Christian Bale was intercepted en 

route. Mr. Chen and his wife have been maliciously because he fights for women 

and children who have been irreparably harmed by the one child policy. 

China’s one child policy is state sponsored cruelty and constitutes a massive crime 

against humanity. The Nuremberg Nazi war crimes tribunal properly construed 

forced abortion as a crime against humanity—nothing in human history compares 

to the magnitude of China’s 33 year assault on women and children. The Chinese 

government’s one child per couple policy, with its attendant horrors of mass forced 

abortion and rampant sex selection abortion, is utterly without parallel. In effect 

since 1979, the coercive one child per couple policy is, in scope and seriousness, the 

worst human rights abuse in the world today. Few outside of China understand 

what a massive and cruel system of social control the one child policy entails. 

The price for failing to confirm to this system is staggering. A Chinese woman 

who comes pregnant without a permit will be put under mind-bending pressure to 

abort. She knows that ‘‘out of plan’’ illegal children are denied education, healthcare 

and marriage, and that fines for bearing a child without a birth permit can be up 

to 10 times the average annual income of both parents, and those families that can’t 
70 

or won’t pay are jailed or their homes smashed in or their young child killed. If the 

brave woman still refuses to submit, she may be held in a punishment cell, or if 

she flees, her relatives may be held, and very often, beaten. Group punishments will 

be used to socially ostracize her. Her colleagues and neighbors will be denied birth 

permits. If the woman is, by some miracle, still able to resist this pressure, she may 

be physically dragged to an operating table and forced to undergo an abortion. Her 

trauma is incomprehensible. It is a trauma she shares, in some degree, with virtually every woman in China, whose experience of intimacy and motherhood is colored by the atmosphere of fear created by the government—by government threats 

and determination to intrude itself in a deadly fashion in the most private aspects 

of her life. 

Today in China, rather than being given maternal care, pregnant women without 

birth control permits are hunted down and their babies forcibly aborted. They are 

mocked, belittled and humiliated. There are no single moms in China—except those 

who somehow evade the family planning cadres and conceal their pregnancy. For 

three decades, brothers and sisters have been illegal; a mother has absolutely no 

right to protect her baby from state sponsored violence. 

Mr. Chen courageously pushed back against this horrific policy—and today suffers 

unspeakable abuse for his compassionate work. 

Finally, we gather here today to ask that China’s future leader Xi Jinping take 

China in a new direction. We ask that Mr. Xi put an end to China’s oppression of 

human rights heroes and allow these inspiring men and women to return to their 

families without delay. We ask for the immediate release of Gao Zhisheng, of Guo 

Quan, of Chen Guangcheng, Liu Xiaobo and all the others. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM OHIO; 

COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Thank you all for attending today’s important hearing on the treatment—or mistreatment—of Chinese human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng. 

We are here to show support for a man who has devoted his life to defending the 

rights of his fellow citizens. 

A special thank you to his courageous wife, Ms. Geng He, for being here today. 

I look forward to hearing from you about your husband’s life and career defending 

marginalized groups in China. 

And know that his—and your—life’s devotion to human rights is a source of inspiration for so many people in China, here in the United States, and across the world. 

Thank you also to Ms. Li Jing, the wife of imprisoned Chinese dissident Guo 

Quan. 

She, too, will share her husband’s story of standing up for basic human rights in 

the face of imprisonment and intimidation. 

Today’s hearing comes at an important time in the relationship between the 

United States and the People’s Republic of China. 

As Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping attends meetings just minutes away with 

our top officials, we are reminded that the real China is represented by the brave 

individual whose fate remains a mystery and who is the focus of today’s hearing. 

In understanding Gao Zhisheng’s story, we understand not only what Gao stands 

for, but the challenges we face with China today. 

Mr. Gao has devoted his life to trying to make the law work for those he represented—the underprivileged and underserved. 

He has stood up for those kicked off their land by greedy developers and corrupt 

officials. 

He has stood by factory workers protesting low wages and long hours, and the 

persecuted practitioners of Falun Gong. 

In stark contrast, Chinese authorities showed no concern for Mr. Gao’s rights or 

the law. 

They disbarred him. They jailed him. They have reportedly tortured him, and 

somehow made him ‘‘disappear.’’ 

Chinese authorities have used Mr. Gao to send a chilling message to other wouldbe human rights defenders: Stay quiet, do not challenge us, do not hold us accountable—or else. 

Mr. Gao himself would say that his case is about more than just his own experience. 

As he wrote in his book ‘‘A China More Just,’’ behind each case in China ‘‘are systemic problems.’’ 
71 

And from the problems that Mr. Gao has faced—the utter disregard for the rule 

of law by his government and the Communist Party—we see why our nation faces 

so many systemic problems with China today. 

Mr. Gao’s case and the cases he worked on show us how easy it is for Chinese 

officials to cheat, bend the rules, and game the system. 

They show us how easy it is for China to ignore labor and environmental standards, hoard raw materials, and manipulate its currency. 

They brazenly sell us—with the help of some of our own companies—toxic toys, 

tainted pet food, and consumer products made by overworked and underpaid workers. 

And while I and others in our government are doing all we can to ensure the safety and health of our citizens and a fair trading relationship with China, we know 

that we can’t do it alone. We need brave Chinese citizens like Mr. Gao to defend 

their rights, to make sure they have a fair and living wage, their food is safe, and 

their environment is clean. 

That’s why his case is so important—because if Chinese citizens can defend their 

rights, we all benefit. 

We all benefit—from Ohio and across the country—when we know the products 

we buy from China are safer and won’t cause illness or death. 

We all benefit—just as we do here—from a rule of law that ensures the citizens 

of China have the possibility to hold their government accountable and to rightly 

petition grievances to effectuate change. 

But until Mr.Gao and countless other political prisoners in China are released 

from their shackles, that day will remain in the distant, unknown future. 

That’s why we on this Commission and our government must continue to do all 

we can to spotlight these cases and secure Mr. Gao’s release. 

Treatment—or mistreatment—of basic human rights deserves nothing less. 

Thank you all again for attending today’s hearing. 
72 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

AN OPEN LETTER TO CHINA’S NATIONAL PEOPLES’ CONGRESS—GAO’S FIRST LETTER

TO CCP’S LEADERS

BY GAO ZHISHENG

[Special to The Epoch Times—March 25, 2006] 

To the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the Committee 

Chairman Wu Bangguo: 

As a lawyer, I have recently received from various places, many petitions and requests for help regarding the sentencing of Falun Gong practitioners and the plight 

[of the practitioners being punished by] re-education through labor. On December 

26, my associate and I went to Shijiazhuang City of Hebei Province to offer legal 

assistance to Huang Wei, who has been subject to so-called re-education through 

labor. After taking up the case, in the course of dealing with the administrative and 

judicial authorities, we discovered a series of phenomena that were beyond the 

imagination of today’s people. These phenomena exist in both the legislative and judicial realms. As an attorney and a citizen of the present era, I feel extraordinarily 

down-cast and saddened in the face of such incredible phenomena. The first thought 

that came to me—after I had had negotiations with several courts in Shijiazhuang 

City—was that I would express such suffocating depression and sadness by submitting a letter as soon as I could to the Standing Committee of the National People’s 

Congress and its Chairman Wu Bangguo. I did, with only some delay as I spent 

time and energy trying to decide what exact form the letter should take. 

In 2003, in my capacity as a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), I 

submitted three separate requests—each with the title ‘‘Request for Investigation 

into Constitution Violations’’—through registered mail to the Standing Committee 

of the National People’s Congress. Made on the basis of the Constitution of the PRC 

(hereafter Constitution) and the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China 

(hereafter Legislation Law), each of the three requests concerns one of the following 

issues: ‘‘Regulations Concerning the Management of Demolition and Relocation of 

Houses in the City,’’ the policy of private properties expropriated by the state for 

generating state income, and the obvious constitution violations by the People’s Supreme Court in interpreting the laws regarding the policy. The three requests were 

met with the same outcome—no reply whatsoever. This time, after painful consideration, I have decided to write an open letter. 

Huang Wei, a Shijiazhuang resident with a college education, was sent to a labor 

camp in 1999 for a 3-year term on the charge of ‘‘participating in evil cult activities 

to undermine the implementation of state laws.’’ Upon being released, he was only 

34 years of age, but half of his hair had become grey. With hope for a good life and 

through incredible diligence and perseverance, he tried to run a small business and 

made a promising start. Although he and his family were still rather poor, they 

were happy and were determined to forget the bitter past and to work for a good 

life ahead. On April 13, 2004, at 7:30 a.m. Huang took his child to the kindergarten 

as usual. As he stepped out of the kindergarten to go to work, four unidentified people abducted him. He was taken to the National Security office, where he was thoroughly searched, and all his belongings, including his bike and cash, were taken 

away from him. Then he was sent to a detention center. All the way along, those 

who arrested him did not produce any official papers or identify themselves. 

Later, local authorities got into Huang’s apartment by themselves and conducted 

a search. Thirty-eight days after Huang had been detained, the police, not wanting 

to be blamed for detaining someone longer than the law allowed, placed him in a 

detaining room of the Public Security office for another 15 days, during which time, 

again, no effort to communicate was made, except for the ‘‘questioning and reporting’’ by two police officers who refused to identify themselves. (When Huang asked 

them their names and the government department to which they belonged, their answer was, ‘‘We are interrogating you, not being interrogated by you.’’) Since the report did not reflect in the least the conversation in the questioning, Huang refused 

to sign it. To Huang’s utter astonishment, however, one of the officers unhurriedly 

signed Huang’s name on the report right in front of Huang and put his fingerprint 

on it. Huang later figured out that the purpose of the ‘‘questioning and reporting’’ 

was to extract evidence for sending him to the labor camp. On June 3, Huang Wei 

was once again given a 3-year term of re-education through labor. On June 4, leaving his ‘‘monitored life’’ in the detaining room, he was sent to the labor camp a sec-
73 

ond time. Thereafter, each time Huang demanded the city government to review his 

case or his rights to due legal process, he had to go on hunger strike before his demand would be met. He was on hunger strike for a total of 42 days. One can imagine how sad and miserable his situation was! 

In the morning of December 27, 2004, my associate and I arrived at the labor 

camp in Shijiazhuang City and, following the proper procedure, requested to meet 

with Huang Wei. The administration of the labor camp told us that they could approve requests for seeing any type of inmates except Falun Gong practitioners and 

that we would need special approval from the ‘‘610 Office’’ in order to see our client. 

Braving the bitter cold weather, we went back and forth between the ‘‘610 Office’’ 

under the labor camp administration and the ‘‘610 Office’’ under the Judicial Bureau. It took us more than three hours to get through all the red tape; but in the 

end we were allowed to see our client for less than three minutes. (Those at the 

scene jokingly remarked that it was three hours outside the law and three minutes 

within the law.) 

On the afternoon of December 27, the lawyers [1] took all the documents of 

Huang’s complaint about the fact that Shijiazhuang City government had been ignoring his case to the Intermediate Court of Shijiazhuang City. They tried to file 

the case ‘‘The Silence of the Shijiazhuang City government to Huang Wei’s request’’ 

but to no avail. At 8:30 a.m. on December 28, the lawyers went to the same court 

with the same request and were again rejected. In a meeting with a judge at the 

court’s administrative chamber, the lawyers were told that the case should be 

brought to the court at Xinhua District. At 9:20 a.m., the lawyers arrived at the 

Xinhua District Court. A judge at the administrative chamber there with the last 

name Miao looked through the documents and said, ‘‘There is instruction from above 

that no case about Falun Gong should be accepted and that no document would be 

issued with respect to it.’’ When the lawyers pointed out to him the stipulations by 

relevant laws, he said the instruction came from ‘‘above’’ and that their job was only 

to implement them. He suggested the lawyers talk to the judge of the Case Filing 

Tribunal. 

At the Case Filing Tribunal, two female staff members looked through the documents and became rather irritated. They told the lawyers that the court would neither accept cases involving Falun Gong nor issue any document with respect to it, 

adding that there were documents [directing they do so] from above. The lawyers 

expressed that the court should base its decision about whether to accept a case or 

not on state laws, and that if there was a conflict between any relevant documents 

and the laws, then such documents would be invalid. At this point, a young staff 

member at the scene burst into a near scream, ‘‘If you think the documents from 

above are invalid, you can ask the National People’s Congress to amend the laws.’’ 

As she finished, a judge whom she addressed as ‘‘the chamber chief’’ came forward 

saying, ‘‘You are probably not party members (referring to the lawyers) and have 

not studied the essentials of the Party’s National Congress, have you? Did you know 

lawyers are not allowed to take cases like this? The judicial court belongs to the 

Chinese Communist Party, so do the laws. Now there are instructions from above 

not to accept [such cases,] that’s it. You may talk to whomever you want to and file 

your case wherever you want.’’ 

After that, there was no explanation from anyone anymore. Asked by the lawyers, 

another judge said the case should be brought to the court of the Chang’an District. 

At 10:30 a.m., the lawyers arrived at the third court [that day] and were, again, 

received by a judge from the administrative chamber. As soon as the lawyers said 

the case involved Falun Gong, the judge immediately returned the documents that 

he was reading to the lawyers and told the same story: the instructions from above 

stipulate that no Falun Gong cases would be considered, no documents would be 

issued regarding them, and no document justifying [the way it is handled] would 

be produced. The judge added, ‘‘What you lawyers are doing is very risky. If you 

continue with this, it will be necessary to write a judicial report (demanding disciplinary actions against you.)’’ That concluded the lawyers’ efforts to file a case at three 

courts involving two levels in Shijiazhuang City. 

In handling the case of Huang Wei being sent to a labor camp, I found the following phenomena, which are at odds with the civilization of modern society as well 

as the rule of law that is advocated, implemented, and sought after by the public. 

These phenomena are much more prominent in the judicial realm, to such an extent 

that one feels horrified and in a hopeless situation. As a lawyer and a Chinese, I 

cannot choose to be silent! 

From the perspective of the existing laws, the sentence and punishment of Falun 

Gong practitioners completely violates the basic legal principles and modern practices of the rule of law: 
74 

1. In any country that adopts statute law, the applicability of criminal law 

naturally circumscribes the time frame and the extent to which the regulation 

of the criminal laws can be applied (including the issue of people, events, and 

location). Theoretically, the ‘‘Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China’’ 

(hereafter as ‘‘Criminal Law’’) is no exception. It is a basic principle of our country’s ‘‘Criminal Law’’ that its rules do not apply to the past, that is, the ‘‘Criminal Law’’ does not apply to behaviors that took place prior to the legislation of 

the ‘‘Criminal Law.’’ On October 30, 1999, the promulgation by the Standing 

Committee of the National People’s Congress of a ‘‘Decision to Eradicate Evil 

Cult Organizations and to Prevent and Punish Evil Cult Activities’’ (hereafter 

as ‘‘Decision’’) served only a matter of formality, making up something that is 

needed in the legislation of criminal punishment [regarding the said activities]. 

And thereafter, the majority of the criminal punishment of citizens who practice 

Falun Gong was directed toward their behavior prior to the promulgation of the 

‘‘Decision.’’ The sentencing of Huang Wei to re-education through labor in November of 1999 belongs squarely to this situation. This violation of basic principles of our country’s ‘‘Criminal Law’’ has been public, sustained, and large 

scale. That is to say, the majority of the citizens have been thrown into prison 

in a situation where our country’s basic legal principles are violated. 

2. Whether a country adopts statute law or common law, criminal law can 

only regulate (or ‘‘attack,’’ a word commonly used in our country) people’s action, but not the thoughts or identity of a certain group of people. This is a result of the coming of age of criminal laws around the world. The punishing of 

many citizens who practice Falun Gong has been due to their identity as Falun 

Gong practitioners; Huang Wei being sent to a labor camp is a clear example. 

This is a revolt against modern civilization and the rule of law. Its direct result 

is rendering universal legal standards arbitrary, causing substantial long term 

damage to the rule of law that has been affirmed and pursued by our country. 

3. The ‘‘Decision’’ has not offered any legal definitions for proper judgments 

in trials regarding: Falun Gong practitioners; the behavior of Falun Gong practitioners; the relationship between Falun Gong practitioners and Falun Gong as 

an organization; the relationship between the Falun Gong organization and so 

called ‘‘evil cult organizations; what an evil cult organization is; and in what 

ways Falun Gong practitioners, the behavior of Falun Gong practitioners, and 

the Falun Gong organization belong to the category of evil cult crimes. As a result, the majority of the sentencing and punishment of Falun Gong practitioners 

are based on ‘‘using evil cult organizations to obstruct the exercising of state 

laws.’’ And in the criminal charges, there is a lack of the necessary information 

about whether there is indeed any evil cult organization that could be used by 

the person charged with the crimes; whether the person did make use of any 

evil cult organization; when and where the person charged made use of an evil 

cult organization; whether the person charged did obstruct the exercising of 

state laws; and how the person obstructed the state laws. In the two times 

where Huang Wei was punished (even though [the reason offered] was for administrative purposes—[since no trial was involved]), the reason was simply for 

‘‘using evil cult organizations to obstruct the exercising of state laws.’’ In this 

situation, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the criminal punishment is 

based on concrete evidence and is accurate, leaving the citizens in a dangerous 

situation without any protection. 

4. The arbitrary sentencing of Falun Gong practitioners to labor camps in 

some places has reached a painful level, and the reasons used include ‘‘refusal 

to reform’’ or ‘‘refusal to convert.’’ (As I write this letter, a woman from Wuhan, 

Ms. Du Wenli, who just gave birth to a child three months ago, sent a fax to 

me, describing in desperation her husband Ni Guobin’s frightening experience. 

Ni was released after a three-year imprisonment, but on July 13 of this year, 

he was kidnapped on his way to work by some people whose identities were undisclosed. Ten days later, he was sent back with only one breath left. Queried 

by the 110 policemen, the kidnappers revealed that they were from the State 

Security Bureau. On December 3, Ni was kidnapped again, and to this day Du 

has no information about the whereabouts of her husband.) What should be 

pointed out here in particular is that the very existence of labor camps and 

their sentencing practices have clearly violated Articles 5, 22, 37, and 38 of the 

‘‘Constitution,’’ Article 10 of ‘‘The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administrative Punishment’’ (which states that administrative laws can issue administrative punishments other than the confinement of personal freedom), and 

Article 8 of the ‘‘Legislative Law.’’ A citizen’s personal freedom is deprived for 

years, and the deprived is not given any procedures for appeal, defense, or trial. 

The person is sent to labor camps after receiving a sentencing decision. This is 
75 

unthinkable in a lawful, civilized society. With freedom deprived, all channels 

of assistance that the victim is entitled to have become hypothetical. While in 

the labor camp, Huang Wei could not make any appeal. Every step in making 

an appeal had to be paid with the painful cost of many days on hunger strike. 

All citizens, including policemen, know that the labor camp system violates the 

constitution, basic laws, and modern legal civilization, but the system has continued, and the country is paying a higher and higher cost for this inhuman 

and uncivilized behavior. I ask the Standing Committee of the National People’s 

Congress and its chairman Wu Bangguo to please pay attention to this issue. 

5. The conspiratorial promulgation of these detrimental phenomena on the 

part of the country and its local governments have directly led to the vicious 

behavior of legal workers. In Huang Wei’s case, the legal workers’ irresponsibility and their corrupt, un-professional conduct have reached an alarming 

level despised by any civilized society. More terrifying is that they did not consider their behavior shameful. Judges and courts of justice are guardians of 

legal values, and their professional code of ethics, expert knowledge, and civilized systems should function to raise their instinctual caution over possible deviations from legal values. This is a universal value standard of judges and 

courts of justice in all of humankind’s civilized societies. But in Huang Wei’s 

case, what we see is just the opposite. The judges and the courts of justice, 

while paying the role of ‘‘gate keepers,’’ have not any sense of responsibility and 

morality in their treatment of state laws and legal principles. They attack, like 

dogs, anyone who attempts to uphold legal values. They have no respect for the 

sacredness of their profession, and are doing all they can to generate negative 

moral and social effects in the state’s exercise of power. This really pains me 

(I assume Chairman Wu Bangguo must feel the same.) 

As I began to write this letter, others warned me out of kindness that the Falun 

Gong issue is taboo and a ‘‘political issue.’’ As a lawyer, I am well aware of the special social situation in China. In a society where political powers are used appropriately, there would be no taboos. The fact that taboos exist demonstrates distortion, illegitimacy and dishonesty in the usage of political power. On the other hand, 

why aren’t citizens allowed to comment on political issues? Whose politics is it if 

it can’t be discussed? Politics that can’t be discussed must be illegitimate. When a 

society is left with only one voice, what kind of a situation will it become? Emperor 

Zhu Yuanzhang’s era of the Ming Dynasty was too long ago. More recent examples 

are the Cultural Revolution and the regime in North Korea, one of the ‘‘axis’ of evil,’’ 

both had just one voice. Who wants this to proliferate? 

On many international occasions, we have called ourselves a responsible, large nation. No criterion for a responsible, large nation is more honest and valuable than 

acceptance from its own people. The fact that the government is afraid of citizens’ 

reporting their survival problems shows how far we are from being a responsible, 

large nation. 

In summary, writing this letter to the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress and chairman Wu Bangguo of the Standing Committee is not to advocate for 

a certain group of people, nor is it to ‘‘sing a tune opposite of the CCP and the government.’’ I love my nation. It is the only thing that inspires me in this era. At the 

same time, writing this letter is not just trying to change the unjust treatment that 

Huang Wei received. The most important goal for my letter is, with effort by the 

Standing Committee of the People’s Congress and chairman Wu, to try to change 

the distortion in the current legislation and law enforcement processes through systematic changes. At the beginning of the human civilization, there were great differences between the cultures of each region. However, all the great civilizations, 

without communicating with each other, chose to invent written languages and establish common rules. In other words, following the rule of law is a methodical 

choice made by all human civilizations. In today’s world, the nations that are 

against the rule of law are closed, underdeveloped, unstable, and savage. Every citizen’s longing and passion for social stability are no less than that of the governing 

body. The lack of following the rule of law, disguised under the slogan ‘‘Stability 

trumps all,’’ is the greatest source of instability in Chinese society today. 

On the issue of Falun Gong, the government, especially those who implement the 

law, should first admit the practitioners’ status as Chinese citizens. On the other 

hand, on this issue, the government and law enforcement officials must recognize 

that they represent the nation, and must follow the law in all their actions. If they 

act outside the boundaries of the law, whose power are they representing? For example, the court did not establish a case, follow any legal procedure, or allow a lawyer to represent the plaintiff in the case of Huang Wei. Even today, his wife and 

child are denied visits to see him. These are blatant, unconcealed actions in violation of the rules. What’s even worse is that those who act against the rules are pre-
76 

cisely the law enforcement officials whose job it is to protect the implementation of 

the rules. As time goes on, the law enforcement officials regard violation of the rules 

as something quite common. They no longer view protecting the rules of the nation 

as their professional responsibility. Continuously, their actions are undermining and 

destroying morals, culture and the legitimacy of the government’s power. Whose 

needs are they meeting?—only the needs of the evil people who are the enemies of 

today’s society. We must be extremely alert on this issue! 

I hereby wish Chairman Wu Bangguo good health! 

Beijing Shengzhi Legal Firm 

Gao Zhisheng 

December 31, 2004 

STOP PERSECUTING BELIEVERS OF FREEDOM AND MEND YOUR TIES WITH THE CHINESE PEOPLE—GAO ZHISHENG’S SECOND OPEN LETTER ABOUT THE PERSECUTION

OF FALUN GONG

BY GAO ZHISHENG

[Special to The Epoch Times—October 24, 2005] 

[Gao Zhisheng published three open letters in which he called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. Previously, The Epoch Times had published this, the translation of the second letter, in an abbreviated form. We are now proud to bring our 

readers the complete letter.] 

October 18, 2005 Beijing, China 

Dear President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao: 

Greetings from Chinese citizen Gao Zhisheng! 

Before I could sit down and send my greetings to you, my two fellow citizens, out 

of solicitude for another group of our common fellow citizens, Falun Gong believers, 

I went to several places outside Beijing to investigate the real situation about Falun 

Gong believers who are suffering a new wave of systematic, large-scale, organized, 

illegal persecution. During my days outside Beijing, I was hiding, laying low like 

a thief. That’s why many in the outside world spread the hearsay that I was ‘‘missing.’’ 

This new round of continued, systematic, large-scale, organized, and brutal persecution targeting our fellow Chinese citizens who believe in Falun Gong is an ongoing 

reality. Recent letters addressed to us from different regions reveal this reality, and 

we also personally witnessed it during our trip outside Beijing. As a Chinese citizen, 

and as a lawyer, I am willing to bear any legal responsibility for witnessing and 

publicizing these facts. 

Because I trust your basic human nature, I have decided to report to you what 

I have witnessed in the form of an open letter. I again put my trust and hope in 

you. I hope you will take prompt measures to halt as soon as possible the continuing 

persecution of our fellow Falun Gong citizens by authorities in all regions and at 

all levels. 

It is not only a necessity for those citizens who are suffering illegal persecution 

to be set free from the tragedy, it also involves the issue of universally recognized 

values such as the value of China’s constitution and rule of law, moral values, and 

justice. These are fundamental values for mankind. How can these values be allowed to become worthless in today’s China?! How can these values be allowed to 

become worthless in your eyes?! 

On October 15, I met Xu Chengben of Yantai City, Shandong Province. As soon 

as he saw me, he said to me: 

My wife He Xiuling’s body has been kept in a frozen state for almost two 

years, but to date no one is able to provide an explanation for her death; that’s 

why we cannot go ahead and bury her. They were capable of subjecting her to 

prolonged torture and eventually torturing her to death. However, they are not 

capable of handling the case regarding the cause of her death almost two years 

after she passed away. 

I was not allowed to see her until she was tortured to the brink of death. 

When I got there, she had already lost consciousness, but even so, she was 

cuffed to a bed and her lower body was completely naked. When I saw my loved 

one in such a tragic state, my heart broke! They are truly inhumane. I was only 

allowed to stay with her for a few minutes before they pushed me out of the 

room. She was only in her forties. That is the situation I witnessed on the 
77 

evening she passed away, after I got notified by the police and hurried to see 

her. 

When my wife was alive, she was arrested five times. Once she was detained 

in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province for three months for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was held in the restroom of a hotel in Zhifu District. 

The hotel was rented by the police specifically for detaining Falun Gong practitioners. The restroom is less than three square meters (32.3 square feet). Sixteen people were locked inside. Many of them could not bear the suffocating environment. 

Because we demanded to have an autopsy performed to show the cause of her 

death, they did so. However, the officials responsible have refused time and 

again to give me the autopsy report. After numerous requests for the results 

of the autopsy, they told me verbally that she ‘‘died because she practiced Falun 

Gong.’’ 

Du Kesong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shihuiyao Village, Songcun Town, 

Wendeng City, was arrested in May. He was sentenced to labor camp. After more 

than 50 days of detention, he was dying and so was released. On September 27, he 

was again arrested by police. So far his whereabouts are unknown. 

Yu Zhenghong, from Wendeng, in her forties, is from Siqian Village, of the Town 

of Songcun. On September 27, she was arrested and taken from her home. After 

the arrest, she went on a hunger strike for 15 days. She was then sent to a hospital, 

and the hospital later notified police that she was ‘‘about to die.’’ Later she was sent 

home by police. 

Lin Jixiao, female, 40 plus years old, is from Dachuang Village, Songcun Town, 

of Wendeng City. On September 28, she was arrested and locked up in a detention 

center. She went on a hunger strike. When her family went to demand her release, 

the detention center said she had been sent to the Wangcun Labor Camp. But someone who had been released from the detention center said she was still in there and 

was dying. Her family went to the Wangcun brainwashing center to check but was 

told that she was not there. Her family then went to ask the 6–10 officials, but they 

said she had been sent to the City of Qingdao. Is she still alive? Where on earth 

is she? So far it is not clear. 

Xiao Yong from Funshan District of the City of Yantai, has always been law-abiding and enjoyed a very good reputation. Just because he practiced Falun Gong for 

a few days, he was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment in July. 

A retired teacher Liu Li (by her request, I am not using her real name here) 

quietly sat down and talked for almost two hours straight. She said: 

I was first arrested in June, 2001. After one year of torture, my health became very poor, so they released me. After I was released in 2003, I found that 

since 2000, all my wages were confiscated by the 6–10 Office. I talked to staff 

at the 6–10 Office and our school director many times. I cannot even remember 

how many times, and the issue is still unresolved. 

My husband was also jailed due to his practice of Falun Gong. He lost his 

memory as a result of brutal torture in jail. The whereabouts of our only bank 

account that he used to take care of is unknown after our home was ransacked. 

He could not remember it. During the 2003 Spring Festival, I gave 100 yuan 

[U.S.$12.50], which was all I had, to my husband who was in jail. My daughter 

and I had not a single penny left during the Chinese New Year. 

In June 2003, four to five police came to ransack our home. They found two 

Falun Gong books, and so they forcefully took me to the local police station and 

beat me. I asked why police were allowed to beat people. They were yelling 

while beating me: ‘‘Beat you—so what! ’’ They interrogated me for a whole day 

and night. One police whose last name is Zhang said, ‘‘If you do not confess, 

you will really have bad luck! ’’ He copied a written statement from another policeman’s writing and asked me to sign my name. I refused. Then he signed my 

name himself. The other policeman with last name Chen could not stand watching this and asked, ‘‘Why did you sign her name, since she refused? ’’ 

He gnashed his teeth and said, ‘‘I’ll let her suffer badly.’’ Later they used this 

fake record made in front of me to detain me for 15 days. Then I was sent to 

the Fushan brainwashing center. At the brainwashing class, they did not allow 

me to sleep, and forced me to ‘‘reform.’’ Until January 2002, I still did not ‘‘reform,’’ then they used that fake record and directly sentenced me to one year 

in prison. 

Wang Yuefeng, Director of the 6–10 Office, sent me to a labor camp. The 

labor camp did a physical examination on me. Because my health was so poor, 

they refused to accept me. But Wang Yuefeng insisted on the forced labor camp 

taking me. They whispered for a while, and then a doctor gave an injection. I 
78 

resisted, so four to five people pushed me to a bed and forcibly give me the injection. In the end, they saw that my physical condition was too poor, I was sent 

back by Wang. 

On Nov. 20, 2002, I once again went to the Communist Party Committee in 

Fushan Town to ask the mayor of the town, Mr. Che, about the illegal confiscation of my salary. I arrived at Che’s office, and after I introduced myself, he 

stood up and went out. After I waited for a long time, he came back and told 

me: ‘‘I will let Secretary Zhao talk to you. You need to go to his office.’’ So I 

went to Zhao’s office. 

Immediately after I entered the door, about four or five policemen rushed in 

from outside and dragged me into their car without giving any reason. They 

forcefully took me to Fushan brainwashing center where I was taken into custody. I was not released from the brainwashing center until Nov. 17, 2003. 

During the time I was in prison, the policemen employed absolutely inhumane means to torture me. Once I was continuously hand-cuffed for as long as 

43 days. With both of my hands cuffed behind my back, I was hung on an iron 

door and was beaten. After I was in prison for about a year, since they could 

not achieve the goal of having me give up the practice [of Falun Gong], they 

released me. 

On Nov. 28, 2004, I was arrested again. The local police station sent me to 

Qixia detention center. After I was detained for seven days, I was transferred 

to Qixia brainwashing center and was not released until March 18, 2005. Within this period of time, they continued to torture me by depriving me of sleep. 

Once I was deprived of sleep for 26 consecutive days. Once my eyes closed, they 

would wake me up by beating me. I fainted many times. They had me stand 

continuously so I could not rest. In the meantime, they beat me. Each time they 

beat me so hard that they themselves became very tired and out of breath. 

On the morning of Oct. 15, 2005, we met with Wang Dejiang, who is crippled. 

Even now, Wang’s legs are still so swollen that no shoes can be worn. Wang said: 

In the evening of Aug. 15, 2005, I was in a friend’s house. Three men from 

the village security and Gaoling police station suddenly broke in, so my friend 

and I ran out. But they yelled loudly, ‘‘Catch the thieves! ’’ 

The villagers were fooled and we were caught. They began to beat us. The 

head of security abruptly picked up a chair and beat me with it. The chair immediately broke into pieces. After the blow, I was down on the ground and could 

not move. They still kicked me. One kicked my liver, and I lost consciousness 

right away. They lifted me into a car and took me to the emergency room at 

Gaoling Hospital. 

After I woke up, I found myself being cuffed in the hospital bed. When trying 

to catch me, one policeman had tripped and fallen. Once I woke up in the hospital, he beat me with the sole of a shoe. The other policemen on the scene said, 

‘‘Do not make too much noise when beating him in the hospital.’’ 

On the same night, two families were searched and ransacked. As a result, 

a total of six people were arrested, and among them was Xuejin Sun, an old 

man in his 70s. Afterwards, they sent me to the detention center, and forced 

me to register for the brainwashing class. I refused. The policemen in the prison 

twisted my handcuffs, asking me, ‘‘Are you going to sign or not? ’’ 

I refused. They twisted the handcuffs until they cut into my flesh. I still refused to sign. They had to turn away and leave. After that they ordered a prisoner to drag me into the cell, and the prisoner began to beat me. The security 

guard interrogated me once. Since I didn’t cooperate with them, they sent me 

to the brainwashing class in Yantai City. 

At the beginning, I was not allowed to sleep; instead, I was forced to sit on 

a little stool. They attempted to force me to write ‘‘three statements,’’ including 

a letter to pledge (not to practice Falun Gong), a statement to denounce Falun 

Gong, and a repentance statement. They tried to break my will by incessant 

brainwashing, such as forcing me to watch videos that defame Falun Gong. 

On the fourth day, they could not get any results. The Mouping national security staff discussed with Yu Gang, head of the 6–10 office at the Yantai Police 

Station, about sending me to Zhaoyuan brainwashing center. I heard them saying that only Zhaoyuan center could handle people like me. At that time, I already had had no food or sleep for seven or eight consecutive days. 

After arriving in Zhaoyuan, they dragged me, kicking me at every single step. 

They repeated, ‘‘Let’s wait and see if you reform or not.’’ 

After they put me down, I no longer had the strength to stand up. As a result, 

I had to lie on the ground. They continued to torture me. The director of the 

center began to step on my private parts. There was no expression on his face. 
79 

He even lifted my head with his foot, then quickly removed his foot, repeatedly 

letting my head hit the ground. He also kicked me. Only when he was tired of 

torturing me did they lift me into the cell. I felt that they had already completely lost their human nature. 

At the Zhaoyan center, every practitioner was locked in one small room that 

was specially designed for brainwashing purposes. Although I could not even 

stand up, they still tied me to an iron chair with an iron chain, cuffed my 

hands, and shackled my feet. I still refused to give up practicing [Falun Gong]. 

On the 10th day they started to force-feed me [a form of torture that can 

cause death]. I began to vomit blood continuously. At that time, even they themselves could not bear the scene and started to vomit with me. They pressed 

down my head and force-fed me. The head asked me if I would give up practicing. I responded no. He said, at Zhaoyuan, don’t even think about getting out 

of here if you do not give up. We have a lot of ways to deal with you. 

They cuffed my hands behind my back and had one end of the handcuffs tied 

to a heat pipe. Only the tip of my toes could touch the ground. There was no 

light in the cell; it was dark 24 hours a day. I could somewhat sense that someone kept coming into the cell and putting his hand under my nose to test if I 

was still alive. 

I didn’t know how much time had passed by; my wrists had big cuts as the 

result of the tight strap. At that time, they also used wires to tie my mouth 

shut, making me unable to speak. Even now my mouth still drips as I speak. 

Being incessantly tortured, I suffered excruciating pain that was beyond description. Consequently, I had the thought of killing myself. I wanted to bite 

my tongue. But they added a few more wires into my mouth, making my mouth 

not able to move, until I fainted and lost consciousness. 

After I woke up, I found my legs had already changed color and had started 

to turn dark black. The left leg became wider and wider, until it was twice as 

wide as the right leg. But the right leg got thinner and thinner. They still would 

not ease up on torturing me. When I wanted to go to the restroom, they supported my arm and lifted me up. At that point, I found that I could no longer 

walk; instead, I fell to the ground. Then they lifted me onto the bed, and still 

had my right leg tied and both hands cuffed. 

At the time, the doctor there found my health condition was extremely bad, 

and asked them to send me to the hospital. The doctor at the hospital said I 

could die at any moment and that my legs had to be amputated. After that they 

sent me to Yuhuangding hospital, where the medical facility was the best. After 

spending a few days in the hospital, they asked my family to pay for my treatment. My family had no money, but later they took me home. Once I was back 

home, since I no longer could take care of my daily life, I had to be taken care 

of by my 80-year-old mom. 

Wang Dejiang was handed over to his family by the local police when he was near 

death, and the nightmarish experience he and his family have gone through is still 

being experienced by many, many innocent fellow Chinese! 

Mr. Yang Kemeng is a sophomore in Automobile Engineering at the Harbin 

Institute of Technology, Weihai campus. Because he openly announced his resignation from the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL), he was singled 

out by a central government official who issued an order to locate him. Since 

he didn’t put down the name of his school in his resignation statement, the ‘‘6– 

10 Office’’ conducted a thorough search among all higher institutions in the 

country. In May 2005, Weihai City’s ‘‘6–10 office’’ staff found him and asked if 

he practiced Falun Gong and whether he had withdrawn from the CCYL on the 

Internet. Mr. Yang replied: ‘‘I may withdraw as I wish.’’ When the new school 

year started on Aug. 20, ‘‘6–10 office’’ staff came to Mr. Yang’s school again and 

took him away on the 29th. His parents didn’t know about it until they made 

a phone call to his dorm. On Sept. 7, Mr. Yang’s parents, Mr. Yang Pinggang 

and Ms. Chang Lijun, Mr. and Mrs. Wang Shengli, and Ms. Wang from Jining 

City were arrested at the same time. Their whereabouts remain unknown till 

today. A teacher named Wang revealed his story to us. 

Before the National Day of 2005, major officials in Shandong Province notified 

Laiwu City Police Department that if they could not catch Qi Yingjun, Chen 

Lianmei, Wang Jing and four other people, all departmental leaders would be 

removed from their offices. At 1 a.m. on Sept. 29, the aforementioned seven people were arrested. In fact, many police here don’t want to search and arrest 

Falun Gong practitioners, but what other choices do they have? Also people 

from all over the country came to the Zhaoyuan Brainwashing Center to learn 

from their experience so that they could apply more cruel methods. While Hu 
80 

Jintao was visiting the U.S., an order was issued from the CCP Central Committee to focus on handling those persecuting Falun Gong. They were criticized 

for not having done their best recently and were told to intensify their effort 

to suppress Falun Gong. The Zhaoyuan Brainwashing Center in Shandong 

Province and another center in Shanxi Province were labeled as model centers 

by the CCP Central Committee. The outside world never knows the real situation inside these centers. ‘‘This kind of model center is a horrible place, even 

worse than hell. Very few people could survive there’’ said a believer who was 

once detained in the Zhaoyuan Brainwashing Center. 

My name is Qi Xin. I am 19 years old and from Laiwu City, Shandong Province. I am the daughter of Qi Yingjun and Chen Cuilian. I have a younger 

brother who is 10 years old named Qi Yao. My parents started to practice Falun 

Gong in 1998. In 2000, my father was kidnapped from a park by the Laiwu City 

police while doing Falun Gong exercises. He was later sentenced to three years 

in Wangcun Labor Camp of Zibo City. My mother had to leave home to avoid 

pursuit by the police. But she was later caught and detained at the Xiaocaocun 

Division in Laiwu City. I was 13 years old and my brother was only four at that 

time. So I had to look after my younger brother at home alone, waiting for my 

mother’s return. My father told me after his release, to force him to renounce 

his belief in Falun Gong, police at the forced labor camp in Zibo used eight electric batons on him simultaneously. His body could not help trembling incessantly on the floor and his skin gave off a burnt smell. Several weeks after the 

electric shocks, his scorched skin started to slough off layer after layer. Later 

after my parents both went back home, our family started to live together 

again. They re-opened their store selling military supplies. We thought that our 

ordeal was over until 1 a.m. on Sept. 30 this year. More than 20 armed police 

from Laiwu City police rushed into Aunt Shang’s home in Wenyang Village and 

kidnapped her, her husband and my parents. Aunt Shang practices Falun Gong 

but her husband doesn’t. In August, one month before the incident, learning 

that the police were after them, my parents left me with an auntie and they 

themselves went wandering abroad with my brother. Since their abduction, the 

whereabouts of my younger brother is unknown. I worried about him a lot and 

prayed for him everyday. At 3 p.m. on October 1, Liu Qing and Zhang Baode 

from the Laicheng District Office, Shao Shiyong from the Guansi Police Station 

and 20 other police broke into our home while we were all away. A police car 

with license plate Shangdong-S1030 parked outside of our apartment building. 

They opened our storage room downstairs with a key and broke our door lock. 

They searched our place until 7 p.m. Our family of four has been separated and 

displaced to four different locations, and nobody knows where to find my 10- 

year-old brother.’’ 

Jia Juxi of Fugou County, Henan Province, 58 years old, was abducted by local 

police on Aug. 18, 2005. He died after enduring over ten days’ torture. His family 

requested an autopsy; but local police forcibly took his body to a crematory to be 

cremated. The police told his family: ‘‘Even if you appeal to Beijing, it is no use.’’ 

On June 8, 2005, Zhu Jiawen (I am not using his real name here) of Huizhou 

City, Guangdong Province was arrested when he was working on a construction job. 

Not until 54 days later was his family notified of his sentence to three years of 

labor. 

On September 2005, late in the evening, several policemen broke into Shi Lei’s 

(not his real name) home in Dongshan District, Guangzhou City. Before Shi Lei 

could argue with them, they abducted him and ran away. 

‘‘My husband didn’t even have time to put on his shoes. As soon as the police went 

downstairs and got into their police van, they started beating my husband. I felt 

as if a knife were piercing my heart upon hearing the sound of the beating. Attorney 

Gao, we are simply too helpless. So far they have not provided any legal document.’’ 

Mrs. Shi told me her family’s tragedy over the phone while sobbing. 

On Sept. 6, 2005, Duan Sheng and He Li of Shi Jiazhuang City were arrested. 

As of today, their whereabouts are unknown. 

On July 19, 2005, Yuan Yuju, her son Liang Jinghui and another eight practitioners were arrested and have been incarcerated to date. 

Shortly before the passing of Oct. 1, the National Day, large-scale arrests of Falun 

Gong practitioners occurred in different regions such as Beijing and Heilongjiang 

Province. During Mr. Hu Jintao’s visit to other countries, the arrests in these regions obviously were carried out in a way that was meant to be shocking and terrible. All these plain facts happened in broad daylight; they simply cannot be covered up. 

Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen, some local government authorities have been persecuting 

our fellow countrymen, Falun Gong practitioners, to such an extent that they use 
81 

any evil methods as they wish. We cannot accept that such blatant and brutal violence against humanity is still happening in the 21st century, or the reality that 

it is happening in today’s China, where the situation cannot yet be called anarchy. 

You two, as well as all of us, have to face the following reality. On the one hand, 

when you first got your positions, people inside China as well as the outside civilized world had great expectations of you. The principals you promote such as ‘‘govern the country according to the Constitution,’’ ‘‘the people are our fundamental concern’’, ‘‘build a harmonious society’’ have for a long time raised people’s expectations. 

However, the reality is cruel yet factual. Those citizens who are being persecuted 

have to face this reality, and so do you, and so do we. 

Since you are the leaders of such a great nation, we of course are not willing to 

believe or accept that your judgment in this aspect is worse than that of ordinary 

people. If you are not aware of the situation that innocent Falun Gong believers are 

being brutally persecuted in broad daylight—a fact that even housewives and children are aware of—you are liable for such ignorance to your citizens. If you are 

aware of the situation and not trying to stop it, then what’s the difference between 

your sin and that of the evil persecutors? In the same spirit that I am writing this 

open letter to you because I still have faith in you, so are many of those who are 

crippled and those who lost their loved ones or have their love ones crippled due 

to the persecution. During our investigation, we were moved to tears many times 

by those people’s compassion and their high expectations of you. 

But what you and I have to painfully face is that in this catastrophe that targets 

Falun Gong practitioners, some evil spirit lingers. The continuous evil which is utterly against humanity has not only caused devastation to an inconceivable number 

of kind men and women. Many were persecuted to death, but also the damage to 

the image of our government and our country in many areas such as legal, moral, 

and human civilization, continues as such brutal persecution continues. Even 

though this catastrophe didn’t start with you, the fact that it continues under your 

administration, and because the tragedy targeting the spiritual believers hasn’t 

been brought to an end by you, you are also liable for these crimes. If you don’t 

make it stop right away, this will be the conclusion formed by history and not just 

one person’s opinion. The continuous creation of tragedies aimed towards a targeted 

group has harmed not only the victims and their relatives but also the persecutors. 

We observe with utter grief that the persecutors who cruelly crippled and killed 

Falun Gong practitioners have completely lost their human nature. For example, 

the director from Zhaoyuan Brainwashing Center who routinely trampled on the 

private parts of Wang Dejiang, or the director of the ‘‘6–10 Office’’ and the two 

school principals who illegally withheld Liu’s wages and denied numerous appeals 

for four years by Liu, threatening her survival. In a sense, they were also victims 

of the atrociousness of the persecution. 

The officers and staff who carried out the appalling brainwashing and transformation against Falun Gong practitioners were only measured by the results of 

the reformation. They completely lost their human nature and yielded to economic 

gains. They lost their inborn instinct for sympathy, fear, guilt, shame, and morality. 

The common sense shared by our civilization was ignored; the value system based 

on human conscience has been completely reversed. People for ages will condemn 

the horrible and inhumane suffering that He Xiuling underwent before her ultimate 

death. She was dying but was already pronounced dead and was sent to the mortuary. Her relatives, who were not allowed to visit her, finally knelt in front of her 

dying body. While enumerating the appalling sufferings she underwent, her relatives saw tears from the eyes of her ‘‘dead’’ body. Relatives wailed and ferociously 

tried to find a doctor. The doctor was indifferent. The coolness was only softened 

when one of the villagers who came to the funeral procession loudly blamed the doctor. When that doctor found out her heart was still beating, his first reaction was 

not to rescue her, but to tear the electrocardiogram into pieces. ‘‘I didn’t see anything. I knew nothing’’, the doctor said while escaping. He Xiuling died with tears 

in her eyes while her relatives cried in despair. 

I really don’t know what your feeling is in face of such a reality! Our nation, our 

people, the values of our nation which we inherited from our ancient ancestors, as 

well as the moral image of all those state governments in the international society 

who have shamefully remained silent in face of this great calamity, have all practically become victims of this catastrophe. 

It is worth emphasizing that the current reality has said it all: China’s ruling 

leaders fall far short in terms of foreseeing and recognizing the changes in a society’s spiritual realm as a natural result of the great economic growth. In a peaceful 

society in which the suffering from wartime has long become history, in a society 

that places the economy first, there is no way its people will forever indulge in all 
82 

kinds of material interests. People’s growing need for spirituality will naturally 

bring about the large-scale grass-roots resurrection of religion and spiritual beliefs. 

Spiritual pursuit, just like the science and culture that our government advocates 

as mainstream trends, comprises one aspect of a society; there is no contradiction 

among them. Modern civilization has long solved the issues of science and faith and 

arrived at the conclusion that they serve their respective purposes and each should 

be confined within its own realm. The liberty of an individual’s belief will for sure 

result in the disintegration of a collective ideology. The expansion of individual’s 

rights will for sure turn into a reduction of the infinite authority of the government. 

It is a reality that the ruling leaders must face and have to adapt to. This is the 

historical trend. 

Here I have to say that, as for the cause and motivation behind the persecution, 

I am very confused and bewildered; so are many of my colleagues, friends, and 

neighbors. Why should a citizen’s belief based on his own free choice and which has 

no pursuit in this mundane world, incur such a lasting, inhumane, and illegal crackdown? What on earth is the point? We cannot rationalize the persecution, other 

than arriving at the conclusion that those who initiated and continue to partake in 

the persecution are in a morbid state and have a damaged personality. From the 

perspective of the suppressors, their choice only serves to alienate themselves into 

a savage and illegal position, and serves to continually worsen their already extremely vile personality, the kind of vileness and viciousness that can make a normal person feel chilled to the bone. Other than that, there is nothing worthwhile 

or meaningful in their choice. 

During the investigation, we not only learned the fact that the persecution, which 

was started six years ago, is still going on, but we also learned another fact, a concrete fact, which is, the failure of the persecution. Based on our observation at the 

places we visited, the more cruel the orders of suppression are and the more lasting 

the suppression is in a certain region, the more prominent the signs of the failure 

as well as the extent of the failure. For example, in three cities of Shandong Province, Jinan, Qingdao and Yantai, posters and flyers posted and distributed by Falun 

Gong believers and their supporters to protest the suppression and expose the 

crimes against them are everywhere. Falun Gong posters can be easily spotted at 

the front entrance of many police departments and police stations. Tenacious and 

enduring resistance is growing and intensifying, signaling how unpopular the suppression policy is. Conversely, the regions where the suppression isn’t as harsh 

manifest a different scene. For example, in several districts in Shaanxi Province, the 

overall situation is relatively calm. In front of this plain fact, those who love and 

advocate violence should really feel ashamed. 

Immeasurable capital resources and police manpower are groundlessly exhausted 

on the suppression of Falun Gong practitioners who simply practice peacefully to 

cultivate their mind and improve their health. The suppression is turning the society into a chaotic place. It is an utter crime, impinging on basic human rights. 

Frankly, I would like to tell you that both of you don’t have any reason, any excuse, 

or any authority not to take immediate action to change the current situation. 

China is one of the member countries of the ‘‘Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights.’’ The declaration states explicitly: ‘‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty and 

security of person.’’ ‘‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or 

exile.’’ ‘‘Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or 

by law.’’ 

Also, in the current Constitution of China, article 33 states: ‘‘The State respects 

and preserves human rights.’’ 

Be it international law and standards or China’s Constitution, it is absolutely not 

allowed for anyone to violate human rights and persecute his own fellow citizen 

inhumanely with any excuse. This is precisely based on the belief in the universal 

values for mankind and the respect for rule of law. I solemnly suggest to both of 

you to decide as soon as possible to stop persecuting spiritual believers and amend 

your ties with the Chinese people, to truly achieve ‘‘rule of law and the constitution’’ 

and establish a new China on the basis of democracy, rule of law, and constitutional 

government. 

Your doing this will gain infinite support from Chinese people and people all over 

the world! 

Lastly, I need to stress specifically that you need to ensure that all individuals 

mentioned in this letter who have suffered tremendously will not have to suffer 

more brutal persecution because of this letter. We have to remind you of this matter 

because we had such an experience before; Falun Gong practitioner Hao Qiuyan of 

Shijiazhuang City was incarcerated for eight months because I mentioned her case 

in another open letter. 
83 

As long as I still enjoy personal security, I will continue to pay close attention 

to their safety. It is my right to be concerned about them, as a member of a civilized 

era, as a Chinese, as a citizen, and as a lawyer, although it is still very dangerous 

to do so in China. 

Best Wishes for Both of You! 

Respectfully, 

Your fellow Chinese Gao Zhisheng 

WE MUST IMMEDIATELY STOP THE BRUTALITY THAT SUFFOCATES OUR NATION’S

CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY—GAO ZHISHENG’S THIRD OPEN LETTER TO CHINESE

LEADERS

[The Epoch Times—December 16, 2005] 

[Editor’s Note: Gao Zhisheng has been praised as ‘‘the conscience of Chinese lawyers’’ and ‘‘a great hero.’’ China’s Ministry of Justice rated him one of China’s top 

ten lawyers in 2001. He has earned a reputation for courage in standing up against 

human rights abuses and is one of only a handful of lawyers in China who will defend those persecuted for their religious or spiritual beliefs. Recently, Mr. Gao published a statement ( Celebrated Chinese Lawyer Quits Chinese Communist Party 

) withdrawing from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an act of great bravery. 

In that statement, he spoke of the investigation he had taken into the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, of learning of the ‘‘indescribable violence done to our kind people’’ by the CCP, and of how spending a dozen days interviewing Falun Gong practitioners was a ‘‘shocking experience’’ to his soul. In the following open letter to CCP 

head Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, Mr. Gao gives the details about what he 

uncovered in that investigation and the conclusions he has drawn regarding China’s 

current condition and possible future rebirth. This is Mr. Gao’s third open letter to 

Hu and Wen (Please see: ‘‘Gao Zhisheng Sends Another Open Letter Protesting Unjust Treatment’’ and ‘‘Laws Are Changeable in the Hands of the Communist Party’’) 

Warning: This Article Contains Graphic Descriptions of Torture.] 

Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, and all other conscientious fellow Chinese citizens: 

I, Gao Zhisheng, send you my greetings from Changchun City. I would first like 

to convey my deepest mourning for the innocent fellow Chinese citizens killed by 

the Guangdong government, and my condolences and support for the family members of the victims.1 At the same time, I would like to express my strongest protest 

against the brutality of slaughtering our kind countrymen. I strongly urge that the 

highest authorities follow the basic principles recognized by civil societies, punish 

the murderers and those responsible for these acts, and comfort and compensate the 

families of the victims. 

Winter in Changchun is extremely cold. Although in ‘‘hiding’’ in a room that 

doesn’t have water most of the time, my blood is boiling hot. The reason isn’t because I am again writing an open letter to Hu and Wen. Instead, simply being able 

to work for the future of one of the greatest peoples in the world is enough to make 

any ordinary citizen’s blood boil. 

On October 18, also with red-hot enthusiasm, I wrote an open letter to Hu Jintao 

and Wen Jiabao, two fellow countrymen of mine, urgently calling on their government to ‘‘Stop Persecuting Believers in Freedom and Mend Your Ties with the Chinese People.’’ The next day, I received blatant threats over the phone at home. 

Starting the third day, at least 10 cars and 20 plainclothes police officers began circling, monitoring, and following my entire family every day, 24 hours a day. The 

15th day after I wrote the letter, the Beijing Judicial Bureau illegally closed the law 

firm I ran. It is very regrettable how our country treats a citizen who openly makes 

suggestions. 

Another strong reaction prompted by the open letter was that Falun Gong believers from various parts of China who have been persecuted have written me and invited me to their areas to learn more about their true situation. Quite a few of these 

letters were from the cities of Changchun and Dalian. Beginning on November 29, 

I spent almost 24 hours a day continuously traveling between Jinan City, Shandong 

province; Dalian and Fuxin cities, Liaoning province; and Changchun City, Jilin 

province to conduct another round of investigations. Unlike my usual practice of 

traveling solo, I was honored to be accompanied by Professor Jiao Guobiao.2

Meanwhile, flocks of plainclothes police were still hovering around my home night 

and day, creating an atmosphere of terror and severely suppressing my entire family. On November 29, I escaped being followed and encircled by more than 20 plainclothes police and spent 15 days investigating the truth in my own way. I especially 
84 

would like to say here that we try our best to tell the truth of how this nation is 

being continually and brutally persecuted, especially at this time. This is also to remind our entire nation of the severity and urgency of the problems we are facing. 

It is time for our nation and each and every one of us to seriously face our problems. 

Any excuse or delay by any means is committing a crime against our entire nation! 

In this letter, I will not avoid any of the real problems I saw, even if this means 

I may be immediately arrested when this letter is publicized. The 15 days of investigation again showed me the painful truth. The 6–10 Office is—or at least can be 

called—a gang that exists within the political power of the nation, yet is higher than 

the political power. It is a gang that can control and regulate all political resources. 

Although it is an organization that exists outside of the Constitution and the regulations of the country’s power structure, the 6–10 Office is using many powers that 

are only supposed to be used by agencies of the national government, and even 

many powers that are beyond those of agencies of the national government. It uses 

powers that don’t belong and have never belonged to the nation since the beginning 

of mankind’s political civilization on this earth. 

We can see that the power symbolized by the number 6–10 continues to ‘‘interface’’ with the public through ways such as killing a person’s physical body and spirit, shackles, chains, electric shock tortures, and ‘‘tiger benches.’’ 3 The nature of this 

power has become that of a criminal gang. It continues to torture our mothers, sisters, children, and our entire nation. Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen, as members of our nation in special positions at this time, and especially as individuals who are perceived 

by the majority of the public as being conscientious, you should face everything together with all of us. 

At this moment, with a trembling heart and a trembling pen, I am writing down 

the tragic experiences of those who have been persecuted in the last six years. 

Among the true accounts of unbelievable brutality, among the records of the government’s inhuman torture of its own people, the immoral acts that shocked my soul 

the most were the lewd yet routine practice of attacking women’s genitals by 6–10 

Office staff and the police. Almost every woman’s genitals and breasts or every 

man’s genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar 

fashion. Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were first 

stripped naked before any torture. No language or words could describe or re-create 

our government’s vulgarity and immorality in this respect. Who with a warm body 

could afford to stay silent when faced with such truths? 

At 4:20 p.m. on October 28, 2005, Ms. Wang Shouhui (mother) and Mr. Liu 

Boyang (son) from Changchun City were followed by 6–10 Office staff and were illegally arrested. The two were brutally tortured by the police. At about 8 p.m., 28- 

year-old Liu Boyang died from the torture. About 10 days later, his mother was also 

tortured to death. The bodies of the unfortunate duo are still in the hands of the 

6–10 Office officials. It took the 6–10 officials three days to inform Liu’s father of 

his death, while Ms. Wang’s time of death remains unclear. Liu’s father looked for 

a lawyer in his city, but no one dared to accept his case. The elderly man said, ‘‘In 

a society like this, it is harder to live than to die. Living brings more pain. After 

I take care of their burials, I’ll follow them and leave, too.’’ 

Ms. Wang Shouhui, her husband, and her son (Liu Boyang) began practicing 

Falun Gong in 1995. Since the persecution of Falun Gong started on July 20, 1999, 

they were continually harassed by police from the Zhengyang Police Station of 

Luuyuan District and officials from the Zhengyang Neighborhood Administration 

Office. Ms. Wang was illegally detained in October 1999 and sent to the Heizuizi 

Labor Camp in February 2000. At the labor camp, she was tortured with an electric 

baton eight times. She was also forced to work during the day. For five days and 

nights, she was prohibited from sleeping and was required to remain standing. She 

was tortured using a ‘‘death bed’’ 4 several times. The most serious time, she was 

beaten with two electric batons for over one hour while tied to the ‘‘death bed.’’ She 

did not have even one part of her body and face intact. She was only released after 

the torture put her life in danger. 

On April 11, 2002, Ms. Wang was walking down the street when she was again 

abducted by the police from Zhengyang Police Station of Luuyuan District. She was 

blindfolded by the police from the First Division of the Changchun Public Security 

Bureau and was taken to a secret torture room in Jingyueshan, Changchun. She 

was tortured on the tiger bench for two days and one night, during which time she 

was also beaten with two electric batons on the breasts. Three men used their fists 

to punch her face, chest, and back. As a result, Ms. Wang’s left cheekbone was fractured and she vomited a great amount of blood. Later, her lungs were infected. 

While at the police hospital, Ms. Wang’s four limbs were confined when she received 

infusions. She was prohibited from using the restroom. Instead, the hospital forcefully inserted a tube into her bladder, but did not give her care. She could not move 
85 

for five days and five nights. Subsequently, her bladder was permanently damaged 

and she could no longer control her bladder. 

On June 27, 2002, Ms. Wang and her family were again abducted to the 

Zhengyang Police Station by the Political and Security Division of the Luuyuan District Police Department. Ms. Wang was tied into the fetal position for an entire 

evening. Later, when she was illegally detained at the No. 3 Detention Center in 

Changchun City, the guards locked her handcuffs to her ankle shackles for 18 days 

and force-fed her for a month. She was then sent to the provincial police hospital, 

where her limbs were confined and she was force-fed for over 30 days. She wasn’t 

released until her life was in danger. At the same time, several police from 

Zhengyang Police Station brutally tortured, beat, and kicked Liu Boyang. They also 

slapped his face with leather shoes, tied him with a rope, put a plastic bag over 

his head, tied his arms behind his back, and hung him from the ceiling using handcuffs. When Liu was hanging in the air, they shook his feet or dragged his feet 

down. Mr. Yuan Dachuan, a police officer conducting the torture, said shamelessly, 

‘‘I have killed quite a few Falun Gong practitioners with torture. I don’t have to bear 

any responsibility if I beat you to death.’’ Every time they were tortured, the mother 

and son could hear each other’s screams, which shook heaven and earth, ghosts and 

spirits! 

On October 29, 2002, Liu Boyang was sent to two years of forced labor at 

Chaoyanggou Labor Camp in Changchun City. In December, the police forced him 

to sit on cold cement floors all day long and prohibited him from sleeping at night. 

During the day, he was forced to attend brainwashing classes. In June 2004, when 

his term was over, the labor camp refused to release him and found some excuse 

to add 47 days to his term. Liu was a graduate of a medical university. He was a 

good person, and was kind to children and respectful to the elderly. Every year he 

was a model worker at the hospital. A woman surnamed Wang told me the above 

experiences of Ms. Wang and Mr. Liu so rapidly she spoke almost in one breath. 

Sun Shuxiang, a 48-year-old Changchun resident, was illegally arrested nine 

times in six years. Below are some of the experiences she described during her illegal sentence in labor camps: 

One day in the latter part of 2001, the policeman Li Zhenping from the eighth 

section of Xingye Street Police Station came to my home with another man. 

They came to persuade my husband to divorce me. I said, ‘‘No.’’ Li kept hitting 

my face until it was swollen. My eyes started to bleed, and I suddenly could 

not see anything. He asked again if I agreed to the divorce, and said if not he 

would send me back (to the labor camp). Under their constant terror, my husband divorced me. My good family was thus broken apart by the government. 

Now, I am still in exile. 

In July of 2002, I was in my father’s home. A plainclothes policeman suddenly 

broke into the house and asked if I was Sun Shuxiang. Before I answered him, 

I was kidnapped. The next day, police from the first section of Changchun Public Security Bureau put me in a car and drove me on a bumpy road for about 

two hours. Two policemen took me to a dark and terrifying basement, and took 

off the blindfold. Eight or nine policemen all rushed into the room. On a table 

there were three electric batons of large, medium, and small sizes and a bundle 

of rope, and on the other side were three tiger benches. Two policemen forced 

me on a tiger bench, and placed my hands on the armrests that each had a 

handcuff attached to it. My hands were locked in place with the handcuffs. The 

armrests on the tiger bench had a row of different size holes to fit different 

wrist sizes. The police skillfully fixed an iron rod as thick as the thumb on the 

two armrests, pressing against my chest and abdomen area and making it impossible for me to move. One policeman pointed at the torture tools and said 

to me, ‘‘Do you see that? If you cooperate, we can finish business in over an 

hour. Otherwise, we will have you taste all kinds of instruments.’’ What happened to Liu Zhe and others [practitioners who were killed]? Only a few can 

come out of here alive. 

A seemingly polite policeman slapped my face twice, and asked me if I knew 

any fellow practitioners. I said no. He took an electric baton, stuck its two claws 

between my ribs, and started to shock me. He asked again for my fellow practitioners’ phone numbers, and I said nothing. He then used the electric baton 

over my fingertips, while asking me which practitioners I knew. He used the 

electric baton on my arms and then my head, then to the other side of my body. 

After one round over my body, he slowly traced my body another round with 

the electric baton. They then changed into a higher voltage, fully charged electric baton, and started from my toes and went over my body. I still remained 

silent. They started with the toes of the other foot to go over my body from the 

other side. I was still silent. They then used the electric baton on my eyes. I 
86 

felt like my eyes were going to pop out of the sockets, and I could not see anything. I still refused to tell anything, and they returned to electrify my ribs. The 

pain was unbearable. The electric baton moved to my chest, as they asked me 

with which practitioners I had remained in contact. The pain made it impossible for me to speak, and the familiar faces of practitioners appeared in front 

of me one by one. I had one thought: No matter what, I would not tell about 

any practitioners, since as soon as I told about anyone, that person would be 

arrested and tortured. The police stuck the electric baton inside my mouth. My 

mouth was all burnt and swollen, and blisters covered the outside. They said 

to me as they were shocking me, ‘‘If you do not speak, we will pry open your 

mouth.’’ They again stuck the electric baton inside my mouth. After a day and 

a night’s torture, I was just about to die . . . 

In the beginning of 2004, I stayed temporarily at Ms. Xing Guiling’s home. 

One midnight I heard loud pounding on the door. The double door was quickly 

broken. In terror, I saw a bunch of police with iron hammers and guns, shouting, ‘‘Do not move, otherwise you will be killed.’’ We were arrested and taken 

to the Luuyuan branch of the Public Security Bureau, and locked up in a small 

iron cage. I was tied onto a tiger bench. They started to beat Xing Guiling in 

front of me, using a leather belt to strangle her neck. She cried heartwrenchingly. I saw Xing Guiling beaten down; when she was down, they kicked 

her. When she got up, they beat her down again. They beat and kicked her, asking her to reveal her contacts with other practitioners. They kept torturing her 

over and over. They took their leather belt and strangled her again, till she 

could not breathe. The police shouted, ‘‘I will show you if you don’t tell.’’ Xing 

Guiling was tortured with only one breath left, but she did not reveal a single 

practitioner’s name. They then started to torture me. After three days and 

nights of torture, they sent us to the No. 3 Detention Center. 

On August 4, 2003, I was again arrested by the police. They took me to the 

Nanguan branch of the Public Security Bureau. A pockmarked policeman 

grabbed my hair and kept hitting my head on the wall. I was getting so dizzy. 

He then forced me to sit on a tiger bench and cuffed my hands tightly. Another 

policeman started to hit my arms, and my wrists began to bleed from being 

tightly caught by the handcuffs. They used iron rings to chain my ankles, and 

then stepped on the rings, making it tighter and tighter. My ankles were painful beyond endurance. They then used a plastic bag to cover my head, and tied 

it over my neck, suffocating me. When they saw that I was about to die, they 

took off the bag. After a while, they covered my head again, and took it off before I died. They did this three times and at the same time kept pressing the 

rings tighter into my ankles. It was so painful that I started to have a seizure. 

My ankles were broken and bleeding. I fainted. They used cold water to bring 

me back, and sent me to the No. 3 Detention Center. There, I refused to eat 

and drink, and went into a coma. After 27 days, I had just one breath left. They 

notified my family members to take me home. 

Liu Shuqin, a 60-year-old lady from Changchun, was arrested and sent to labor 

camps five times in six years. This old lady calmly told us the barbarous torture 

she suffered: 

I was first arrested in February of 2000. The police violently hit and kicked 

us to the police car, which took us to the Balipu Detention Center. I was locked 

up for 15 days without any legal procedures. Altogether more than 10 of us 

were arrested, and all experienced unspeakable torture. After that, the Neighborhood Administration Office and the police continued to harass me. 

On December 31, 2000, I was arrested for the second time when I went to 

Beijing to appeal to the government. I held out a banner that said ‘‘Falun Dafa 

is Good,’’ and the Tiananmen police hit my back violently with electric batons, 

forcing me onto a police car. Later I was thrown into a dungeon with walls covered with ice and frost. The police forced me to take off all my clothing, and 

ordered someone to shoot water on me from a big pipe. They left me to sleep 

on the bare floor naked, with nothing to cover my body. The toilet in the room 

stank so much and smelled so bad. Everyday, several policemen came to interrogate me. They did not allow me to sleep at night. After 38 days of interrogation, they did not get anything. 

On December 31, 2001, several practitioners and I hung banners outside to 

expose the lies of the government about Falun Gong. Someone reported us and 

we were arrested. The police from the 6–10 Office beat me violently without 

stopping. At midnight that day, I was sent to the No. 3 Detention Center. 

There, a policeman punched my eyes with his fists. My eyes became blurry and 

I could not see anything. They hit my head a few more times. Faced with their 
87 

brutal behavior, I told them good and evil will be repaid. The police asked inmates to bring a heavy chain weighing 28 kg (approximately 61 lbs.) and put 

it on my ankles. I was detained for 22 days, during which I suffered tortures 

that were worse than death. Later on, the police took a lot of money from my 

family before they released me. 

On February 28, 2003, a few days after my release, a bunch of police from 

the Luuyuan branch of the Public Security Bureau stormed into my home 

again. A policeman named Yuan Dachuan went through our drawers and took 

away over 4,000 yuan (about $500) in cash without leaving any receipts. Another policeman pocketed a bottle of foreign perfume my child had brought me 

from overseas. When Yuan Dachuan was taking my money, I criticized his robbery. He punched me and handcuffed me. They did whatever they liked in my 

home and the house was all messed up. They abducted me to the torture chamber at the Luuyuan branch and tortured me on the tiger bench for two hours. 

They then tied me up with a thin rope, with my hands behind my back. The 

police tightened the rope on me. With my whole body tied up, I was pushed out 

of the torture chamber. Another group of people threw me into a car. They used 

my feather-filled coat to cover my head so tightly that I almost suffocated. 

After about 20 minutes, the car stopped, and we arrived at another torture 

chamber (later on I knew this was at the Chaoyang branch). The room was 

filled with torture instruments. As soon as we arrived there, they forced me 

onto the tiger bench, and about six policemen handcuffed me and chained my 

ankles, fixing a steel rod across my chest (on the tiger bench). A young policeman used a foot-long iron rod to hit my left hand, which was cuffed to the tiger 

bench. After a dozen strikes, my hand was swollen severely and it turned purple-black. They asked me to tell about other practitioners, and I said I would 

not say anything. At this time, more than 10 police cuffed my hands behind me. 

They kept pulling the handcuffs and the ankle chains, and pushing the iron rod 

against my chest. Stretched under such a strong force, I felt as if my tendons 

and bones were about to break; I could not breathe. The pain was so unbearable 

that I fainted a few times. When I fainted, the police poured cold water on me. 

After I came to, they continued to torture me. I was tortured like this for a day 

and night, fainting and waking up. As the handcuffs and ankle chains were 

pulled by the police, they kept piercing into my flesh. Blood was mixed with 

flesh over my wrists and ankles, making a large pool of blood on the floor. The 

police treated an old lady like me with such savage tortures. Every nerve and 

bone hurt beyond endurance in my arms, hands, feet and legs. My whole body 

was unable to move. 

One March 1, they sent me to the No. 3 Detention Center. They checked my 

heart and blood pressure—none functioned well; my legs could not walk. Even 

so, I was still sentenced for two years in the labor camp. In a coma, I was carried to the Heizuizi labor camp. I had to be carried to go to the bathroom. The 

policewoman Liu Lianying from the second team started to persecute me, saying 

that I was pretending not to be able to walk. Liu barbarously shocked me with 

an electric baton on my legs, chest, heart—all over my body. At the time, a 

criminal convict Yi Liwen (who had a good relationship with Liu) could not bear 

to see it; she took away the electric baton and said, ‘‘Don’t shock her anymore, 

look at what bad shape she is in.’’ Liu Lianying then stopped. Since I could not 

walk, the police often cursed me; they used all their conversion experts to try 

to ‘‘transform’’ me, and the police took turns brainwashing me. 

After a day’s labor, they did not let me sleep, but conducted brainwashing in 

order to force me to sign this or that paper. I firmly refused. They tortured me 

like this for two months, and my blood pressure often reached over 200 and I 

suffered from serious heart disease. Seeing that I refused to be transformed, Jia 

Hongyan used prostitution convicts to torture me, monitoring me on a 24-hour 

basis at my side even during eating and sleeping. They forced me to transform, 

beating and cursing me almost every moment and every day. They did not allow 

me to speak; if I did they would curse me. Everyday, my body and heart were 

suffering in great pain. Over a year of persecution brought great harm to my 

body and mind. My body was numb, and my arms did not move well. I was diagnosed with brain infarction and atrophy. I was originally very healthy, but 

the one year’s persecution had turned me into such a state. Just because I want 

to be a good person, I have endured such inhumane torture for such a long time. 

With a slow and gentle voice, Zhang Zhikui calmly narrated his experience of 

being persecuted in Changchun City: 

After July 20, 1999 I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Because I 

clarified the truth of Falun Gong to residents in Beijing, I was arrested by the 
88 

police in Beijing and transferred to the police of Changchun City’s liaison office 

in Beijing. There, they tied my hands and feet together onto a wooden club and 

hung me between two tables by putting the two ends of the wooden club onto 

the two tables. I swung back and forth. Whenever the wooden club broke, I fell 

to the floor. As for other practitioners who were also arrested there, the police 

beat them with leather belts or hung them up. They beat my thighs with a 

white wood rod. 

Later on, all of us practitioners were sent back to Erdaohezi District Police 

Substation in Changchun City. At that time, there were 10 or more practitioners. After we arrived there, the head of the Political Protection Department 

lifted me up and forced me to take off my pants. At that time, there were males 

and females present. Then, the head of the Political Protection Department beat 

my head with a leather belt. My head became numb, there was ringing in my 

ears, and I almost lost consciousness. He asked for my name and the date I 

went to Beijing. I was barely conscious following the beating, so I couldn’t remember anything. Nevertheless, he continued beating me. And then, he 

stamped on my feet with his leather shoes, grinding my toes with the heel of 

his leather shoes. He just observed the expression in my eyes while he was 

doing this to me. I endured the severe pain and began to sweat profusely. He 

left me then and began to beat up other practitioners. After I was sent to Tiebei 

Detention Center, the guards instigated the criminals there to strip me and 

beat me. The criminals kicked me hard, ramming me into the wall of the restroom. I could barely get up from the ground. Immediately two pots of cold water 

were poured onto my body. Again they kicked me hard. My arms and legs bled, 

and there was a big wound on one leg. One month later, I was released from 

there without any documents and without any legal procedures having been followed. 

At the end of November 1999, I went to China’s Supreme Court in Beijing 

to appeal for Falun Gong. The officials of China’s Supreme Court informed police and they arrested me there, sending me to the police of Zhaoyuan City’s 

(in Shandong province) liaison office in Beijing. On my way back, they removed 

my belt and forced me to walk with my hands holding up my pants. They beat 

me as we walked. Upon my arrival at the liaison office, they again beat me severely with a strap, and they continued beating me for several hours during the 

night. The next day, they sent me back to Zhaoyuan City, Shandong province. 

Upon my arrival at Zhaoyuan City Detention Center, the police instigated the 

criminals there to beat me. The criminals there saw that I did my duties actively and positively. They were all moved by me and didn’t beat me any longer. 

Eventually, they sent a mute criminal to beat me up. One day, the guard there 

ordered me to extend my head out through a small hole in the iron gate of my 

cell, and then he trampled my head with his feet, beating my head as well. The 

practitioners in other cells all shouted at him together, ‘‘Do not beat people! ’’ 

Afterwards, they sent my sister and me to Xinzhuang Township Police Station. Following July 20, 1999, my whole family was arrested. They detained my 

sister and me separately in small dark solitary confinement cells under the 

staircases. The solitary confinement cells were so short that we couldn’t stand 

up straight inside them. They only allowed us to go to the restroom once every 

evening, and they locked us up like this for 10 days for each detainment. After 

that, they sent us back to the Zhaoyuan Detention Center and kept us there 

for a month. They tortured my sister and me like this back and forth for a total 

of six times. All these events made us feel that it is difficult either to live or 

die. 

On National Day in 2000, I went to the Culture Square in Changchun City 

to unfurl a banner and I was arrested. All the news media in China lied. They 

did not speak a truthful word for us. Therefore, we wanted to tell people the 

truth in this way. Police chief Liang and other policemen stripped my coat off 

and wrapped my head with it. They cuffed my hands from behind, dragged me 

down from upstairs, and then escorted me to a car. The car traveled for about 

two hours and I felt that it was far away from the town. After we arrived at 

the destination, I was escorted to a house where the cloth on my head was removed. I felt terrible. There was a tiger bench in the room. I knew we were 

on a mountain and I heard the wind swooshing. Police Chief Liang and other 

policemen stripped all my clothes off and they forced me onto the tiger bench. 

My hands were tied behind my back to the crabstick. They inserted an iron 

stick at my chest, my thighs and my legs respectively. Both ends of these sticks 

were fixed to the tiger bench so that my whole body was tightly locked onto the 

tiger bench and I could not move. My feet were put in iron hoops and immobilized. Then Liang took out a sharp knife one third of a meter long and rubbed 
89 

it on his pants a couple of times. He threw the knife to the table and ferociously 

said to me: ‘‘Zhang Zhikui, I want you to die here; today I’ll torture you to death 

and dig a hole and bury you. Nobody will know or find you.’’ After saying that, 

Liang went outside. At least three policemen started to recharge the electric batons and another two policemen grasped my hands that were tied to the stick 

behind me, then they stretched my hands around my head from behind to front. 

I heard my bones cracking ceaselessly. This torture was repeated several times 

and the oppressive pain distressed me terribly. Later, an iron barrel was buckled onto my head; they hit the barrel violently with steel pipes. The intense 

tremor and harsh noise made my head feel like it was exploding. After I had 

suffered for a long period of time, the policemen burned my back with cigarettes 

and the unbearable pain made me lose consciousness. Then they poured cold 

water on me to wake me up. Finally they lit candles and used them to burn 

my back. After they scorched the flesh on my back, they poured the hot wax 

on it. The pain made my body endlessly shiver and jump. All I could hear was 

the cracking of the tiger bench that was shaken by me. Because there was not 

any good skin remaining on my body, the policemen started to shock my private 

parts with electric batons and pierced them. Afterwards they used an iron stick 

to smash my private parts. I passed out and I did not know how much time 

passed before I awakened. After one night’s torture, my face was swollen to several times the original size and my whole body was drenched in blood. I looked 

badly mangled. I had twisted my body so much due to the pain that the skin 

and flesh at my ankles were cut through, with the bones and muscles exposed. 

However, when they saw that I was awake, they again dragged me outside. It 

was more than 10 degrees centigrade below zero outdoors and they poured cold 

water on my naked body. They abandoned me where I lay. They returned to 

the house. Half an hour later they came out to see if I was still alive. I did not 

know how much time passed before morning arrived. I was already at the brink 

of death. I was carried to the Changchun City police department. There were 

many small cells, each with a tiger bench inside. There were female Dafa practitioners on every tiger bench. Most of them had fainted, with their lower bodies 

naked or with only a cloth covering the body. 

I was sent to the Tiebei Detention Center for further torture. I began a hunger strike for five days and they stopped the torture. After I stayed in the detention center for 40 days, they sent me to the fifth division of the Chaoyang 

District forced labor camp. There, I went on a continuous hunger strike. Over 

10 Dafa practitioners joined me in the strike. There were 500 Dafa practitioners 

detained in the fifth division. The division head saw that we were on a hunger 

strike and he led some criminals to brutally beat us. The scene was horrendous. 

Finally the Dafa practitioners that were on the hunger strike were taken to the 

first division where the Dafa practitioners were most brutally persecuted. A 

criminal named Xu Hui often abused Dafa practitioners. One Dafa practitioner 

over sixty years old used to be a mid-level officer, but because he did not wear 

the prisoner’s uniform he was beaten by Xu Hui until he was on his last breath. 

But he still did not stop beating him. I almost lost confidence in life, since I 

had endured unspeakable agony for a very long time. All the unbearable persecutions and tortures happened in the afternoons, in the evenings, and even in 

the middle of the night. 

If the Falun Gong practitioners made a little bit of a sound when they were 

asleep, their fellow inmates would beat them up. All of this made the Falun 

Gong practitioners even dare not to go to sleep. I sometimes couldn’t stop 

coughing at night; therefore, the inmates beat me for the whole night. They 

didn’t allow me to cough at all. I didn’t dare to drink water in the evening, since 

they didn’t allow us to go to the restrooms at night. Once I couldn’t help myself 

from going to the restroom, and I went quietly. When I came back, Xu Hui beat 

me up until I was almost on my last breath. He kicked me very hard in the 

area of my kidney, causing my kidney to move from its natural position. I 

couldn’t move for several days. 

Once, there was a Falun Dafa practitioner in his twenties named Sui Futao. 

The criminals found out that he had hidden our Teacher’s articles in his clothing, so they had hit him with a wrench over 50 times. Not long after that, this 

practitioner was beaten to death. My younger sister was sentenced to 10 years 

imprisonment, and at the same time, her husband was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. Furthermore, only because they practiced Falun Gong, their nineyear-old child was dismissed forcefully from school under the order given by the 

6–10 Office. Among the Falun Gong practitioners who kept in touch with me, 

eight or nine practitioners had been beaten to death. Their names were Wang 

Shouhui, Liu Boyang, Liu Haibo, Liu Chengjun, Xu Shuxiang, Wang Kefei, Yu 
90 

Lixin and Deng Shiying. As for the names of other practitioners who were persecuted to death, I couldn’t even remember their names right now! All these are 

facts that are extremely cruel! 

Zhang Shuchun is my second younger sister. When the police tried to arrest 

her, she jumped downstairs. Her broken ribs pierced into some of her organs. 

Her legs and arms were broken, too. She immediately fainted. Soon many passersby stopped to look at her and asked what happened. The policeman from the 

6–10 Office said, ‘‘She had a fight with her husband about a divorce.’’ Since she 

was a so-called ‘‘Wanted Criminal,’’ the police took her to a hospital. But the 

doctors at the hospital thought it unnecessary to try to save a Falun Gong practitioner. They said, ‘‘Just throw her out,’’ and surprisingly, the police did throw 

her out in a suburban area. Later, she was saved by some kind-hearted people. 

But the police put her back on the ‘‘Wanted’’ list again. 

Wang Yuhuan is a female Falun Gong practitioner that the Changchun police arrested. She was detained at forced labor camps nine times in the past six years. 

She said: 

You won’t believe this. But at the forced labor camp, in order to collect 

money, police tried to sell sleeping space. The price was 2,000 yuan (around 

$250) per month. Once you bought it, you would have the right to lie down on 

your back when sleeping. Otherwise, you would have to lie on your side since 

the cell was small. Meanwhile, those who bought the space were entitled to beat 

us up. As Falun Dafa practitioners, we wouldn’t spend so much money to buy 

sleeping spaces. As more criminals bought sleeping space, the rest of the people 

had less space for sleep and it became more painful to sleep. 

In August 2000, I was sent to the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp. Police there 

tried to force me to ‘‘transform.’’ I had to work 18 hours everyday. The workload 

was very high. It was to make products for export. Besides working, they forced 

me to write ‘‘repentance’’ reports. The criminals in my cell would beat me up 

if I refused to do so. In order to ‘‘transform’’ me, Sun Mingyan, the officer-incharge of the No. 6 Squad, sat on my head and shocked my head and face with 

an electric baton for more than one hour. My hair was scorched and my face 

and neck were severely burned. I was bruised all over my face and body. When 

I was released in November 2001, I still wasn’t able to pick up a bowl. The 6– 

10 Office also illegally took 2000 yuan (approximately $250) from me when I 

was released. 

On March 5, 2002, some Falun Dafa practitioners successfully broadcast a 

video clip about the truth of Falun Dafa on TV. The Central 6–10 Office ordered 

a large-scale arrest in Changchun. I was arrested then. Police arrested over 

5000 Dafa practitioners at that time. Each cell at the detention center had to 

hold at least 50 people. They even detained Falun Dafa practitioners in bathrooms because of limited space. The First Department of the Changchun Public 

Security arrested me on March 11, 2002. They locked me in a 1.3 meter-high 

iron cage at the police substation near the Nanguan District Caishen Temple. 

I couldn’t stand up at all. On the night of March 12, Gao Peng, Zhang Heng 

and some other policemen from the First Division of the Criminal Squad interrogated me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and put a cloth bag 

on my head. They used a rope to tighten the bag on my neck so that I couldn’t 

see anything and I could hardly breathe. Then they tied me up using ropes and 

put me in the trunk of the police car. They drove to a mountain where they 

brutally tortured Falun Dafa practitioners at will. Many fellow practitioners 

were tortured to death in this place. Mr. Liu Haibo was stripped of all his 

clothes and forced to kneel down. Police pushed the longest electric baton they 

could find into his bottom and gave his organs electric shocks. Liu died immediately on the site. Liu Haibo was a college graduate. 

Liu Yi, a doctor from the Luuyuan District Hospital, was in his thirties when 

he was tortured to death in this devil’s hole. Twenty-three practitioners were 

tortured to death there. I knew many of them. The police simply buried their 

bodies in a hole. Xiang Min, a pretty Dafa practitioner, was carried back after 

a round of torture. She told me that the police sexually harassed her by touching her bottom while giving her electric shocks. Close to 30 practitioners were 

tortured to death in that round of arrests. 

It took them over two hours to drive me to this notorious place on a mountain. I heard them stop the car. Then they dragged me out, beating me up at 

the same time. The police kept cursing me and said they would torture me to 

death that day. They bumped me into trees and I stumbled my way to a building after 10 minutes or so. We went upstairs and downstairs, eventually entering a room. They took the cloth bag off of my head. The police said, ‘‘Let’s wait 
91 

and see how you die today. Nobody has walked out of here alive! ’’ I was in a 

small room of about 50 square feet. There was a small desk with three long 

electric batons with claws on them. There was also a rope and a bed. Later, I 

found out that the bed was for the police to lie down and rest while cursing 

us, when they got tired from beating us up. I saw a tiger bench and many police 

busy preparing to torture me. I heard wind blowing angrily. Next, a few police 

forced me onto the tiger bench. They tied me to the bench with my hands cuffed 

behind my back and behind the bench. They fastened the iron rods at the side 

of the tiger bench till I couldn’t move and they tied down my ankles with two 

large iron rings. Every five minutes, they would start a round of torture on me. 

They moved my arms back and forth, and I could hear my bones cracking. The 

huge pain made me almost faint. My sweat and tears came immediately from 

the pain. They pushed my head toward my legs. Because I was tied down on 

the tiger bench, I felt my neck bones breaking and the iron rods piercing into 

my breast and stomach. I was about to suffocate every second. They tied ropes 

on the iron rings and pulled the ropes harshly. My ankles hurt so much. Pains 

all over my body made me tremble. They repeated the torture like this every 

five minutes. My sweat and tears and blood soaked my hair and clothing. Later, 

I fainted because of the unbearable pain. They then poured cold water or boiling 

water on me to wake me up. The boiling water burned my whole body badly. 

I couldn’t stand the slow killing and huge sufferings. I wished they would kill 

me with a gun. 

After inhumanely torturing me over four hours on the tiger bench, which had 

rendered me rather weak, they put an iron barrel on my head. Each of the 

seven police smoked three cigarettes at the same time and puffed smoke into 

the barrel. This was suffocating and I fainted. They poured cold water on me. 

When I was barely awake, they used the burning cigarettes to scorch my eyeballs. I would struggle a little when I began to gain consciousness. After that, 

they punched my head, face, nose, and teeth. They knocked out my two incisor 

teeth. My face swelled up and turned to dark purple. They also pierced my ears 

using thin sticks. I couldn’t hear anything for the next two weeks. Eventually, 

they wore themselves out from torturing me and went to sleep at 2 a.m. ‘‘In 

March of 2002, they tortured me three times within 17 days in that devil’s hole. 

Each time, the torture was more brutal. The last two times happened at midnight. Each time, seven or eight police came and took me from the cell and sent 

me back barely alive. One time, the police didn’t want the others to see how 

badly I was tortured. They dressed me up in thick clothing. However, blood still 

came out. Then the police dressed me with more clothing but the blood soaked 

the clothing again. Practitioners there couldn’t go to sleep because of the horror 

and concern over fellow practitioners. 

The police ‘‘interrogated’’ all the practitioners on the 6–10 Office’s blacklist 

everyday. They tied up each practitioner, put a cloth bag over the heads and 

cuffed the hands behind the backs. Then they would throw them into the trunk 

of the police car and drive to the mountain to the devil’s hole where they viciously tortured them. 

The relentless torture destroyed my body and health. They had to lie about 

my poor condition to get the No. 3 Detention Center to accept me. On the following day, I was sent to the Provincial Hospital and then the No. 3 Military 

Hospital for physical examination. The results indicated that my body had sustained injury nearly everywhere and was in a critical condition, and thus I did 

not meet the minimum health standard to be detained. That afternoon, police 

had taken Ms. Guo Shuaishuai and me back to the prison hospital and 

launched a new bout of persecution there. We were tied onto a bed. Police injected me with some drug, which has made me unable to feel my legs ever since. 

My legs became ice-cold and completely numb. 

Practitioner Jiang Yong was persecuted here, too. He passed away after seven 

months of torture. Police also injected him with an unidentified drug and drew 

a large tube of blood from him every day. These injections and blood drawing 

emaciated Yong. He died during a force-feeding. 

It was terrible to witness the entire process of a person being tortured to 

death. The guards continuously force-fed Ms. Guo for over two months; the hard 

feeding tube was left in her throat the entire time. Refusing to accept the forcefeeding, Ms. Guo swallowed down the 1.5-meter feeding tube. She tossed and 

turned in bed due to the excruciating pain. The prison hospital refused to release her in fear of her exposing the evil persecution, so it intensified the torture. Guo and I were stripped naked and tied with limbs spread apart on a bed. 

Police and male inmates lewdly stared at us everyday. One male prison doctor 

pinched and struck Ms. Guo’s vagina. Unable to bear the extreme torture, Mrs. 
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Guo swallowed the spoon that was inserted into her mouth. She again tossed 

and turned in bed due to the pain. The prison doctor cut open her stomach to 

retrieve the spoon. He deliberately made an unnecessarily long incision, stretching from the chest all the way to the vagina. He roughly sutured the extremely 

long cut and sent Ms. Guo to die at home. Ms. Guo never recovered from the 

barbarous physical and psychological torture. 

Ms. Zhao Xiaoqin and I were sent to the prison hospital the same day. 6– 

10 officers knocked her unconscious and pushed her down the stairs. The fall 

broke her left arm, caused a bump the size of a bowl on her head, and made 

her insane. To this day she cannot speak. The prison doctor did not change the 

cast on her arm the entire summer. Consequently, her arm festered, and bugs 

crawled around it. Seeing Ms. Zhao’s suffering broke my heart. I also witnessed 

other atrocities in this persecution. We, the female practitioners, were all 

stripped naked and tied with limbs spread apart on a bed board for over 26 

days. We suffered incessant humiliation and sexual assault from male police, 

doctors, and inmates. 

I was transferred back to the No. 3 Detention Center for refusing to renounce 

Falun Gong. The Detention Center refused to accept me, because it heard that 

I would die soon, and it feared to take responsibility for my death. Outraged 

police then hung me on a door for six hours and beat me. I was taken back to 

the prison hospital for more persecution. I went on a hunger strike to protest. 

On the 50th day, a prison doctor cut open my vein and placed an IV needle in 

it. My blood seeped out and stained the bed and floor. Already accustomed to 

the bloody persecution, the police and prison doctors were not at all disturbed 

by my excessive bleeding. Each day, they administered 10 bottles of unidentified 

thick fluid to me. They left me to urinate and defecate on the bed—I lay in a 

pool of urine and feces for over 50 days. The full extent of the misery is beyond 

description. My veins collapsed due to the hunger strike, so the thick fluid could 

not pass through. The head surgeon just shook the bottle and squeezed the fluid 

into my vein. I passed out many times because of the excruciating pain. 

Mr. Yang Guang, another practitioner, suffered even more frightening persecution. I quote part of the letter a witness wrote to me: 

Yang Guang, who lived in Changchun City, Jilin Province, has been illegally 

detained since January 2000 and has suffered severe torture under the hands 

of Director Liang and officers in the Changchun Public Security Bureau. He was 

tortured with electric batons, tiger bench, straightjacket, hanging from the ceiling, plastic-bag suffocation, and force-feeding of strong alcohol. Persecutors occasionally torture him for 40 hours on end. The torture gave Mr. Yang a deaf left 

ear, disabled arms, paralysis from the waist down, necrosis in his right hip, a 

broken right leg, deformed feet, festered toes, kidney failure, and hydrothorax 

(fluids accumulated in his chest). Despite his life-threatening condition, Mr. 

Yang was sentenced to 15 years in the Jilin prison. 

Mr. Yang is held in the so-called naked district, which is the prison section 

for disabled inmates. Here inmates are forbidden to wear pants all year long, 

so that cleaning is kept minimal. Inmates made the paralyzed Mr. Yang a special wheelchair out of steel pipes, four casters, and boards for the back and 

sides. The seat has a hole in the center, like a toilet seat. Whenever Mr. Yang 

needs to go to the restroom, inmates would push his chair to the bathroom. Because of the side boards on the chair and his disabled arms, Mr. Yang cannot 

clean himself afterwards. Urine, feces, and foul odor enshroud Mr. Yang all year 

long. This naked district receives no sunlight. The conditions are utterly inhumane. This district is boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. 

The space for sleeping is less than 60 cm (23 in.) wide. The food is disgusting 

and extremely lean. 

When Mr. Yang needs cleaning, inmates wheel him to the water room and 

spray him with a pressure hose, and wipe him with a mop that has nails sticking out. Inmates call this a ‘‘cosmetic shower.’’ The prison authorities subjected 

Mr. Yang to these intolerable conditions to force him to renounce Falun Gong. 

Mr. Yang, however, remained firm in his belief. He was put into solitary confinement. He was let out only when he was on the brink of death. Mr. Yang 

was then transferred to a special district in the Tiebei Prison in Changchun. 

He was given absolutely no medical treatment. Nonetheless, the prison still extorts 1,000 yuan (approximately $125) a month from Mr. Yang’s family. 

Mr. Yang only has an 86-year-old mother in his home who does not know that 

her son has been tortured to such a horrid extent. Whenever she sees people, 

she would sadly implore ‘‘Guang is a good person. Where is he now, I want my 

son! ’’ Mr. Yang’s wife divorced him, because there is no income to support the 
93 

family. Mr. Yang has also suffered extreme psychological pain. Relatives demanded his release, but the Prison, the Ministry of Justice, and the Prison 

Management Bureau refused. 

Dalian practitioner, Chang Xuexia, is a graceful and quiet girl. She lowered her 

head in shame while recounting her painful and humiliating experience in a labor 

camp: 

I was arrested for the first time for appealing for Falun Gong. I was illegally 

detained for 39 days in a rehabilitation center in Dalian. In January 2003, the 

authorities again tried to force me to renounce Falun Gong. They locked me in 

a small metal cage and brought in a variety of instruments of torture. Ms. 

Wang Yalin, the main persecutor of Falun Gong practitioners in the center, 

goaded several inmates to hang me by the wrists with my feet barely touching 

the floor. Wang ordered inmates to ‘‘Fix her well, all of you! ’’ 

The swarm of inmates struck and kicked me from every side. I passed out. 

They dropped me on the floor and forcefully stepped on my face and arm to see 

if I was faking. When I woke up, I could not move my left arm, for my elbow 

was dislocated. Inmates who refused to torture me were transferred and their 

sentences extended. I was hung up again. This time inmates put Teacher’s picture inside my underwear, and wrote blasphemous words against Falun Dafa 

and Teacher on my face. They also beat me with a hard wooden plank. The 

bruises have not yet faded after a whole year. 

I still refused to renounce Falun Dafa. They stripped me naked, and several 

inmates began pinching my breasts, plucking my pubic hair, and stabbing my 

vagina. They used a brush that usually cleaned the water tank. They then put 

a basin under my lower body to see if I was bleeding. Since no blood came out, 

the inmates switched to a larger brush and repeatedly stabbed my vagina with 

it. I could not bear the excruciating pain any longer and succumbed to their demand of not doing the Falun Gong exercises in the camp. 

What I had suffered in the camp was not the most brutal. Another practitioner named Ms. Wang Lijun was tortured in the small metal cage three times. 

Inmates tied many knots on a thick rope and pulled it back and forth in a sawing motion across her vagina. Her entire lower body swelled up. The head police 

then ordered inmates to jab her swollen vagina with the thorny end of a broken 

mop stick. This torture caused Ms. Wang’s vagina to bleed profusely. Her abdomen and vagina were so swollen that she could not pull up her pants, or sit, 

or urinate. Ms. Wang still could not sit upright two months after the sexual torture. Her legs were also disabled. I also witnessed these inmates applying this 

same torture on a virgin. The head police officer also put venomous bugs on female practitioners’ bodies. 

My name is Wei Chun (alias). I am 35 years old and live in Dalian. I started 

to practice Falun Gong in 1998. Because Falun Gong teaches people to live the 

principles of ‘‘Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance,’’ I have improved 

greatly, both mentally and physically. I can forgive others easily and elevate my 

moral character at the same time. In July 1999, the government started to oppress Falun Gong. I could not ignore its abuse of our basic human rights, so 

I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in March 2000. When I got on the 

train, I was stopped and asked by a policeman to say abusive words about Mr. 

Li Hongzhi. I refused, and so I was arrested. Afterwards, I knew that whoever 

traveled to Beijing at that time, whether by train or by bus, had to say some 

abusive words about Mr. Li or Falun Dafa, otherwise they would not be allowed 

to travel. 

I was taken to the Dalian Drug Rehabilitation Center, and detained for seven 

days. When I was sent back to my work place, my supervisors demoted me to 

cleaning the factory in the morning and reflecting on my mistakes in the afternoon. They wanted me to renounce my belief and write statements slandering 

Falun Gong. I refused, so I was forced to quit my job. In April 2000, I found 

other employment. On March 15, 2001, Chen Xin and other policemen from the 

No. 1 Division of Dalian Public Security Bureau abducted me from my work 

place. They did not allow me to sleep for five days and nights. My hands were 

handcuffed behind my back the entire time. They put lit cigarettes into my nostrils and mouth. My mouth was filled with cigarettes. At one time, a policeman 

hit my head with an iron club. Afterwards, I was sent to the Dalian Detention 

Center and sentenced to labor for two years. On May 18, I was sent to the Fifth 

Team at the Dalian Labor Camp for reeducation. 

On June 4, Mr. Liu Yonglai, Mr. Qu Fei, Mr. Huang Wenzhong, and myself 

were brought to the 4th floor. We were to be forced to defame Mr. Li and Falun 

Dafa. If we did not do so, they would punish us with electric shocks. If we did 
94 

so, they would take us downstairs to write the ‘‘three letters’’ defaming Falun 

Gong and Mr. Li, criticizing ourselves, and pledging not to practice Falun Gong 

again. They took off all of Liu Yonglai’s and my clothes, and handcuffed us together face to face. They used six electric batons on both of us, and shocked us 

on our heads, backs, thighs, genitals, both sides of our chests, and necks. We 

clenched our teeth, and struggled to avoid the electric shocks. As a result of 

struggling, the handcuffs became progressively tighter. They eventually cut into 

our flesh and down to our bones. It was extremely painful and we bled a lot. 

The electric shocks continued for about one hour, and then they separated us. 

They handcuffed Liu’s hands behind his back, and made him crawl on the 

grass. They put two chairs on his back and asked two criminals to sit on the 

chairs. Then, another six criminals used six fully charged electric batons and 

repeatedly shocked his back, buttocks, neck, calves, soles of his feet, and genitals at the same time. They even pulled out his penis to shock it separately. 

As for me, I was tied to a chair. The legs of the chair, and the back of the chair 

were both tied with several electric batons. Then, they tightly tied me on the 

back of the chair with a rope. Another criminal held an electric baton to my 

head. Six batons were used to simultaneously shock me. My entire body was 

in convulsions. I felt that I would rather be dead than alive. I cried out in despair. My hopeless cries could be heard throughout the entire building. There 

were many Falun Gong practitioners on the 2nd and 3rd floors. It is said that 

they all wept upon hearing my shrill cries. 

The torture continued for about an hour. Then, I exchanged places with Liu. 

He was forced to sit on the electric shocking chair while I crawled on the grass. 

Again, I was shocked with six electric batons at the same time for about one 

hour. I felt that I could no longer bear it, but I’d rather die than betray my 

belief, my conscience and not defame my Master and Falun Dafa. So I started 

to hit the ground with my head in hopes of inducing unconsciousness. Every 

time the six electric batons touched me at the same time, I felt as if ten thousand arrows had simultaneously been shot into my heart. 

I felt that I had died several times. After the electric batons ran out, they 

would change to new ones with more voltage. I finally started to fear, so at last 

I submitted. Later, Liu could no longer endure it, either. He also submitted. The 

policemen who led the criminals to shock us were Qiao Wei, Zhu Fengshan, 

Jing Dianke and others. I don’t remember all the criminals’ names. Afterwards, 

I was told that when Huang Wenzhong was shocked, his face was burned and 

bloody. Qu Fe’s cheeks were beaten with shoes so severely that they swelled up 

like a bread loaf. After we were taken downstairs, we wrote the Guarantee 

Statements to renounce Falun Dafa. When we went back to the team, we had 

to write a full page with the same three sentences every day, defaming Master 

Li and Falun Gong. Meanwhile, we had to shout the three statements out every 

day. It was strangling my soul. The pain it brought to me was far greater than 

the torture to my body. But if we opposed it or refused to do so, we would be 

taken to the 4th floor to be shocked until we submitted again. 

Afterwards, a Falun Gong practitioner called Li in class 3 could not endure 

the spiritual torture and chose to commit suicide by hanging himself. He was 

rescued. At that time, I did not want to live another moment. I was too humiliated. I did not want to endure the electric shocks anymore. I was afraid that 

I could not bear them. Nevertheless, I did not want to do such immoral things 

as defame our Master and Falun Dafa. I told Liu that if any practitioner dared 

to give his life, the guards would not dare not to persecute us like this. He said 

that he would sacrifice his life for the others. One day, when we were cleaning 

outdoors, Liu walked to the 3rd floor from the back of the building and jumped 

down head first. He died instantly. Soon thereafter, many Falun Gong practitioners recanted everything they wrote and said that what they had written violated their conscience, the facts were twisted due to torture and were invalid. 

They would firmly protect their belief and the truth. Because of this, the police 

put these practitioners who had recanted the three statements into the same 

class and put them into forced labor. They got up at 5:00 a.m. and worked until 

11:00 p.m. every day. Then, they sent these nine practitioners to Guanshan 

Labor Camp to start a new cycle of persecution. 

I realized that I could not cooperate with the guards any longer, so I stopped 

wearing a prison uniform, stopped marching, stopped singing, and started a 

hunger strike to protest the persecution. The whole class also started a hunger 

strike to protest with me. We were later separated, and I was sent to the third 

brigade where I continued the hunger strike. When a chief prosecutor asked me 

why I started a hunger strike, I said that I had no other means, as no court 

dares to accept my case. They are all Jiang Zemin’s judges and courts, and no 
95 

one dares to represent us. I can only use my life to protest the persecution 

against me, to protest Jiang Zemin and the government’s persecution of Falun 

Gong. I have a son. When my son asks me in the future, ‘‘What did you do during that most severe persecution of just people.’’ I don’t want to tell him that 

I submitted. I want to be a person that would ‘‘rather die with honor than survive in disgrace.’’ On the 15th day of my hunger strike, they released me on 

October 24, using the excuse that I needed outside medical treatment in fear 

that I might die in the reformatory. 

As we listened to those who had escaped death in this persecution, one by one, 

we were suffocating. Some of the true stories were told by those who had escaped 

death from the persecution several times. Their stories would move even a devil to 

tears. The unprecedented and unrivalled bloody scenes, the vicious, inhuman natures, the most disastrous torture techniques—all were so vividly terrifying. Facing 

these fellow countrymen, while they peacefully shared their stories of the barbaric 

persecution one after another, we must ask of those who wear the nation’s emblem 

and the country’s uniform to maintain the peace: ‘‘In the past six of the 60 years 

of communist rule, how many such inhuman acts have you perpetrated and concealed? ’’ 

Where did our system fail? It has bred so many vicious public officials who live 

among us, have been supported by us, who were raised by parents like ours, and 

have families like ours! The tragic experience of our fellow countrymen fully illustrates that, in our society, there is a group of public officials who persistently disregard the basic moral values of human society, and have been continuously using 

methods that are completely distant from basic human morality and human nature. 

They covertly scheme their dirty deals that are causing the very destruction of our 

nation’s human nature, basic morals, kindness and conscience. All fellow countrymen, including Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabo must admit that none of us can deny that 

our system is constantly and progressively creating such a shameful reality. And 

such a reality reveals the totally immoral character of our system. 

Hu, Wen and all fellow Chinese countrymen: it is a time of introspection for our 

nation! There isn’t a people on this planet or in all of history that have suffered 

on such a large scale, enduring such a severe and disastrous persecution in peacetime because of their faith. This ongoing disaster has cost thousands of innocent 

people their valuable lives, and hundreds of thousands of people have been deprived 

of their freedom. The facts that we have seen showed us that all those who have 

been deprived of their freedom have also suffered bodily devastation and spiritual 

torment that is unbelievable to the civilized world. This completely inhuman persecution has caused over 100 million Falun Gong followers and their families to suffer 

from subpoena and threats, deprivation of employment, work opportunities and income, confiscation of assets to various extents, and a persecution that extends to 

various other means. How absurd, dangerous, and immoral this is! This is a continuous fight against the entire Chinese people, human civilization, and the moral 

foundation of all the world’s people! 

The situations with my law office and entire family are making clear the ongoing 

severe situation in China today: one who insists on telling the truth must pay the 

price. The country continually uses violent means to warn people publicly that the 

desire to understand and tell the truth is extremely dangerous. 

In countries with civilized systems, the truth is in the hands of those who have 

the political power and resources. The understanding of the value of truth is the 

scale used for judging a regime’s civilization and morality. But in the current Chinese society, the ability of the government in obtaining the truth is completely different. I have painfully observed that living together and maturing with the political 

regime has been the regime’s mechanism for concealing the truth. This situation 

makes the regime completely unable to know the truth. The regime has completely 

lost the necessary moral condition for knowing the truth. It has destroyed that 

moral condition completely. 

People like Ms. Wang Yuhuan and others who suffered in labor camps personally 

witnessed time after time the following. When higher authorities came to inspect, 

all the camps had an ironclad rule: gather those who might tell the truth, like Wang 

Yuhuan, to a place where the inspectors cannot find them. The common rule is: the 

visiting leaders leave with the ‘‘truth’’ that they have personally ‘‘seen’’ and ‘‘heard.’’ 

When the iron gate closes behind the leaders, the crimes against our innocent fellow 

countrymen will quickly start again. The facts indicate that there is a coordinated 

collusion between the inspector and the inspected, both of whom know the truth 

without spelling it out. 

Now that the regime has lost the capability of obtaining the real facts, the investigation conducted by citizens themselves becomes completely legitimate and necessary, because the value of real facts is associated with the future of our nation 
96 

and is closely associated with each individual who lives in this nation. We have the 

right to know how the power of this regime is linked to our people. We have the 

right to know how this persecution began six years ago. How could a country make 

such an immoral decision? Within these six years, how did the authorities carry out 

this decision? What did the country do? Within these six years, exactly how many 

of our innocent citizens have been illegally imprisoned behind the high walls? What 

exactly has happened behind that high walls? What is still going on today? Obtaining the answers to these questions is the fundamental moral obligation for the people of this country. Here we must emphasize that the government’s cover-up of the 

truth is already worthless and is no longer an issue of only immorality. Those who 

have witnessed the facts will eventually enter society. In fact, many of them are already walking among people, tirelessly revealing the true facts. 

Chinese government, you must realize that you are a government. Only in this 

way can you deal with the disastrous reality from the standpoint of a government, 

in the manner of a government, and through the logical actions of a government. 

Only in this way can we avoid tragedies like the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the 

bloody persecution of Falun Gong, or the recent shooting of farmers in Guangzhou. 

Nevertheless, we have to face such a reality often. The reality is that over a long 

period, similar crimes towards innocent people have been repeatedly committed 

without any reason. In response to the desperate anguish that disasters have 

brought to the people, the Chinese government has always been silent and has even 

suppressed the suffering people through brutality. 

Our investigation has shown that, when facing the believers that are almost all 

‘‘headstrong and refuse to transform,’’ those responsible for ‘‘transforming’’ these individuals have completely lost their humanity. As a result, they treat those being 

transformed unscrupulously to the point of committing all manners of crimes. The 

whole system has exhibited insanity driven by desperation as the suppression has 

lasted six years without any success. The recent horrifying incident in which the 

policeman He Xuejian raped two female Falun Gong practitioners in Tunzhong City, 

Hebei province in front of his colleagues, is a clear example. 

From several investigations, I have found that in their need to suppress the innocent, police can resort to any heinous crimes to achieve the goal of transformation. 

In the inhumane persecution against these believers, the Chinese police have completely become criminalized. They no longer have a conscience nor do they have any 

consciousness for law or justice; instead, they take for granted that their responsibility is to chop up people like fish or meat. In the prison within their jurisdiction, 

a cucumber can be sold to inmates for a price of 25 yuan (about $3), a roasted-chicken can sell for up to a few hundred yuan. Even the sleeping space that originally 

belongs to public property is turned into tradable merchandise in the hands of the 

people’s police. Every space as wide as a person’s shoulder can be sold at a price 

up to 2,000 yuan (about $250) per month. Many prisoners in the labor camp without 

money continue to be treated inhumanely in the night by having to sleep vertically 

on their sides. 

Not only do the Chinese police have no morality, but they have also completely 

lost the fundamental sense of shame that is characteristic of a human being. In this 

investigation, another disgusting source of crime in our society is the system of reeducation through labor, which has brought numerous disasters to our nation in the 

last half-century. The system of re-education through labor, a dirty business conducted by the Chinese State Council, has openly insulted and offensively treaded 

upon our constitutional principles; it has survived regardless. In human history, no 

government of any other nation can behave like the Chinese State Council, which 

completely disregards its own constitution. Since the birth of the country’s constitution, the system of re-education through labor has always placed it in an embarrassing position. This demonstrates the Chinese government’s lawlessness and also 

proves their so-called ‘‘ruling the country by law’’ as nothing but a hoax. 

Besides the Constitution of China, a series of fundamental laws that were ratified 

later, including the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China, Law of the 

People’s Republic of China on Administrative Penalty, Administrative License Law 

Of the People’s Republic of China, etc. all explicitly exclude the possibility of the 

Chinese State Council gaining the power to deprive people of their freedom. Fundamentally, the system of re-education through labor is the most illegal form of malpractice that prevents China from achieving the rule of law. It is the biggest enemy 

of the Constitution of China and of the fundamental laws and principles. It opposes 

the pursuit of the Chinese people for a China ruled by law. 

Our investigation has shown that the system of re-education by labor, in its illegal 

deprivation of freedom, has been abusive beyond imagination. The elderly women 

Wang Yuhuan and Sun Shuxiang have been illegally arrested and detained nine 

times in six years. The procedure for re-education through labor is so informal and 
97 

poorly enforced that it might as well be a joke. The true facts have revealed the 

shocking abuse of power as well as the complete lack of morality! Today is the time 

when a confession to our nation must be made. I must especially emphasize that 

if this evil crime does not stop, then the interrogation of our nation by people like 

Gao Chengzhi will continue. The day when Chinese society becomes stable and harmonious will not arrive. People have lost their patience with power-abusers who 

cast aside their conscience day and night. The storm of protests created by these 

people is constantly shaking the country’s foundation and rocking what people have 

been used to for decades. How could anyone ignore this phenomenon? 

Through my experience of continuously communicating with those citizens who 

are firm in their beliefs, I have truly seen the existence of something most precious 

to our nation today. Those who can calmly describe with a smile their experiences 

of dealing with the dreadful process of being persecuted have shaken my soul. I was 

often moved to tears. In our nation, I have finally seen the spirit that remains faithful and unyielding, holding onto the intangible quality of principles. 

The tribulation in the last six years has created a large group of people who have 

this unmatchable and noble human dignity. Their firmness towards faith, the way 

they treat the brutal custody with scorn, as well as their optimism that our nation 

will have a beautiful future earns one’s deep respect. Another trend we found in our 

investigation is that every Falun Gong follower who has stepped out of custody, no 

matter how long he or she was in custody, becomes more faithful. The most typical 

example is Ms. Han from Fuxin City, Liaoning province, who was arrested and 

placed in custody several times. After being released from a brutal custody that 

lasted for a few years, the head of the local police station tried to make her promise 

not to practice Falun Gong any more. To this, she told the policeman, who represents the people’s government, firmly yet peacefully: ‘‘Even if you arrest me one 

hundred times, I will still continue to practice. The fact that we practice is nothing 

wrong, let alone a crime. After I returned home from custody, through constantly 

telling our family members and the people around me the truth about Falun Dafa, 

over thirty of them have joined the practice.’’ 

This time, during my stay with the Falun Gong group, I also found another delightful fact. In contrast to the current situation where the humanity, conscience, 

morality, compassion, and responsibility of our society is suffering an overall deterioration, these cultivators, as a group reborn from the old nation, have impacted 

all of these areas in a positive way. One can feel the powerful way in which faith 

can change one’s soul. Indeed it has allowed me to see a spark of hope for rescuing 

our nation from its current depraved state. 

Through my acquaintance with these believers, I was deeply moved by their calmness when narrating their unprecedented calamity, their compassion toward those 

that tortured them, and their optimism towards our nation’s future. These people 

take fame and profit very lightly. They continue to quietly assist fellow practitioners 

whose lives are in danger due to the ruthless oppression. Their patience in assisting 

the vulnerable children or the elderly relatives of Falun Gong practitioners, who 

were either illegally detained or killed, is beyond a typical human being’s imagination or understanding. How one’s belief has such a strong influence over one’s soul 

and morality is unbelievable. 

For instance, Zhu Xiaoguang, who is 33 years old, told me that when he was first 

thrown in the prison, malicious interactions among inmates were the only type of 

communication. People there gained the upper hand by being more ruthless than 

the others. No one wanted to be tamed or required to exercise any self-restraint. 

Later on, Falun Gong practitioners miraculously cleansed the prisoners’ souls and 

guided 100 people to begin practicing Falun Gong. He said, ‘‘I calmed myself 

through a complete transformation of my spirit.’’ As a result, many new inmates 

were dumbfounded to find kind and helping hands in place of ‘‘tone-down lessons’’ 

upon their arrival at the prison. 

The experience of Zhang Linyou, a former policeman in Kungchuling Detention 

Center, was even more astonishing. He told me that practicing Falun Gong led him 

to become the only policeman in that gigantic prison who stopped torturing prisoners and turned down any bribes. He said that he was under constant agony the 

first year he decided to quit his bad habits. It was extremely painful for him to see 

his colleagues accept bribery and to resist the temptation when he himself was short 

of money! He proudly told me that cultivation completely transformed his soul! 

Later on the 60 inmates under his charge were very grateful to him and believed 

that all the Chinese police should practice Falun Gong. If that happened, the prisoners said, the Chinese police would become the most civilized in the world. Nevertheless, Zhang Linyou was later illegally sentenced to forced labor and dismissed 

from his job for practicing Falun Gong. 
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Yet we are distressed to see that the transformation of people in China is going 

in the opposite direction. Public political pressures and temptation have annihilated 

the last trace of kindness in the police. The evil side of human beings is rapidly 

dominating their behavior, while a basic conscience is no longer valued. The police 

are, in fact, victims of this fanatical movement to eliminate human nature. 

Belief and morality are the most important elements for securing the longevity 

and advancement of a nation. What our nation has missed the most over the last 

few decades is the underlying belief that upholds and enhances our nation’s moral 

values. This is the cause of China’s continued chaos for the past few decades. Hence, 

for the long-term well being of our country, one must grant and protect people’s freedom of belief. Only through transforming people’s hearts can we create a world with 

hope. What our government has been doing in the past six years is utilizing violent 

and barbaric tactics to impede our nation from striving towards a bright future. 

In this open letter, I would also like to bring several requests to the government’s 

attention. These are to end immediately the violent persecution of people who uphold their beliefs and to free and compensate Yang Guang and other prisoners of 

conscience! Yet we are not asking for the government to reinstate the good name 

of Falun Gong people. For in their own hearts, as well as in the hearts of ethical 

members in our society, no one has ever claimed that this group of people was problematic. A system that has ruthlessly tortured a nation for over half a century no 

longer has the moral values or qualifications to reinstate anyone’s good name. Moreover, to allow such a statement to be made by this system is an insult to the victims! I hereby warn those who still endorse violence to cease their barbaric acts 

since this is your last chance! 

Lastly, allow me to tell Mr. Hu Jintao and Mr. Wen Jiabao with respect that we 

must have the courage and morality to admit that the political machine, which has 

ruthlessly tortured our nation for half a century, is tainted with the blood and tears 

of innocent people and that the piteous fate of the Chinese people, owing to coercion 

and oppression by the dictatorship of thousands of years, is still without end. We 

must acknowledge that our nation, our people, have the right to pursue democracy, 

freedom, the rule of law, and human rights, and that this yearning has never before 

been this fervent. Today, any attempt to obstruct people’s pursuit for the 

abovementioned rights will end in vain. Please pardon my frankness but all the 

blood debts have been engraved in the people’s eyes, experiences, and tainted memories. Gentlemen, only when the safety of the suffering people is in your hearts can 

you find true security. Likewise, only when you genuinely care for the future of our 

nation will you have equally as bright a future! 

Wishing Mr. Jintao and Mr. Wen Jiabao safety and health in the New Year. 

May the New Year bring a new world for my fellow citizens! 

May God bless the Chinese people! 

Your fellow citizen, 

Gao Zhisheng 

December 12, 2005—Changchun City, Jilin Province 

* * * * * * * * 1On Dec. 6 paramilitary police fired on villagers in Shanwei, in Guangdong province, killing 

dozens. The villagers were protesting the confiscation of their land without fair compensation. 2Dr. Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Peking University, was recently fired for his outspoken views on censorship. 3The ‘‘Tiger Bench’’ is a torture device. Victims are forced to sit on a small iron bench that 

is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall. Victims’ knees are tightly tied on the small bench—the 

Tiger Bench. Several inmates are assigned to watch over the practitioners and force them to 

remain motionless while sitting on the bench. Usually some hard objects are inserted underneath the victims’ lower legs or ankles to make the pain more intense. For an illustration, 

please see: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/24/16156.html 4 In the ‘‘Death Bed’’ torture the four limbs are stretched out and tied to the four corners of 

an icy-cold metal bed. The victim cannot move at all. Neither is he allowed to get up to eat, 

drink, or go to the bathroom. This treatment would last from several hours up to more than 

a dozen days. This type of cruel torture causes severe damage both mentally and physically. 

See illustration on http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/12/15/55600.html 

DARK NIGHT, DARK HOOD AND KIDNAPPING BY DARK MAFIA

[My Account of More Than 50 Days of Torture in 2007] 

BY GAO ZHISHENG

These words from me today will be finally revealed one day. They will expose the 

true face of today’s China and will disclose the unimaginable heart and characteristics of the ‘‘ruling party’’ in China. 
99 

Of course, these words will inevitably bring unpleasant and even disturbed, embarrassed feelings to those global ‘‘good friends’’ and ‘‘nice partners’’ of today’s Chinese Communist Party—IF these global ‘‘good friends’’ and ‘‘nice partners’’ still have 

some concern in their hearts for the value of human conscience and morality. 

Today, the suddenly well off CCP has not only gained more and more global ‘‘good 

friends’’ and ‘‘nice partners’’ but also has spoken more and more loudly such perverted slogans as ‘‘China is a country with rule of law.’’ Both will be disastrous to 

the progress and development of the human rights of the Chinese people. 

Around 8 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2007 the authorities notified me orally that I should 

go for a mind re-education talk. I found there were some unusual things happening 

this time. The secret police, who used to follow me very closely, kept a greater distance. I was walking down the street that day and, when I turned a corner, about 

six or seven strangers started walking towards me. I suddenly felt a strong blow 

to the back of my neck and fell face down on the ground. Someone yanked my hair 

and a black hood was immediately pulled over my head. 

I was brought to a vehicle and was put in it. Although I couldn’t see, it seemed 

to me that it had two benches with a space in the middle. I was put in the space 

in the middle on the floor. My right cheek was on the ground. All of a sudden a 

boot was stepped on my face holding me down. Many hands started searching all 

over me. My belt was pulled off and then used to tie my hands behind my back. 

At least four people stepped their feet on me holding me down. 

About 40 minutes later I was dragged out of the car. My pants were falling down 

around my knees and I was dragged into a room. No one had said anything at all 

to me until that time. The hood was pulled off of my head at this time. Immediately 

men began cursing and hitting me. ‘‘***, your date of death has come today. Brothers, let’s give him a brutal lesson today. Beat him to death.’’ 

Then, four men with electric shock prods began beating my head and all over my 

body. Nothing but the noise of the beating and my anxious breathing could be 

heard. I was beaten so severely that my whole body began uncontrollably shaking. 

‘‘Don’t let him rest! ’’ shouted a guy I later learned is named Wang. Then a very 

strong and tall (approximately 6’ 1′′) man grabbed my hair and pulled me up off 

the ground. Then Wang began beating me on the face terribly. 

‘‘***, you are not worthy to wear black clothes. Are you a Mafia leader? Pull off 

all of his clothes.’’ 

All my clothes were pulled off and I was totally naked. Wang yelled again, and 

someone kicked me in the back of my legs, and I collapsed to the floor. The big guy 

continued to pull my hair and forced me to lift my head to see Wang. 

At this time, I could see that there were five people in the room. Four of the men 

were holding electric prods, and one was holding my belt. 

‘‘You listen, Gao, today your uncles want nothing but to make your life worse than 

death. I tell you the truth, your matter is not only between you and the government. 

‘‘Look at the floor! There is not a single drop of water. After a while the water 

will be above your ankles. After a while you will learn where the water will come 

from.’’ 

While Wang was saying this, the electric shock prods were thrust on my face and 

upper body shocking me. 

Wang then said, ‘‘Come on guys, deliver the second course! ’’ Then, the electric 

shock batons were put all over me. And my full body, my heart, lungs and muscles 

began jumping under my skin uncontrollably. I was writhing on the ground in pain, 

trying to crawl away. Wang then shocked me in my penis. 

My begging them to stop only resulted in laughing and more unbelievable torture. 

Wang then used the electric shock baton three more times on my penis while shouting loudly. 

After a few hours of this I had no energy to even beg, let alone try to escape. But 

my mind was still clear. I felt my body was jerking very strongly when the baton 

touched me. I clearly felt some water sprinkled on my arms and legs as I was jerking. It was then I realized that this was sweat from me, and I realized what Wang 

had meant about the water. 

It seems that the torturers themselves were also tired. Before the dawn came, 

three of them left the room. ‘‘We will come back later to give him the next course,’’ 

Wang said. 

The two left in the room, put a chair in the middle of the room and pulled me 

up and set me in the chair. One of them had five pieces of cigarettes in his mouth. 

One man stood behind me and the man with the cigarettes was in front. 

The man behind grabbed my hair and pulled my head forward and down. The 

other man used the cigarettes to fill my nose and eyes with smoke over and over. 

They did this with the utmost patience. After a while I didn’t have any feeling except for some tears dropping on my legs. 
100 

This continued for about two hours. Then some other guys came in replacing the 

previous two. My eyes could not see because they were now swollen shut. 

The new guys started talking, ‘‘Gao, are you still able to hear with your ears? I 

tell you the truth, these guys are experts in cracking down on Mafia guys. They are 

heavies. This time they are chosen specifically and carefully by the higher authorities for this purpose. 

‘‘Can you hear who I am? My last name is Jiang. I followed you to Xiajiang after 

you were released last year.’’ 

‘‘Are you the one from Penglai City, Shandong?’’ I asked. 

‘‘Yes, your memory is still good. I told you, you would come back sooner or later. 

When I saw you the way you behaved in Xiajiang, I knew you would be back. You 

even looked down upon our police. 

‘‘Shouldn’t we help you have a better lesson? You wrote that letter to American 

Congress. Look at you, you traitor. What could you be given by your American lord? 

The American Congress counts for nothing. This is China. It is the Communist Party’s territory. 

‘‘To capture your life is as easy as stepping on an ant. If you dare to continue 

to write your stupid articles, the government has to make its attitude clear. Now, 

did you see that attitude tonight? ’’ Jiang spoke slowly. 

I asked, ‘‘How can you treat taxpayers using such Mafia tactics? How could you 

face billions of Chinese in the future? ’’ 

‘‘That is why you deserve to be beaten,’’ said Jiang. ‘‘You are more clear in your 

mind than most people. Taxpayers count for nothing in China. Don’t talk about this 

term ’taxpayers.’ ’’ 

While he was saying this, someone else entered the room. I recognized the voice 

to be Wang’s. ‘‘Don’t talk to him with your mouth. Give him the real thing. Your 

uncles have prepared 12 courses. We only finished 3 last night. 

‘‘Your chief uncle doesn’t like to talk and so after a while you will see that you 

will have to eat your own S*** and drink your own piss. A toothpick will touch your 

light [sexual organs]. ‘‘ 

‘‘Don’t you talk about torture by the Communist Party yet, because we will give 

you a comprehensive lesson now! 

‘‘You are correct, we torture Falun Gong. Everything is right. The 12 courses 

we’re going to give to you were practiced on the Falun Gong. To tell you the truth, 

I am not afraid that you continue to write. We can torture you to death without 

your body being found. 

‘‘You stinky outsider [meaning, not from Beijing]! How dare of you being so arrogant in Beijing? Let’s teach him the lesson again.’’ 

In the following hours of torture, I passed out from time to time because of lack 

of water and food, and heavy sweating. I was lying down on the cold floor naked. 

I felt several times someone come and open my eyes and shine a flashlight in them 

to see if I was still alive. 

When I would come to, I smelled the strong odor of stinky urine. My face, nose, 

and hair were filled with the smell. Obviously, but I don’t know when, someone had 

urinated on my face and head. 

This torture continued until around noon on the third day. I don’t know where 

I got the strength to endure, but somehow I struggled to get away from their grasp 

and suddenly ram my head again the edge of the table. 

I was shouting the names of my two children (Tiangyu and GeGe) with such a 

sad and remote voice and trying to kill myself. But my attempt did not succeed. I 

thank Almighty God for this. It is He who rescued me. I truly felt God dragged me 

back from that state and gave me my life. 

My eyes were full of blood, though, because of my head-banging. I fell on the 

ground. Immediately, three people sat on my body. One was on my face. They were 

laughing. They said I used my death to try to scare them. They said they have just 

seen this too many times. 

They then continued the torture again until that night. I could not see anything 

with my eyes anymore. I could still hear my torturers though, and again they gathered after they had dinner. 

One of them came and pulled my hair, dragging me up. ‘‘Gao, are you hungry? 

Tell us the truth!′′ 

I said, ‘‘I am very hungry.’’ 

‘‘Do you want to eat? Tell us the truth!′′ 

I said, ‘‘I want to eat.’’ Immediately, they slapped my face repeatedly, a dozen 

times or more, and I again collapsed to the ground. A boot stomped on my chest, 

and someone shocked me on the chin with the baton. I screamed. Then someone 

thrust the baton into my mouth. 
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‘‘Let’s see how different your mouth is from others. Don’t you want to eat? You 

said you are hungry. Are you worthy?’’ The baton was in my mouth but was not 

turned on. I was wondering why? 

‘‘Gao, do you know why we didn’t destroy your mouth?’’ then Wang said. ‘‘Tonight 

your uncles want you to talk the whole night. We want you to talk about nothing 

except about how you are a womanizer. You are not allowed to say you are not one. 

You are not allowed to say there are just a few women, either. Don’t forget any details. You can’t leave any details out. Your uncles like this. We have slept and eaten 

enough, it’s your time to talk.’’ 

‘‘Why didn’t he talk? Beat him up brothers! ’’ Wang shouted. Three batons began 

shocking me. I was crawling all over trying to get away and was still naked. After 

more than 10 minutes, I was shaking uncontrollably again. 

I begged them. ‘‘I didn’t have an affair. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you.’’ I 

heard my voice was quivering. 

‘‘Are you becoming a fool? ’’ said Wang. ‘‘Let’s use the baton to light you and see 

if you start talking.’’ 

Then two people stretched out my arms and pinned them to the ground. They 

used toothpicks to pierce my penis. I can’t use any language to describe the helplessness, pain, and despair that I felt then. At a point like that, language and emotion 

do not have the power to explain. Finally I made up stories, telling them about affairs that I had with four women. After more repeated torture, I had to describe 

how I had sex with each of these women in details. This continued until dawn the 

next day. 

At that time, I was dragged to where I had to sign the transcript of my confession 

about my affairs. ‘‘If we send this out, you will become stinky dog’s *** in half a 

year,’’ Wang said loudly. 

After I was released, I learned that the day after the torture the interrogator 

named Sun informed my wife of ‘‘the truth’’ they had learned about my affairs. My 

wife told them: ‘‘I do not need government’s help to get to know my husband. In 

my eyes, he is still the one who wrote 3 open letters to urge the government to stop 

persecution of Falun Gong.’’ 

After being tortured for days, I often lost consciousness and was unable to determine the passage of time. I don’t know how long had passed. A group of them were 

preparing to torture me again. 

Another guy came in, though, and rebuked them. I could hear it was a deputy 

director from the Beijing PSB. I had seen him many times before. I thought him 

to be a good person. 

I could not see him though, because my eyes were still swollen. My whole body 

was beaten and skins were all bruised and unrecognizable. He sounded angry because of my condition. He found a doctor to attend to me. He said he was appalled 

and surprised. He said, ‘‘This torture doesn’t represent the Communist Party!′′ 

I asked him, ‘‘Who directed this?’’ 

He didn’t reply. I asked to be sent back home or even just back to prison. He 

didn’t reply. He brought my torturers back into the room and rebuked them. He ordered them to buy clothes for me and give me a blanket and food. He told me he 

would try his best to either get me back to prison or back home. 

As soon as the deputy left, Wang began cursing me. ‘‘Gao, you even dream to go 

to prison? No, that is too easy. You won’t have any chance to do that as long as 

the CCP is still in power. Don’t even think about that.’’ 

That same night, I was transported to another location, but I didn’t know where, 

since I had a black hood over my head again. I was continuously tortured there 

again for more than 10 days. 

Then one day, they put the hood on me again, and I was put into a vehicle. My 

head was forced in between my legs, and I had to remain that way for more than 

an hour. The suffering was more than I could stand, and I wanted to die. 

After another hour, at a new location, the hood was removed. Four of the previous 

five torturers were not there. Instead, I saw the same group of secret police who 

used to follow me. 

From then on, the physical torture stopped, but emotional torture continued. I 

was told the 17th Communist Party Congress was starting and that I had to wait 

for the higher authorities’ opinions about my case. 

During that time, some officials came to visit my cell. Their attitude was softer, 

and I was also allowed to wash my face and brush my teeth. 

Some officials proposed to me to use my writing skills to curse Falun Gong instead, and that I could charge whatever I wanted for doing that. I said it is not 

a technical problem but an ethical problem. 

‘‘So, if that is too hard, then write articles praising the government, and again 

charge whatever you want,’’ they suggested. 
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Finally, they proposed, ‘‘If you write that you and your family were treated well 

after prison and that you were fooled by Falun Gong and Hu Jia, things will go well. 

Otherwise, how can you find an end to your suffering? Think of your wife and children.’’ 

In exchange, I did write an article that said the government treated my family 

well. In that article, I explained that I wrote the open letter to the U.S. Congress 

because I had been fooled by Falun Gong and Hu Jia. 

Before I was released to go home, though, I was brought to Xian city to make a 

phone call to Hu Jia. 

On the date of the mid-autumn festival, the authorities asked me to call my wife 

and comfort her since she was holding a protest and trying to commit suicide over 

the government’s treatment of our family. 

The content of the call was all designed by the authorities (Later I learned that 

my wife’s response was also choreographed.). I could still not open one of my eyes 

at that time due to the previous torture. Since the call was being taped, I was told 

to explain that it was from a self-inflicted wound. 

In the middle of November 2007, after I got home, I learned that my house had 

been thoroughly searched again, without a single document or search warrant having been produced. During those more than 50 days of horrifying torture on my body 

and spirit, I had many strange feelings. For example, sometimes I could really hear 

‘‘death’’ and sometimes I could really hear ‘‘life.’’ 

On the twelfth or thirteenth day of my kidnapping, when I could again partially 

open my eyes, I saw my body was in a horrifying condition. Not a single square centimeter of my skin was normal. It was bruised and damaged over every part. 

Every day while I was being held, the experience of ‘‘eating’’ was unusual. Whenever I was at the point of starving, they would bring up ‘‘mantle’’ [steamed bread] 

and offer it to me. If I would sing one of the three famous revolutionary Communist 

Party songs, I could have some bread. 

My deepest desire was that I wanted to live until that was no longer possible. 

My death would be torturous for my wife and children, but at the same time I didn’t 

want to dirty my soul. But in that environment, human dignity has no strength. 

If you don’t sing these songs, you will continue to be starved, and they will continue 

to torture you, so I sang. 

When they used the same tactic, though, pressuring me to write articles attacking 

Falun Gong, I didn’t do it. But I did compromise by writing my statement saying 

the government didn’t kidnap and torture me and that they treated my family well. 

I did sign that document. 

During these more than 50 days, more horrible evils were committed than I have 

told here. Those evils are not even worthy of any historical records by any human 

governments. But those records will further enable us to see clearly how much further the leaders of the CCP are willing go in the CCP’s evil crimes against humanity in order to protect its illegal monopoly on power! Those evils are so dirty and 

disgusting that I don’t want to mention them at this time and perhaps will never 

mention them in the future. 

Every time when I was tortured, I was always repeatedly threatened that, if I 

spelled out later what had happened to me, I would be tortured again, but I was 

told, ‘‘This time it will happen in front of your wife and children.’’ 

The tall, strong man who pulled my hair repeated this over and over during the 

days I was tortured. ‘‘Your death is sure if you share this with the outside world,’’ 

he said. This was repeated many times. These brutal, violent acts are not right. 

Those that did it, themselves, knew this clearly in their hearts. 

Finally, I want to say a few words that won’t be liked by some folks. I want to 

remind those so-called global ‘‘good friends,’’ ‘‘good partners,’’ so-called by the CCP, 

that the increasing degree of brutality and coldness against the Chinese people by 

the CCP is the direct result of appeasement by both you and us (our own Chinese 

people). 

Gao Zhisheng 

Written on November 28, 2007 at my besieged home in Beijing 

Authorized to be released to international community on February 9, 2009 
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WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, SENIOR FELLOW, THE HUDSON

INSTITUTE

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

I have taken a personal step today as an act of kinship with heroes of faith and 

conscience now languishing in Chinese prisons. 

In particular, I hope to help bring to public attention and the attention of the 

President to the cases of towering world figures known as the ‘‘China Six.’’ With 

many others, I believe that their release from jail should be a priority concern in 

today’s meeting—and, until they are released, in all other high level US-China 

meetings. 

When I worked at the White House I saw what a concerned President Reagan was 

able to do on behalf of Jewish Refuseniks, Pentecostals and other prisoners of conscience of the former Soviet Union. I hope and believe that President Obama will 

do the same for the China Six and others held in Chinese prisons and know that 

he can be powerfully effective on their behalves. 

I hope that the President will make clear to Vice President Xi what the President 

of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, 

the President of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism on behalf of the China Six: ‘‘Stable relations between China and the United States rest upon agreement to shared commitments to fundamental human rights, including the right to religious freedom. . . ’’ 

Most of all, I hope that Vice President Xi’s visit to the United States will help him 

understand that escalating mistrust between the United States and China—a development in the interest of neither country or the world at large—will be the consequence of persecuting such prisoners of faith and conscience as the China Six. 

I and others have great hope for progress in US-China relations as Vice President 

Xi Jinping assumes leadership in China. The sixteen year persecution of his father 

for acts of conscience not dissimilar from those of the China Six—a persecution 

which Vice President Xi acutely shared—offer hope that he will understand the importance of rule of law reform as a means of protecting and enhancing his country’s 

security, success and respect. 

The treatment of the China Six will send a clear signal about Vice President Xi’s 

vision for China’s future and his interest in improved relations with the United 

States. 

GAO ZHISHENG’S OPEN LETTER TO THE U.S. CONGRESS

SEPTEMBER 27, 2007

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives: 

Most respectful greetings from Gao Zhisheng! Allow me to express my sincere 

gratitude for your kind consideration and support in the past year to me and to the 

values I am pursuing. 

In the past two months, I have twice read the Debates in the Federal Convention 

of 1787 by James Madison. Freedom, democracy, and rule by law and constitution 

are the values China has longed for but has not been able to enjoy. 

There is a saying in China, ‘‘A bite when hungry is better appreciated than a feast 

when full.’’ Likewise, your persistence is especially precious given the almost total 

silence, or even subservience, of the mainstream international world in the past few 

years in the face of the tyranny of the Chinese communist regime, a parvenu government that stops at no evil. 

Your persistence is a symbol that tells the world that the shining side of humanity continues to exist. The persistence you and many others demonstrate in refusing 

to collaborate with this fascist government is a strong wall that the overbearing 

communist regime cannot surmount. This persistence is a buoy that keeps the oppressed from being completely drowned by darkness, and it is the source of strength 

for the downtrodden Chinese people who are struggling to resist the atrocities and 

defend human rights. It is the manna that gives us hope to persevere in our peaceful protest. 

You and other people of conscience are an important force that makes it possible 

for the Chinese people to peacefully abandon the tyranny and to establish a free, 

democratic, and civilized new China. 

I am not a politician. I promise that you won’t see any rhetoric, distortion, or pretense in this letter. Experience teaches us that though the world can be very critical, people often favor counterfeit virtues. This rule is brought to extremes in my 

country by those who vilify the good and glorify evil. In the past two years, the Chi-
120 

nese communist regime has demonstrated every vile act one can and cannot imagine 

during its efforts to silence me. 

As if to prove its determination to destroy human feelings and conscience at all 

cost, the regime ordered at least four secret police to maintain continuous intimate 

man-to-man surveillance on my less-than-3year-old son. My 12-year-old daughter 

was ‘‘privileged’’ to an even higher level of treatment with six to ten male and female secret police at her heels day and night, month after month, even when she 

was in the classroom. All my family members have been followed around by secret 

police and have been illegally detained at will many times. 

During this period, my wife and children suffered repeated brutal assaults. The 

regime is determined to stop at nothing to persecute me, and made special efforts 

to reveal its true color of ‘‘what’s there to be afraid of, being already so notorious,’’ 

only because I stick to my conscience and responsibility as a human being. Behavior 

that is commonly considered to be too degrading for human beings is enforced in 

my country as [mere] political tasks. 

Today, as we approach the Beijing Olympic Games, I ask you to pay attention to 

the ongoing human rights disaster in China, and wish you to forward my appeal 

to the whole world. I ask you to seriously consider the outlook of morality, justice, 

and humanity for today’s mankind, as well as to what extent such values are undermined in China. 

More and more Chinese people are speaking out against the coming Olympic 

Games in China, which they often refer to as lithe bloody Olympics’’ and lithe handcuff Olympics.’’ They raised the protest, ‘‘We want human rights, not the Olympics.’’ 

Recently Mr. Jacques Rogge, president of the Olympic Committee, expressed to the 

Chinese media his determination not to be moved by these ‘‘desperate and indignant’’ voices. Meanwhile, Mr. Rogge asked people not to politicize the Olympic 

Games. 

Though I have very positive feelings about the spirit embodied in the Olympic 

Games, I am not willing to rebuke Mr. Rogge for his dereliction of duty to defend 

the ethical values of the Olympics. But it is necessary to remind Mr. Rogge that 

the Chinese communist regime treated the application and hosting of the Olympic 

Games exactly as an important political task. Everything related to the Olympics 

is regarded as a political issue. 

Liu Qi, China’s key person in charge of these Olympics, claimed that it is an 

‘‘overriding political task’’ to ensure that every need of the Olympic Games is met. 

This is a simple and commonly recognized fact in China. 

What the Chinese authorities failed to predict is how wildly the corrupt officials 

are taking advantage of this ‘‘overriding political task.’’ Under the name of securing 

the success of the Olympic Games, all kinds of evils have been committed in broad 

daylight without any obstruction, including forced eviction, illegal arrests and persecution of people who petition to the authorities, and suppression of religious people. 

It is plain as day to all Chinese people that, with successes in hosting the Olympic 

Games, the communist regime is trying to achieve two goals. First, it tries to prove 

to the Chinese people that the world is still acknowledging the Party as a legal government despite all the suppressive and bloody tyranny and all the horrible crimes 

against humanity the Party has committed during the past decades at the cost of 

at least 80 million Chinese lives. Second, it wants to prove to the world that the 

Party is still fully competent in reigning over China and still enjoys the people’s full 

support. 

As more Chinese people are waking up and rising up to demand the end of tyranny, the call for human rights is becoming louder and louder. Under such circumstances, the Chinese communist regime has developed a twisted but fragile 

mentality and a freakish obsession for maintaining stability and ensuring the Olympic Games at all costs. 

A recent incident in Beijing fully reflects the regime’s fear of the people. An old 

man persevered, until his last breath, in petitioning against the forced eviction that 

robbed him of his home, and died for this cause. At his funeral, Beijing police sent 

hundreds of policemen and unidentified personnel in 59 police vehicles (mostly vans) 

to surround the old man’s residence to prevent people from attending the unyielding 

old man’s funeral (that was being held there). 

Such shameful crimes against people of conscience have been going on for decades. A Heilongjiang farmer, Yang Chunlin, was robbed of his land. He was arrested 

for ‘‘instigating others to overthrow the state government’’ after he cried out, ‘‘We 

want human rights, not the Olympic Games.’’ In recent years, the illegal arrests of 

innocent people have gone beyond all limits. 

Dear friends, as a Chinese person, I have a profound love for my homeland and 

our kind-natured and beleaguered people. I also long to see the day when the Olympic Games are held in China. But when I look at the social environment of China, 
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and how the Olympic Games will be exploited here, my conscience and sense of justice make my heart ache. As you know, today in China those who link the Olympics 

with human rights are immediately hunted down by the communist regime and its 

gang as ‘‘the enemies of the state,’’ ‘‘the sinners of the people,’’ and ‘‘the destroyers 

of social harmony.’’ 

We don’t support, nor pretend to support Olympic Games that are used as a political tool. Nor can we support or pretend to support Olympic Games that have no 

consideration for human conscience, justice, or morality. In a world where the mainstream political forces value profit above everything else, where morality is sneered 

at, we tried in vain to urge the Olympic Games [the International Olympic Committee] to perform its duties. 

But still, I choose to express myself in a way that has almost led to the annihilation of my whole family. I choose to present to the international community what’s 

happening in China, the vivid scenes going in parallel with the preparation for the 

Olympic Games that are totally against the Olympic spirit, though at this moment 

people are busy congratulating themselves on what they have gained in the coming 

Olympic Games. I choose to do so despite the danger I may bring to myself because 

I consider it my obligation as a human being and as a Chinese person. 

The Chinese Communist Party is a criminal group that operates under the protection of state powers. It is essential to realize its criminal nature so that we can come 

to the objective conclusions and in turn make the right decisions. I know clearly 

that due to their greed for profit, not many people would publicly acknowledge this 

observation, while too many people will just pretend they don’t believe it. 

It is widely agreed that for any legal government, its nature and basic moral 

standard must be to protect the values embodied in the constitutional law. What 

we’ve seen in China is just the opposite. This regime has become the obstacle for 

people to defend their basic rights, and has always gone all out to trample on China’s constitution. People’s constitutional rights have become an eternal snag. As a 

single exception, the only law that the communist regime treats with any seriousness is ‘‘the constitutional law ensures the permanent reign of the Chinese Communist Party in China.’’ 

I. THE ONGOING BLOODY RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

The virtues taught by true beliefs, when manifested in society, mean only disaster 

to the evil. Though the freedom of belief is dictated by China’s constitutional law, 

the communist regime has never stopped fighting people’s right to choose their own 

beliefs, a right that is justified by human nature. On the other hand, without a 

court that can enforce the constitutional law, the law has no effective bonds. Even 

so, the communist regime takes great pains to make sure the constitutional law is 

completely suffocated with numerous orders and regulations (for example, the Annual Regulation on Religious Affairs issued by the State Council of China). 

The bloody persecution of Falun Gong, starting in 1999, has surpassed all evils 

ever known to mankind. In the past eight years, over 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been confirmed killed, and countless others injured. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been sent to labor camps. Millions were illegally detained in the countless brainwashing camps established in every corner in China 

by the notorious 610 Office, an agency founded to lead the persecution of Falun 

Gong. Such brainwashing camps require even simpler procedures for admittance 

than the labor camp system, while the methods used to ‘‘educate’’ the practitioners 

are shockingly cruel. 

Tens of millions have been persecuted in various ways. A large number of children 

have been expelled from school only because their parents practice Falun Gong. 

Some of the children were left unattended or even homeless after their parents were 

arrested. (Since last August my daughter met many such children who lingered at 

the gate of her school. The children, though homeless, risked their lives to come up 

to my daughter to express their condolence and support. When my daughter came 

back to relay the message, we were stabbed to the heart.) 

The eight-year-Iong suppression of Falun Gong is so far the most long-lasting and 

the most serious human-rights disaster in China and in the world. This is why I 

am emphasizing it early in this letter. As a proof of this persecution, I’d like to recommend the investigative report I composed after doing an investigation myself. 

The report records the legally acceptable evidence that I collected as an attorney. 

One of the cases in the report involves 28-year-old Liu Boyang, who held a bachelor’s degree in medicine, and his mother, who were both Falun Gong practitioners. 

The mother and son were tortured to death in the same building, within less than 

10 days of their arrest. The last several nights before their deaths, the two could 

hear each other’s tragic cries during the torture. The Chinese police serving the 
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communist regime committed horrible crimes to the mother and son, setting a 

record of shame that blemishes human dignity in history. By the time I was writing 

my third open letter to the Chinese leaders, the corpses of the mother and son were 

still held by the 610 Office that had killed them. Some other victims are stil.1 alive 

to testify about the persecution. 

So today, I would take the liberty to ask you, and to ask all of mankind, the following questions: 

1. Are the eight-year-Iong persecution of Falun Gong and the crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party only a problem for the victims? 

Or are they problems for all of mankind? 

2. Are the CCP’s genocide and their crimes against humanity a threat only to the 

victims, or are they a threat to the moral values of all of human society? 

3. Is mankind capable of dealing with such genocide and crimes against humanity 

committed under the protection of state power? Here three sub-questions may be 

asked: 

A. Does today’s society have the courage and conscience to stand up against the 

long-standing and openly committed genocide? 

B. If yes, do we have the capability to stop it? 

C. Judging by the definition of crimes against humanity and genocide stipulated 

in international laws, a large number of CCP officials’ conduct meets all the criteria for both crimes, including Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Zhou Yongkang and Liu 

Jing. As for evidence, it is nothing but ample. So after all, it’s a question of 

whether mainstream international society has the sense of responsibility and 

courage to honestly face this evidence. The evidence includes: 

1). For each of the over 3,000 confirmed cases of Falun Gong practitioners 

who were persecuted to death (the number is still growing thanks to our 

indifference), we have: 

a. their full name, date of birth, 10, and addresses 

b. detailed accounts of how they were tortured to death 

c. documents to prove their deaths 

d. their corpses, ashes, and tombs as material evidence 

e. testimony from their living families or friends 

f. evidence for their arrests in most cases 

g. for those whose organs were removed, the stitching on the bodies and 

the telephone conversation record with involved hospitals, and evidence 

provided by the transplant doctors involved 

h. a large number of photos of the dead bodies 

i. The people responsible for the killing are still alive and can be summoned and investigated by a special tribunal. 

2). Many Falun Gong practitioners were never heard from after their arrest. Their families can testify. 

3). Over 100,000 survivors who can testify about the tortures they suffered, 

such as electric shock on private parts, tortured with the ‘‘tiger bench,’’ and 

pricked by sharp bamboo sticks. 

4). Tens of thousands of surviving Falun Gong practitioners who had been 

detained in labor camps 

5). Those who are stilled jailed in labor camps 

6). Millions who used to be detained in the brainwashing camps 

7). Those who are still detained in the brainwashing camps 

8). A large but unidentified number of children who were expelled from 

school and left homeless 

9). Tens of millions who lost their jobs and financial sources, who were denied freedom and the right to go abroad 

10). People of conscience within the CCP system who can serve as witnesses 

4. The issue all of us have to face is whether to pursue punishment [of the criminals]. Is China an exception when it comes to Public International Law for its 

crimes against humanity and genocide? We should not ignore difficulties to start 

this process due to the fact that the CCP has seized state power to give shelter to 

the criminals. However, it is feasible, possible, and necessary from the perspective 

of International Law to launch criminal procedures, including issuing arrest warrants, to bring the criminals to justice. 

A significant part of this letter will be dedicated to the Falun Gong issue, as the 

persecution of Falun Gong is the worst disaster to humanity in this era. It does not 

mean, however, that the rights of other religious groups in China are not violated. 

The CCP’s continuous suppression of Christian family churches is comparable to the 

shocking persecution of Falun Gong. Except for large cities such as Beijing and 
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Shanghai, where people strongly oppose the persecution and force the dictators to 

become somewhat restrained, the persecution in townships and villages toward family church members is no different from the disaster suffered by Falun Gong practitioners. 

In my hometown, a small county, the number of arrested, detained, and robbed 

family church members each year is far beyond those persecuted Falun Gong practitioners [in the county], and this illegal persecution has been going on for a long 

time. Based on my investigation on the persecution toward family church members 

in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the CCP has trained a dedicated group 

of police to focus on harassing, persecuting, and suppressing family church members, year-in and year-out. Just recently Mr. Zhou Tong and others in Xinjiang were 

illegally detained. The CCP’s persecution of Christians is an open secret. 

In recent years, the CCP has also escalated the level of brutality and cruelty of 

its persecution toward Tibetan Buddhists. 

II. THE BRUTAL SUPPRESSION OF PEOPLE’S FREEDOM AND RIGHTS

Freedom is one of the most important spiritual factors of a human being. In addition to physical needs, man is the only creature on this earth to also have his equally important spiritual needs. It is a clear manifestation as to how blessed human 

beings are in the eyes of God. However, the Chinese people are ruthlessly deprived 

of this blessing by those in power. In China, freedom is not only a luxury item, but 

it also is regarded as a dangerous item by several generations of dictators. The suppression of people’s longing for freedom is against human nature and against heavenly principles. 

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are basic indicators of a civilized society, and they are also the basic building blocks of freedom, especially social freedom 

in today’s world. For a country without rule by law, freedom of speech and freedom 

of the press are the only ways to ensure people’s rights and safety. Without this 

freedom, one can imagine how unabashed the dictators are and how helpless the 

suppressed groups are. 

The CCP has always considered the control of media as a key political task. When 

implementing this task, the plagues for the CCP have never been any conscientious 

regret, but only problems arising from technological challenges. Recently, especially 

in the past three or four years, along with people waking up to pursue their rights 

and freedom, the CCP has become paranoid and has tried to use every method to 

control the media. It has created shocking incidents suppressing people who practice 

their rights of freedom on the basis of law. 

In the past two years, Mr. Zheng Yichun, Mr. Yang Tianshui, Mr. Guo Qizhen, 

Mr. Guo Feixiong, Mr. Yang Zhengxue, Mr. (Wang) Lihong and a large number of 

other renowned Internet writers were illegally detained, and more recently, the CCP 

illegally arrested Mr. Lu Gengsong and harassed his family, turning a deaf ear to 

all appeals from home and abroad. 

Recently, the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security issued an urgent notice to order 

Internet Data Center (IDC) providers to shut down all forums, blogs, and other online information exchange platforms before the 17th National Congress. If one center is found to have more than seven sites of online platforms, it will be shut down 

and heavily fined. This is another evil campaign in the CCP’s atrocious history to 

illegally suppress the media. 

Freedom of association is regarded as a threat by dictators. In a country without 

freedom of association, people have no way to create a strong union to defend themselves from the brutal dictatorship. How can a group of people without any connection, as a result of lack of freedom of association, challenge a regime fortified with 

weapons as its state machinery? The feeling of fragility and frustration of the Chinese people is beyond imagination for those in a democratic country. In China, the 

whole nation is subdued by a small group of hooligans who segregate and persecute 

people, one group after another. Even the thought and speech about establishing another political party is regarded as a first-level terrorist event and is illegally suppressed. 

III. FURIOUS SUPPRESSION OF THE RIGHTS DEFENSE MOVEMENT

In recent years, the CCP has furiously suppressed the Chinese peoples’ rights defense movement to the edge of lunacy. A typical example is the case of Chen 

Guangcheng. When Chen Guangcheng, a blind man and a human rights defender, 

learned of family planning abuses in Linyi City, Shandong Province, through his 

own investigation, he made public the CCP’s practice of forced abortions and sterilizations. Chen said that a human being should be allowed to travel freely to the 

country and the world. However, his single voice caused the whole Chinese com-
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munist regime to panic. Their reaction was not to stop the continuation of these 

crimes committed throughout the entire country, but to exert brutal persecution 

against the upright and brave hero Chen Guangcheng, along with his innocent wife, 

young son, and elderly mother in her seventies. 

The CCP’s birth control policy is the largest genocide in the history of mankind. 

Millions of unborn each year have lost their lives simply because a few dictators 

made such a policy. (The Chinese regime officially released figures that the birth 

control policy has helped prevent 400 million births in the last 20 years}. Common 

people who have not obeyed the policy have received extremely harsh punishment. 

The startling evidence of these excessive crimes by the CCP that blind Chen 

Guangcheng happened to ‘‘witness’’ and exposed to the public—these are just a 

small fraction of the long list of the CCP’s countless crimes. 

In such cruel and inhuman ways, the CCP suppresses and persecutes the populace. Since Chen helped local villagers in their attempt to sue the local authorities 

in Linyi City for carrying out an illegal policy of forced abortions and sterilizations 

that reportedly affected thousands of local women, Chen has suffered severe beatings, illegal detentions, false accusations, and his family has also encountered endless harassment and persecution. 

The CCP has been criticized as being completely insane and inhumane, which is 

very true. The CCP has no regard for consequences and commits crimes at all costs. 

The CCP knows clearly to what an excessive and heinous extent it has committed 

crimes against humanity, the people, and the country, and that the atrocities are 

startling. On one hand, they continue to deceive people and commit crimes. On the 

other hand, the CCP covers its lies and crimes at any cost. The whole Party focuses 

its effort on covering up its lies and crimes, which is labeled as ‘‘political awareness’’ 

among all levels of government organizations and CCP committees. 

Here I want to remind the ladies and gentlemen of the open letter to Hu Jintao, 

written by the prominent human rights defender Guo Feixiong’s wife, which contains a detailed account of Guo’s horrifying experience during a year in prison. Guo 

is a human rights defender of complete integrity in both personality and conduct. 

His firm determination and persistence in his human rights work threw the communist regime into panic. In two years, Guo was detained three times, during which 

he had his first hunger strike for 40 days and second for 59 days. The letter revealed how the communist dictatorial system had blatantly tortured Guo against 

humanity and civilization: 

‘‘According to Guo’s attorney, Mo Shaoping, during a prison visit on September 

29, 2006, Guo told Mo that he was subjected to around-the-clock interrogation for 

13 days. Guo had gone on a hunger strike for 15 days in protest against the torture 

he had received since his detainment on September 14, on suspicion of illegal business activity.’ 

‘‘During his detention, he was subjected to physical abuse and was handcuffed 

and shackled to his bed for 42 days. Guo experienced the worst treatment after 

being transferred to a detention center in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. There 

interrogators heavily beat him, shackled his hands behind his back, and sat him on 

a tiger bench. As a result, overpressure from the torture damaged his shoulder 

joints. Even more brutally, the police, headed by Tao Zhongge and Yang Naixin, applied a high-voltage electric baton to his genitals. On August 7, 2007, Guo told his 

attorney that this brutality of viciously and continuously striking his genitalia damaged his health and lead to incurable injury to his body. 

‘‘All of these to us are just like nightmares that we cannot get away from. In the 

past two or three years, the precipitous, cruel reality around us has become the 

main theme of our lives. How can the world become so absurd, and what on earth 

will it drive people to? If we hadn’t personally experienced the suffering and pain, 

we could not believe such incomprehensible things happening around us. 

‘‘President Hu Jintao, what I have seen is this: Your face looks calm and smiling, 

shown along the headlines of major newspapers; your manner of statesmanship 

plays well in domestic and international news; moreover, you are often found to be 

associated with bright events and warm scenes. But here, at this moment, I have 

to tell you a story that one cannot bear to listen to, as if it had happened on some 

other world. 

‘‘What is actually going on? Why have all of these things happened? Does the harmonious society that people dream about and long for truly exist? How far is this 

ideal from my own life? How far away are we from having true human rights? To 

the disgrace and indignity of all humanity, on February 12, 2007, police forced a 

confession from Guo after using electric batons to shock his genitals, but they were 

not quite satisfied. On the night of March 19, officers dragged him to a secret location for his final interrogation and reportedly beat him. They tortured him the same 

way they would treat a death-row prisoner—with his face covered and hands tied. 
125 

They beat him fiercely and concluded their abuse by shoving an electric baton into 

his pants and striking his genitals continuously for about five to six minutes.’’ 

I am not able to see your facial expressions as you read these stories that tell 

how Hu’s regime treats people of conscience. Few people in China would be surprised about hearing such things. Unfortunately, this is because our government 

has subjected too many to this savage behavior for too long. Among both male and 

female Falun Gong practitioners that I have been in contact with, the majority of 

them were tortured and humiliated through the assaulting or shocking of their genitals with electric batons. 

Since the beginning of this year, there have been large-scale forced abductions of 

appellants in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities. The bloody violence occurring in 

broad daylight is shocking. 

IV. EVIL CONDUCT OF STEALING PRIVATE PROPERTY

The Constitution of the Chinese Communist regime also regards the protection of 

private property as a constitutional principle. However, for over half a century, the 

regime has conducted enormous and indescribable crimes against property owners. 

As stated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, when people feel the need to unite themselves 

into civil societies, ‘‘you will find no other motive than that of assuring the property, 

life, and liberty of each member by the protection of all.’’ 

The United States is fortunate in that legislators came into being after the War 

of Independence. The disaster of China’s situation stems from a militant and imperious regime that emerged during our civil war. This ruling force, whose evil deeds 

have become almost second nature, has continued to use its power to steal people’s 

property. 

Let’s look at some examples of how the Chinese government has continued to 

abuse people’s rights through confiscating their property. On Jan. 18, 1956, the Secretary of the CCP Central Committee stipulated a policy known as ‘‘Management 

Leasing of Properties’’ which demanded that private -property owners turn over 

their land rights to the government. The government would then take control over 

the leasing and management of these properties, giving the former owner a symbolic 

rent fee at a shockingly low rate. This campaign affected 700,000 households, with 

the government taking over approximately 130 million square meters (80,800 sq 

miles) of private property. 

In Beijing alone, six thousand households were ordered to turn in their property, 

which amounted to 199,147+ homes. It was later revealed that this particular plunder was yet another massive theft of private property after the government’s Land 

Reform and Socialist Reform programs. However, this round of theft was different 

from the two before in two aspects. First, the constitution was already in place at 

that time. Second, the government had issued a property ownership certificate for 

all these properties before the confiscation. Therefore, this very government revealed another side of itself—that of a crooked and scoundrel regime. To this day, 

the government still occupies these stolen properties and refuses to return them to 

their rightful owners. Most of these property owners have suffered tremendously 

under the government’s ‘‘Management and Leasing of Properties’’ policy. 

Ning Jinglun’s family once owned 18+ houses in Beijing, which were turned over 

to the government in 1958. When an official made a mistake calculating the rent, 

Jinglun, who was 17 at the time, voiced his opinion, and was branded for having 

‘‘political problems.’’ Jinglun was sentenced to four years and four months of forced 

labor for his comment, and his mother was held in a detention center for five days. 

During the Cultural Revolution, his father and elder brother were beaten to death, 

due to issues arising from the government’s ‘‘leasing and managing’’ their confiscated property. Jinglun was later labeled a counter-revolutionary and was driven 

out of Beijing along with his mother. The property has never been returned to the 

family. 

Ma Lianfu and his sister were also residents of Beijing. Their parents passed 

away when they were still young. They depended on the rental income from their 

16+ inherited houses to make a living. After the ‘‘Management and Leasing by Government’’ campaign in 1958 the government only gave them 15.61 yuan (about 

US$2) per year in rent. At that rate, the brother and sister soon became homeless. 

Staff from Tiantanghe Farm forcibly took the Ma’s into their labor camp. It was 

not until 1992; that they returned to Beijing, jobless and homeless. These two elderly people have suffered many heartbreaking ordeals. Even today, the government 

periodically puts the Ma’s under house arrest during major festivals and CCP celebration events. 

Year after year, hundreds of thousands of victims of the ‘‘Management and Leasing of Properties’’ policy and their heirs continue to struggle with appeals for their 
126 

unjust situation. On December 15, 2006, the CCP’s Construction Administration Department issued a No. [2006]208 document regarding housing. emphasizing that 

‘‘properties confiscated under the ‘Management and Leasing of Properties’ policy are 

explicitly owned by the state. Ownership status must not be changed.’’ The document also instructed local authorities to pay attention to these properties as they 

are ‘‘political’’ issues and ‘‘sensitive’’ in nature. It reads: ‘‘For issues related to these 

properties, no one is allowed to conduct interviews or report these issues without 

approval from the Construction Administration Department.’’ Millions of individual’s property ownership rights were thus denied by part of an unconstitutional document. 

In today’s China, those who are in power are indeed worthless in terms of virtue 

and conscience. Even worse than their suffering a deficiency of such attributes, 

these individuals gained power precisely because of their lack of virtue and conscience. The rich do not even spare a tiny portion of their wealth to benefit the society. They are infinitely more concerned with maintaining the status quo than in 

changing it. They’ve colluded into a political clique despised by all and respected by 

none. With the excuse that their parent’s generation had made indescribable accomplishments to justify today’s dictatorship, they grasp and protect their privilege at 

all costs. 

The barrels of guns, police, and prisons are all that account for their ‘‘spiritual’’ 

wealth. Without virtue or conscience, they stop at no evil; they seem to have no 

limit when it comes to committing evil. They never concern themselves with how 

much they’re hated or the negative image they project because they can resort to 

the above-mentioned ‘‘spiritual’’ wealth to further their pursuits. The massive 

shared hatred against this political clique constitutes yet another ‘‘possession’’ in 

their life, on top of all their existing evilness. 

Over the last 15 years, this political clique has forcibly torn down civilians’ private homes to a completely irrational extent. They have forcibly torn down countless 

homes of the poor—an act no different than stripping the clothes off a person suffering poverty in the cold of winter. Their crimes do not just stop here. For a long 

time, through terror and duress they have relentlessly fought the appeal and accusation that would otherwise arise from their victims. 

Take Shanghai as an example. For over a decade, courageous local citizens went 

to Beijing, one group after another, to expose the crimes of [various Communist 

Party officials] Huang Ju, Chen Liangyu, Han Zheng, Liu Yungeng, Wu Zhiming, 

and others. Several lost their lives in doing so; while many others endured illegal 

surveillance, home-ransacking, detention, forced-labor, imprisonment, forced submission into mental hospitals, harassment, having their phones tapped, and all kinds 

of suppression. Recently, 215 courageous Shanghai citizens, including the renowned 

human rights lawyer Zheng Enchong, wrote an open letter to the CCP’s chairman 

Hu Jintao, enumerating the crimes committed by the p6litical clique in Shanghai 

that had harmed people’s personal rights and property rights to the extreme. In an 

open letter they wrote: II By any means necessary, they drove 2.8 million Shanghai 

citizens from the center of the city to the suburbs, and forcibly confiscated farm land 

and tore down residences originally belonging to one million farmers in the outlying 

suburbs.’’ 

For more than a decade, Shanghai has been the origin and center of forceful land 

appropriation and coercive residence tear-downs to force people to move. In the past 

two years alone, the Shanghai city government organized 4,000 cadres from the appeals office to serve as a large-scale force to prevent victims from appealing. The 

government also organized a gang of ruffians to beat up civilians in order to implement the city’s plan to appropriate land. Civilians’ bodies were brutalized; sometimes their lives were taken away. All channels to appeal were completely blocked. 

Since 2006, citizens beaten to death include Duan Huimin, Du Ronglin, Dai Rong, 

Chen Xiaoming, and others. Some were detained in mental hospitals where they 

suffered severe mental torture. In this two-year period, civilians who have had their 

homes ransacked include Zhou Dahua, Ma Yalian, and 14 other families, including 

two anonymous families. Mentally sound individuals who were held in mental hospitals include Liu Xinjuan (detained six times), Lu Chunxiang (detained twice), and 

Hong Lingling (who still remains detained). So far in 2007, three people have been 

beaten to death. They are Duan Huimin, Chen Xiaoming, and Zhou Dahua. 

V. THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER WILL RUIN THE FUTURE OF ONE QUARTER OF THE

WORLD’S POPULATION

We do not deny some of the economic success the Chinese Communist Party has 

‘‘accomplished’’ in certain forms, but these ‘‘accomplishments’’ are at the cost of destroying human justice, morals, and conscience, as well as the environment. In 
127 

2005, the Environmental Bureau Director said, ‘‘If our environmental protection 

measures could not closely follow economic developments, our economic miracle 

would end.’’ 

The economic miracle is turning into real life disasters. The algae growing in 

Taihu Lake (located in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province) proves that the CCP does not 

care if there is water to drink tomorrow, as long as there is GDP to brag about 

today. The energy consumption for each 10,000 yuan of production in China, is 

seven times higher than that in Japan, and three times higher than in India. A 

quarter of the land in China has been turned into desert, at a rate of 1,900 square 

miles each year. According to a Xinhua News Agency report, 90 percent of the underground water is polluted in most cities. Seventy-five percent of the rivers flowing 

through the cities are not suitable for drinking, and the fish in them are not suitable for eating. The environmental protection measures are showcase in form, just 

like the showcase style economy. It is even more hopeless that small rivers and 

lakes across the whole country are all severely polluted. These small bodies of water 

are the foundation of the nation’s environment, but they are not included in the protection list. 

VI. THE PROBLEMS FARMERS ARE FACING

The economic development does not benefit the people. Most rural areas are still 

poor, so poor that they are beyond the imagination of the outside world. Even 

though there is no more agriculture tax, this tax was merely one of the many reasons for the poverty. Its cancellation did not help reduce the degree of poverty. 

The current constitution states that all farm lands belong to the state or the commune, while the commune ownership is totally controlled by the state. Thus the 

logic is: ‘‘The state owns the land, the CCP rules the state, and the CCP is run by 

the bureaucrats.’’ Therefore, the CCP bureaucrats are the biggest landlords because 

they own all the land in China. Billions of farmers in China labor all of their lives 

on these farm fields, but do not own any of it. This is extremely unfair. 

Currently in China, there are 120 million city laborers who are rural residents. 

They are the biggest slave group in human history. They are not treated with dignity. They have to do hard labor in very severe conditions and are paid $1.50 or 

less per day. Even with such low salaries, payment is often delayed by employers. 

Although there are more than 100 million farmers laboring in the cities, they are 

deprived of the right to form unions. Obviously, as individuals they are extremely 

weak before the authorities, which is the fundamental reason why they are taken 

advantage of. 

After the June 4th Tianamen massacre in 1989, corruption accelerated. The economic reform, led by corrupt officials, is in every aspect characterized by ignoring 

the interests of the people. Farmers, city laborers composed of farmers, involuntary 

early retired workers, and other weak groups constitute the majority, that is, 70 

percent of the Chinese population. During the ‘‘Medicare Reform,’’ it was precisely 

these 70 percent of Chinese who were excluded from the system. Expensive medical 

costs deprived them of the possibility of seeking medical treatment. Hence, tragedies 

happened in quite a lot of the countryside. Elderly people would commit suicide to 

put an end to their illnesses. 

The ‘‘Enterprise Education’’ [Translator’s note: The ‘‘Enterprise Education’’ reform 

means turning. education into a for-profit business] proposed after 1989, also 

brought out the same problem of severely harming the rights of the people. Even 

though there was supposed to be nine years of ‘‘free’’ education, there was a lack 

of state financial support in many regions. High tuition or intermediate .and higher 

education has become a nightmare to the lower classes. The education system monopolized by the state has become more and more corrupt, and education has turned 

into a money-making machine of the academic bureaucrats. 

At the same time, in order to pay children’s tuition, the lower class families are 

squeezed out of every last penny and down to their last drop of energy. Many parents committed suicide as soon as their children were admitted into a college. The 

government statistics showed that the bureaucrat group used 400 billion yuan of 

state funds each year on banquets, another 400 billion yuan on touring, and another 

400 billion yuan on vehicles that are allegedly public owned, but only the officials 

have the privilege to use them. 

VII. EXTREMELY UNJUST LEGAL SYSTEM

Today, the corrupt judiciary agencies have gone all out in their anti-justice, antirule of law conduct. The Supreme Court, which is by no means a legislative entity, 

continuously issues judicial documents to disallow citizens the right to safeguard 

their rights, and to serve the needs of the authorities to plunder the Chinese people. 
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These documents stipulate that attorneys and judges are not allowed to accept 

cases regarding the forceful destruction of personal housing, not allowed to accept 

cases of farmers losing their fields, not allowed to accept cases related to the ‘‘Management and Leasing of Properties’’ policy, not allowed to accept cases for retired 

military personnel, not allowed to handle early retirees’ argument cases, not allowed 

to process Falun Gong cases. 

There is no bottom line in their counteraction to the principles and spirits of the 

judicatory system. To give typical examples of wrongful executions in Hebei Province and Inner-Mongolia Autonomous Region, such as the wrongly executed Nie 

Shubin, in order to cover the crime, the judicial system refused to pursue punishment of the real criminal. The law, moral standard, and sense of justice have degenerated to a level lower than that of a common criminal. 

VIII. DISASTERS HAVE BECOME A COMMON PRACTICE, A PART OF DAILY LIFE

People suffer disasters on a daily basis. For instance, as reported on August 30, 

2007, in Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekends): On July 29, flooding in the 

Sanmenxia Coal mine in Henan Province trapped 69 miners underground. On August 14, 2007, the Fenghunag Bridge in Hunan Province, which was still under construction, collapsed and killed 64. On August 17, flooding in the Huayuan Coal mine 

in Xintai City, Shandong Province, trapped 172 miners underground, and more than 

30 days later, they still were not rescued. Their chances of survival are very little. 

On August 19, 2007, Zouping County Aluminum Factory had an explosion where 16 

workers died. On August 30, 2007, a small coalmine in Fangshan District, Beijing 

City, collapsed, and the local government decided to stop all rescue efforts in less 

than 48 hours. 

Shockingly, the local government officials even ordered the victims’ coworkers to 

stop their self-initiated rescue efforts. Mr. Liu Guojun and others were locked up, 

to prevent them from continuing the rescue, until the two trapped workers miraculously walked out alive after 132 hours. These two survived by struggling with indomitable courage and drinking each other’s urine during the entire self-rescue. 

Many people made sarcastic comments about the inhumane order issued by the 

local government: ‘‘It was a good thing that these two workers did not know the government’s ‘scientific decision’ to disallow anyone to rescue them; otherwise, their escape would be illegal, as judged by the ‘scientific decision’ of the government.’’ 

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, the CCP regime has deprived me of my rights of 

freedom of speech and press for more than one year by means of the most primitive 

methods. As soon as I started to write this, my heart was filled with an upsurge 

of emotions. I am writing to you based on my firm belief, which is to say: I know 

that the above crimes truly exist, and have offended the sense of justice and freedom of the whole human race, including yours. 

I truly believe that you all share those beliefs, and know that whoever does nothing in front of such truth, has given up human sensibility and responsibility. I truly 

believe that you all know, as we do, that western governments are sacrificing ethics 

and values in exchange for political and economic benefits that are right in front 

of their eyes. 

I truly believe that you are all, as I am, longing to work to lift up human principles, change the tyranny, stop the evil, and end the common embarrassment facing 

the entire human race. I truly believe that you all, as I do, recognize that dictatorship and the inheritance of the dictatorial system generation after generation, is 

equal to treating all Chinese people as privately owned livestock as well as ‘‘inheriting’’ people as livestock when the leadership changes hands. The reason the dictatorship receives such inheritance is not due to their ability or virtue, but their lack 

of virtue. If this reality does not change quickly, human rationality will continue 

to be blemished and offended. 

You all must believe, as I do, that to satisfy the evil totalitarian regime’s request 

to host the Olympic Games, is a dark chapter in the history of the Olympics, and 

puts shame on the whole human race. 

My dear ladies and gentlemen, writing this letter is a heavy thing. If these crimes 

only happened once or several times, I believe each one of you would be as indignant as I am. Yet, in today’s China, these inhuman tragedies have become a common situation that is happening all over the country. Many people have become 

used to it, and they are indifferent. 

The reason the CCP can sustain its power, is that by purposely attacking our conscience with violence, and numbing our conscience with lies, it is eroding our virtue 

on a daily basis, until out of their helpless state, some people start to rely upon the 

CCP, which in turn evolves into passive support. 
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Furthermore, it has degenerated a great number of people’s basic moral standards, to the extent that this group of people even defends and justifies CCP atrocities. Thus, the regime feels temporarily relieved because its power is apparently secure. Today, the CCP is expanding its strategy of moral corruption to the whole 

world. If the CCP succeeds in hosting the Olympics, it is equal to the success of its 

global moral corruption. 

My dear ladies and gentlemen, a society has its ‘‘immune’’ mechanisms to avoid 

huge sins through morals, laws, public opinion, checks and balances, supervision, 

and the like, because everyone wishes to live in peace, and not in terror. When we 

witness those crimes against humanity happening all over the country, and those 

evil deeds challenging people’s basic senses happening in the legal system, media, 

and the environment, we have no choice but to admit to ourselves that our social 

‘‘immune’’ mechanism is completely destroyed. 

The force destroying the mechanism and keeping it from rebuilding is the Chinese 

Communist Party. If you are concerned about me, as a lawyer, from the standpoint 

of the legal system, I must remind you directly that no one more eagerly longs for 

the justice of the legal system than I myself as a victim, but every day the CCP 

exists is a day we cannot realize judiciary justice. 

Dear ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Martin Luther King said, 

‘‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’’ (Letter From a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963) 

The CCP’s logic on this subject is backwards. For them, ‘‘Justice anywhere is a 

threat to injustice everywhere.’’ Even if justice does not want to combat the evil as 

an enemy the evil will attack justice as its enemy because the existence of justice 

itself blocks the path of evildoers. 

Dear ladies and gentlemen, there is both sadness and hope existing in China now. 

It is sad that officials at different levels have reached a certain harmony in robbing 

common people’s properties; bribery is transmitted from bottom to top; and the higher levels are protecting the lower level’s crimes. Chinese society is in a twisted balance, like an ecological system, tolerating mistakes, self-adjusting, self-accommodating, and self-assembling. 

This twisted ecological ‘‘balance’’ is the fundamental support for the CCP regime, 

which explains why a regime that has committed all kinds of evils has not been 

overthrown yet. No matter what beautiful wishes Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao may 

have, they are completely incapable of changing this state as individuals. 

The hope lies in the religious groups, be it Falun Gong or Christians, that are 

rebuilding morals by pursuing their faith. They are changing the destiny of China 

through their peaceful protest of the CCP’s tyranny, and by pursing their faith, they 

are becoming the foundation of China’s development and stabilization in the future. 

Any politician wishing to have interaction with China must not ignore this force. 

Making changes in China seems so difficult because the CCP owes an unbearable 

debt—it has killed 80 million Chinese citizens, and is thus less forgivable than even 

the Nazis. In turn, precisely because the CCP is fully aware of this un-repayable 

debt, it killed those students who requested democracy on June 41 1989. On the 

other hand, changing China is so easy, that is, it can be done through a moral 

awakening in every person. A lot can be done in this regard. 

If you can use your actions, not just words, to support those free media outlets 

which expose the CCP’s crimes, support the efforts to break the CCP’s Internet 

blockade and send the truth to mainland China, and support the organizations who 

peacefully renounced the CCP to regain self-conscience, China will change very 

soon. 

My dear ladies and gentlemen, you fully have the ability to take action now to 

stop all of the CCP’s crimes against humanity. Just as President Reagan said, ‘‘If 

not us who? And if not now, when? I Finally, I’d like to quote the words of the 32nd 

president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his State of the Union 

Address in 1941 as the ending of my letter, 

‘‘In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a 

world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of 

speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of 

every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The 

third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear.’’ 

Upon finishing this letter, I heard that President Bush had decided to join the 

Olympics next year. Pardon my manners here, but I’d like to shout out, ‘‘Mr. President, What are you doing? Have you looked at how President Reagan handled the 
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1988 Seoul Olympics? ’’ I want to remind my friends here as well, I hope my friends 

in the Congress, both the Senate and the House, can establish merit for human civilization, as was done during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. 

Jesus said, ‘‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!’’ Those struggling in the CCP prisons, those crying under the CCP’s tortures, those roaming 

around to avoid mistreatment, all of these people need your help. When the CCP 

welcomes you with salutes, red carpets and champagne, when the skyscrapers and 

splendid neon lights dazzle your eyes, I hope you will think of those suffering people. May God bless America. May God give each person a sense of justice, responsibility, and firm determination. May the light of freedom shine upon China proper, 

allowing evil no place to hide, and may the mistreated no longer be in pain. 

Respectfully, 

Wishing peace and health to all! 

Gao Zhisheng 

September 12, 2007 

Æ