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CHEN GUANGCHENG AND GAO ZHISHENG:

HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 9, 2013

Serial No. 113–53

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Chen Guangcheng, Chinese human rights activist ....................................... 7

Pastor Bob Fu, founder and president, ChinaAid Association ............................. 15

Ms. Geng He, wife of Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng .................... 31

Mr. Jared Genser, founder, Freedom Now ............................................................ 35

Mr. T. Kumar, director of International Advocacy, Amnesty International ....... 43

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Chen Guangcheng: Prepared statement ......................................................... 11

Pastor Bob Fu: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 20

Ms. Geng He: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 33

Mr. Jared Genser: Prepared statement ................................................................. 39

Mr. T. Kumar: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 46

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 76

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 77

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: Statement 

of the Honorable Frank Wolf, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia ......................................................................................... 78

Mr. Chen Guangcheng: List of persecutors of Mr. Chen Guangcheng and 

his family since 2005 ........................................................................................... 80

Pastor Bob Fu: 2012 Annual Report, Chinese Government Persecution of 

Christians Churches in Mainland China ........................................................... 84

(1)

CHEN GUANGCHENG AND GAO ZHISHENG: 

HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA 

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and I want to 

welcome all of you to this extremely important hearing. Today we 

are here to listen and learn from the brave men and women from 

China who have been and are at the forefront of advocating for 

freedom and human rights and against the tyranny and oppression 

of the state. Today we seek advice and counsel as to what can and 

must be done by the Congress, by the President, the American people, and all people of goodwill worldwide to mitigate the hate and 

gross mistreatment meted out by the Government of China against 

its own citizens. 

Today we appeal to Beijing, ease up, respect fundamental human 

rights and the sanctity of human life, and honor your commitments 

and the rule of law. Chen Guangcheng and his equally courageous 

wife Yuan Weijing have paid and continue to pay an extraordinarily high price for their benign defiance of a dictatorship that 

violates human rights with impunity and crushes human dignity. 

Not only have the Chens endured numbing isolation and unspeakable torture over the course of several years, but now as we all 

know in a pathetic display of PRC governmental revenge, Chen’s 

nephew, Chen Kegui, languishes in a Chinese prison while other 

members remain at risk. Shockingly, young Chen Kegui has been 

brutally tortured and threatened, as Guangcheng notes today in his 

testimony, with life imprisonment if he appeals his conviction. 

Undeterred, Mr. Chen Guangcheng continues to gently raise his 

clear and consistent voice on behalf of all victims while pushing 

systemic reform of egregiously flawed political institutions and people who persecute and repress. 

Blind since childhood, Mr. Chen bore all the burdens and disadvantages that a disabled person faces in rural China. Confronted 

with the denial of his rights, he developed an intense interest in 

law and challenged the local government, winning his case. Hearing of Mr. Chen’s success, other individuals in Shandong Province 

2

were inspired to seek his legal assistance in securing redress and 

vindication. Almost everywhere corrupt officials made and continue 

to make life miserable for those struggling to survive. Mr. Chen informed many of their rights and helped them seek durable remedies. He helped many of them see that the rule of just and compassionate law wasn’t just for the privileged few but for everyone. 

Victimized, yet unbroken by beatings and torture, 51 months of 

nightmarish incarceration preceded by house arrest and followed 

by 18 more months of house arrest, cut short only by his escape, 

Chen Guangcheng tenaciously defended Chinese women and babies 

oppressed by China’s draconian one-child policy. Mr. Chen’s brilliant mind, his indomitable spirit and unimaginable courage exposed pervasive forced abortion, deemed a crime against humanity 

at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes tribunal and was relentless in 

using his self-taught legal skills to protect the innocent, especially 

women. Unfazed by both the difficulty of the task or the inherent 

risks, Mr. Chen employed legal strategies to combat this insidious 

government cruelty toward women and children and argued that 

his clients in Linyi, and all women in China for that matter, have 

rights that prohibit such violence, that they, indeed, deserve better. 

Chen in China became and remains their hero. It took a blind 

man to really see the injustice of a population control program that 

makes most brothers and sisters illegal and to hear the desperate 

cries of Chinese women. It took a blind man, the great Chen 

Guangcheng, to open the eyes of a blind world to these human 

rights violations systematically inflicted on Chinese women. 

Mr. Chen’s daring escape to the U.S. Embassy, his miraculous 

evasion of China’s ubiquitous secret police en route, is the stuff of 

legend and superheroes. He offered dramatic testimony by telephone from hospital to two emergency hearings that I chaired and 

if it wasn’t for Bob Fu, we would have never gotten through to him. 

Bob placed those calls during the course of a couple days, finally 

got through, and we heard Chen’s voice right here in this room 

speak out and ask for freedom and ask to come to the United 

States. 

Geng He is here today to remind us and the world of another 

brave and extraordinary hero, her husband Gao Zhisheng. With 

great love and a broken heart, this remarkable woman has worked 

unceasingly to secure the freedom of her husband. Gao Zhisheng is 

an attorney who played a leading role among Chinese human 

rights lawyers that defended those that the Chinese Government 

persecutes most harshly, conducting their defense by demanding 

that the prosecution conform to law. Mr. Gao is a quintessential example of a human rights defender. In 2005 after he took on politically sensitive cases, Mr. Gao wrote open letters to both the National People’s Congress and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party calling for an end to the torture of members of persecuted religious groups. Mr. Gao’s license to practice law was subsequently revoked, his law firm shut down, and his family placed 

under police surveillance. In August 2006, Mr. Gao was apprehended and then charged with ‘‘inciting subversion.’’ He was convicted and given a suspended 3-year sentence with 5 years probation, effectively placing him under house arrest. 

3

In September 2007, Mr. Gao wrote an open letter to the United 

States Congress in which he described widespread human rights 

abuses in China in which he called China’s birth control policy the 

largest genocide in the history of mankind and related the government’s harsh treatment of him and his family. He was consequently detained and tortured for 50 days. His captors called him 

a traitor, and they warned him that he would be killed if he told 

anyone about being abducted and tortured. 

In February 2009, Mr. Gao was forcibly taken away from his 

home in Shaanxi Province by public security personnel. He briefly 

resurfaced only in late March 2010, more than a year later. During 

his brief reappearance, however, Mr. Gao gave several interviews 

to foreign media, disclosing the details of his torture. The next 

month he disappeared again. 

In testimony at a Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

hearing that I chaired last February, Geng He said that for her 

daughter Grace, Gao Zhisheng’s absence has caused her severe 

emotional anguish. She often dreams that her father is dead. She 

said, my son has tears in his eyes on Father’s Day. We were forced 

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

In late 2011, Gao was secretly transferred to a distant Shaya 

County prison in the Aksu district of Xinjiang. He has seen his 

family only twice in 16 months and for only 30 minutes each visit. 

Police have prohibited family members from asking him any information about him, but again, in the account of Mr. Gao’s torture 

that was made public by the Associated Press in January 2011, he 

disclosed to the reporter the excruciating details of his detention 

and said, in part, that the police stripped him bare and pummeled 

him with handguns in holsters. For 2 days and nights they took 

turns beating him and doing things he refused to describe. He recalled that for 48 hours his life hung by a thread. Authorities reportedly threatened to kill Mr. Gao and to dump his body in a river 

and authorities taunted him by saying, ‘‘You must forget that you 

are human.’’ Well, we don’t forget, and to President Xi, we will not 

forget Gao Zhisheng, not now, not ever, and we appeal to you to 

release him, to ease up, and respect fundamental human rights. 

I now yield to my friend and colleague Ms. Bass for any opening 

comments she may have. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 

convening today’s hearing on a topic of utmost importance. You 

continue to demonstrate your commitment to human rights issues, 

particularly in China. I want to offer my gratitude to today’s witnesses for your testimony. I am particularly pleased that Mr. Chen 

was able to join us, and I hope that you found some level of peace 

during your stay here. Mr. Chen, I don’t have to remind you that 

at this time last year we all watched news reports of your situation 

with deep interest. While you are safely with us today, your extended family and fellow countrymen and women experience terrible human rights violations that remind us that there is still 

work left to do. 

The current human rights situation in China is precarious. An 

increasing number of individuals and organizations risk police 

monitoring, detention, and arrest simply for seeking an open, free, 

and just society. Internet and press censorship are widespread, corVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
4

ruption continues to run rampant, and minority social groups often 

lack access to legal redress. The measure and health of a society 

is based on the treatment of its citizens, and it is my hope that as 

China continues to expand its global presence that it will openly 

and honestly address human rights as a top government priority. 

It is the responsibilities of governments everywhere to uphold the 

basic rights of liberty, life, and justice. Whether we are American, 

Chinese, or otherwise, it is our duty as representatives of government to ensure that our citizens never have to suffer persecution 

or censure for what they believe. 

International compacts such as the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights share a vision of a free world in which every man, 

woman, and child can practice their beliefs openly, freely, openly 

call for transparent and responsible government, and have access 

to justice systems that uphold the rule of law for all parties. Such 

compacts must guide us in ensuring that the rights of all people 

are upheld. One critical way to promote global human rights is by 

investing in the United Nations. I am strongly committed to ensuring and preserving this participation. 

It is my hope that our witnesses will not only give us a better 

understanding of the situation in China but will also offer constructive ways that we can move toward the vision of an open, free, and 

just global society. Thank you, and I look forward to today’s testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bass, thank you very much for your eloquent 

statement. I would like to now yield to Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for holding 

this hearing, and truly for each one of you to show up and testify 

and to illuminate this very disturbing trend. As we have a global 

economy, it is so important for us to look at the global situation 

as it relates to human rights. We can remember back in the 1700s 

there was a theologian and someone fighting against human rights 

violation of slavery in England, back then by the name of John 

Newton, and he penned a hymn called Amazing Grace which says 

I was blind but now I see. How fitting it is today to have someone 

who is blind who is helping us see the atrocities that are happening even today in this global economy, and I just want to thank 

you for your boldness, for your courage to stand up and make sure 

that those who have no voice have a voice today, and I look forward 

to your testimony. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. Bera? 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling 

this hearing. I share your concern over human rights abuses as 

well as your commitment to fight these abuses worldwide, and one 

fundamental right is freedom over one’s own body and the right of 

women to control their own reproductive decisions. That is an issue 

of individual liberty. As a doctor, this issue is particularly important to me. I took an oath to answer my patients’ questions, to provide them with various options, to explain the risks and benefits 

of these choices, and then empower them to make the best decision 

that fits with their own faith, family, and personal circumstances. 

5

This is fundamental to the doctor-patient relationship. That is why 

I have concerns about China’s one-child policy. It goes against the 

fundamental value of individual liberty and freedom. While forced 

abortions and sterilization are illegal in China, they still happen 

with frequency, and the one-child policy perpetuates these practices. All champions of human rights should openly condemn China’s one-child policy and the illegal practices of forced abortion and 

coerced birth control reported in some localities. The continued oppression of Chinese families through coercive reproductive policies 

must end, but claiming that the U.N. Population Fund supports 

these coercive practices and using the claim to oppose U.S. support 

of international family planning programs is disingenuous, 

unmerited in valid global health policy. In fact, the best way to promote the basic human right of individual choice is to invest in programs like the United Nations Population Fund. 

UNFPA’s programs save and improve the lives of millions of 

women and men worldwide. They enable couples to voluntarily determine the timing, number, and spacing of their children and voluntary birth control. Independent experts have confirmed that 

UNFPA does not support the one-child policy in China, nor does it 

support forced sterilization. UNFPA supports increased access to 

reproductive health services, improved approaches to adolescent reproductive health, and safe pregnancy and delivery. Its programs 

have reduced maternal mortality, provided emergency assistance in 

refugee situations, and prevented and treated HIV and AIDS. As 

a doctor and public health expert, this is good public health policy. 

The U.S. should remain a strong supporter and leader within the 

global community in order to best promote women’s rights and the 

freedom of every woman to make personal decisions about her 

health and her future. Individual liberty and freedom are American 

values that are worth fighting for, both here domestically and 

throughout the world. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I would like to now yield to Mr. Stockman. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to briefly say that I 

saw firsthand a clip of a late term abortion in China which was 

forced against the mother’s will, and you can’t watch this clip. One 

day I hope we can introduce it as evidence without weeping and 

crying. The mother was heartbroken. She wanted the child. And 

then they threw the dead baby on to the bed because they weren’t 

allowed to pay for the burial and threw it on her bed and said you 

have to pay for it. 

I am so honored that we are having this hearing and thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, for opening it up for many of the people. I hope the 

United States will tune in and listen to what is going on in China. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Stockman. 

Mr. Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot to add 

except to say thank you to Mr. Chen. Helen Keller once said that 

there is none so blind as he who will not see, and I do appreciate 

and echo my colleague Mark Meadows’ comments about we are 

6

glad he is here to help us see. We look forward to the testimony 

and I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. I would like to now yield to 

the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission but 

also the chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, 

Science, and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee, Congressman Frank Wolf, who has been a long-time leader 

in the area of human rights, especially as it relates to China. 

Mr. WOLF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just submit my 

statement. I thank you for having the hearing, and I want to thank 

Mr. Chen and the rest of the witnesses for being here, and I look 

forward to hearing what they have to say. I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Chairman Wolf. 

Let me introduce our witnesses in the order that I would ask 

them to present their testimony, beginning first with Chen 

Guangcheng. As we all know, blind from an early age and selftaught in law, Mr. Chen is frequently described as a barefoot lawyer who advocates for the victims of forced abortion and sterilization and the welfare of women, the poor, and for those who are disabled. 

On April 22, 2012, Mr. Chen escaped house arrest and fled to the 

U.S. Embassy in Beijing. After negotiations with the Chinese Government, he left the Embassy for medical treatment on May 2, and 

on May 19, Mr. Chen and his wife and children were granted U.S. 

visas and departed Beijing on a commercial flight, arriving in New 

York City on the same day. He currently resides in New York City 

with his family and is a huge giant when it comes to human rights 

advocacy, as we all recognize around the world. 

We will then hear from Pastor Bob Fu, who is one of the leading 

voices in the world for the persecuted church in China. He was 

born and raised on mainland China, he graduated from the School 

of International Relations of People’s University in Beijing. He 

later taught English to Communist Party officials at the Beijing 

Administrative College and Beijing Party School of the Chinese 

Communist Party from 1993 to 1996. He pastored a house church 

in Beijing until he and his wife were jailed for 2 months for what 

was called illegal evangelism in 1996. Mr. Fu and his wife Heidi 

fled to the United States as religious refugees in 1997. Mr. Fu 

founded the ChinaAid Association in order to draw attention, international attention to China’s gross human rights violations against 

house church Christians. Pastor Fu is a research Ph.D. candidate 

at Durham University, and he has been awarded a number of important citations for his work on behalf of human rights. 

We will then hear from Geng He, who is the wife of human 

rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Ms. Geng completed her university 

studies in accounting in China. She and Gao 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, Ms. Geng escaped from China with 

their two kids. Since arriving in the U.S., she has advocated tenaciously on behalf of her husband and other victims of human rights 

violations in China through interviews, appeals, and appeared before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China last FebVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
7

ruary. So thank you for coming back to again appeal for your husband. 

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. Mr. Genser has taught semester-long seminars on the U.N. Security Council at the Georgetown 

University Law Center and the University of Michigan and the 

University of Pennsylvania Law Schools. His pro bono clients have 

included former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel and Nobel 

Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Desmond 

Tutu, and Elie Wiesel. Mr. Genser holds a BS from Cornell and an 

MPP from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and 

a JD, cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School. He 

is also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and is also 

representing Mr. Chen’s nephew as well as Gao Zhisheng. 

We will then hear from a man who is no stranger to this committee, a good friend, T. Kumar, who is the director for International Advocacy at Amnesty International USA. Mr. Kumar has 

served as a human rights monitor and as a director of refugee 

camps around the world. He often testifies before the Congress and 

lectures at the Foreign Service Institute, where U.S. diplomats are 

trained. He has also served as a professor at Washington College 

of Law’s Humanitarian and Human Rights Academy. He has monitored elections with former President Carter around the world and 

served as judge of elections in Philadelphia. He also served as a 

consultant to the U.N. Quaker Mission. Mr. Kumar was a political 

prisoner for over 5 years in Sri Lanka for his peaceful human 

rights activities. He started his legal studies in prison and eventually became an attorney at law and devoted his entire practice to 

defending political prisoners. 

The floor is yours, Chen Guangcheng. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHEN GUANGCHENG, CHINESE HUMAN 

RIGHTS ACTIVIST 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. The Honorable Chairman Smith, honorable members 

of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, ladies and gentlemen, friends, 

greetings. This room makes, helps me remember things from the 

past. I am very grateful that this year I am actually here. I request 

to include this list of names of persecutors to be excluded from entering the United States and be reinforced. The names are—[holding up paper with names listed]. The officials whose name are on 

this list have continuously, have continuously in the past persecuted me and my family. 

These corrupt officials, they have this blood on their hands in all 

these forced abortions, 130,000. 

Last year around this time my entire family was in the midst of 

grave danger. At the end of April 2012 I escaped from the valley 

of the shadow of death and after multiple twists and turns, I fled 

to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to seek emergency refuge from danger. 

On May 2, after Sino-U.S. negotiation had reached an agreement 

to guarantee my safety, I left the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. At that 

time the U.S. officials taking part in the negotiations told me that 

8

the agreement they had reached would be written down in SinoU.S. diplomatic documents. 

My main requests were contained both in my letter to then Premier Wen Jiabao and in my prerecorded video that was released 

to the public. The requests in short were this: An immediate end 

to all illegal acts of persecution against me, my family members, 

and my supporters, protection of all our civil rights, and a thorough 

investigation into the illegal and criminal acts of persecution by the 

Shandong authorities over many years against me and my family 

and a public resolution to the matter. 

Regardless of how high ranking these officials involved were or 

how many officials were involved, if they had committed a crime, 

they must be held accountable. And compensation should be made 

for the losses incurred. Regrettably, to date, not only has the Chinese central government not honored its commitment to the U.S. 

Government, it has instead illegally detained and put on trial my 

nephew Chen Kegui and on November 30, 2012, convicted Chen 

Kegui on the charge of so-called intentionally inflicting injuries and 

sentenced him to a prison term of 3 years and 3 months. Moreover, 

Chen Kegui has been sent to the same prison in Linyi City where 

I was tortured when I was illegally sentenced on trumped-up 

charges in 2006. 

On April 26, 2012, at midnight, after local government officials 

discovered that I had escaped, the deputy Communist Party secretary Zhang Jian of Shuanghou who was in charge of politics and 

law led a few dozen club wielding men in climbing over the courtyard wall of my elder brother’s home. They broke the lock of the 

courtyard gate from inside and letting in more men and broke 

down all the doors in the house. They let in more men after they 

broke the lock. They dragged my elder brother, who was still in his 

pajamas, from his bed, put a black hood over his head and twisted 

his arm and stuffed him into a vehicle and took him to the criminal 

police section of the Yinan County Public Security Bureau. No legal 

procedures were enforced. They tortured him for several dozen 

hours. According to the accounts of some residents in the vicinity 

of the police station, they overheard my elder brother’s screams as 

they tortured him that night. They were still looting my elder 

brother’s home at the time. They beat Chen Kegui and his mother 

Ren Zongju in different rooms and they grabbed Ren Zongju’s hair 

and beat her so badly. Kegui was beaten in so many places and 

there were bruises over his body. 

As a last resort he, in order to protect himself, Chen Kegui 

grabbed a knife in order to protect himself against the persecutors. 

Kegui was not actually attacking them. He was simply telling them 

that if you continue to beat me, I will have to counter attack, but 

Zhang Jian, the head of the Security Bureau, told the men around 

him to contain Kegui at the time. The club-wielding men attacked 

Kegui and tried to hit his head. Instead they missed him and then 

the club actually hit the table with a TV on it. The TV was 

smashed. In this kind of a situation Kegui responded and reacted 

and then scratched some of the men that were in the house with 

a knife. Kegui reported this incident to the police but the police 

never came. Later on they also beat up Kegui’s mother, who was 

actually taking care of her grandson who was having a fever. They 

9

grabbed her by her hair and grabbed her all the way to the floor 

and started beating her. My sister-in-law was beaten to a point, 

she yelled, ‘‘Help, help’’ and this man said, ‘‘So what does it do that 

you scream help?’’ The guards, since then the guards just continued 

to stay in the house. They stay on the sofa, on the bed, and they 

were not letting any citizens in the village to come in. There were 

thugs everywhere with clubs in their hands. The trumped-up 

charges were changed from attempting murder to intentionally inflicting injuries. He was cruelly tortured during this time, and 

while he was in prison he lost around more than 20 kilograms. Ma 

Chenlian and Yi Chuandong, the leader of the Security Bureau, 

threatened Chen Kegui many times while he was in prison. If you 

appeal you will be sentenced to life in prison, but if you listen to 

me, your sentence may be lighter and the lives of your children and 

your parents are in our hands. If you don’t listen to us, once you 

are released from prison, you may never see them again. In light 

of this scenario, Chen Kegui decided not to appeal. The parents, 

Kegui’s parents were contained in the National Security Bureau’s 

car, vehicle, and they were not allowed to leave the vehicle. The 

pretext was that they were witnesses and they are not supposed to 

leave the vehicle, but later on they were not actually allowed to 

testify as witnesses. Up until now Chen Kegui is still under the 

threat that if he appeals he will be sentenced to life in prison. 

In February, Chen Kegui told the world about what had happened to him and then he was threatened. On March 7 an official 

from the local family planning office, Xu Xicai, was asked by the 

local party committee leaders to go to the local kindergarten to remove Chen Kegui’s 4-year-old son. Fortunately on that day, Kegui’s 

father, which is my eldest brother Chen Guangfu, was one step 

ahead of him. When the principal of the school went, when they 

went to ask Xu Xicai who did this, Xu Xicai said it was the Communist Party secretary who asked him to do it. 

On the morning of March 11, if I remember correctly, my brother 

Guangfu was taking the child to the school. They were followed by 

a man in a helmet. This is probably what they meant when they 

said that their lives are in their hands, my family’s members’ lives 

are in the hands of the authorities. Another child of a legal defender was also taken away about 9 days after my brother’s son 

was almost taken. As you can see from the case of my brother, Gao 

Zhisheng’s child being taken, and various other rights defenders 

children being taken, you can see that this is actually a planned 

incident. It was planned by authorities. 

We cannot continue to tolerate the Chinese Communist authorities in continuing to go back on their words and deceiving the 

international community at will. When the Chinese Communist 

Central Party Committee can act like this in breaking its promises 

to me, to the United States, and to the whole world, and when it 

can willfully break agreements in a case that has attracted the 

world’s attention, how can we expect it to improve the human 

rights situations in other areas and to take up its international responsibilities and obligations? The Chinese leaders, they have the 

title as leaders, but in fact they are thieves and robbers. We cannot—as Chinese citizens, we cannot tolerate they kidnap the country anymore. They restrict freedom of speech, they restrict freedom 

10

of movement. We should break down the wall that the Chinese 

Communist Government has erected. 

I hereby request, Mr. Chairman, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform, and other related committees to formally obtain from the 

relevant departments of the administrative authorities and publish 

the written and oral diplomatic agreements between China and the 

United States with regard to this incident of mine, including my 

letter to Premier Wen Jiabao that I wrote while I was in the U.S. 

Embassy. I hereby urge the U.S. Government to solemnly demand 

that the Chinese Communist leaders do as they promised. Mr. 

Chairman, I hereby request that this testimony and other written 

documents I provided be entered into congressional records. Thank 

you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chen follows:]

11


80362a-1.eps

Written Testimony of Mr. Chen Guangcheng 

Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights 

2 p.m., April 9, 2013. 

Room 2712, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C. 

Dear Honorable Chairman Mr. Smith, honorable members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 

ladies and gentlemen, friends, 

Last year at this time, my entire family was in the midst of grave danger. At the end of April 

2012, I escaped from the valley of the shadow of death, and after multiple twists and turns, I fled 

to the U.S. embassy in Beijing to seek emergency refuge from danger. On May 2, after Sino-U.S. 

negotiations had reached an agreement guaranteeing [my safety], I left the U.S. embassy in 

Beijing. At that time, the U.S. officials taking part in the negotiations told me that the agreement 

they had reached would be written down in Sino-US. diplomatic documents. My main requests 

were contained both in my letter to then-Premier Wen Jiabao and in my pre-recorded video that 

was released to the public. The requests in short were these: an immediate end to all illegal acts 

of persecution against me, my family members and my supporters; protection of all of our civil 

rights; and a thorough investigation into the illegal and criminal acts of persecution by the 

Shandong authorities over many years against me and my family, and a public resolution to the 

matter. Regardless of how high-ranking the officials involved were, nor how many officials 

were involved, ifthey had committed a crime, they must be held accountable. And 

compensation should be made for the losses incurred. Regrettably, to date, not only has the 

Chinese central government not honored its commitment to the US. government, it has instead 

illegally detained and put on trial my nephew Chen Kegui and on November 30,2012 convicted 

Chen Kegui on the charge of so-called "intentionally inflicting injuries" and sentenced him to a 

pri son term of three years and three months. Moreover Chen Kegui has been sent to the same 

prison in Linyi city where I was tortured when I was illegally sentenced on trumped up charges 

in 2006 to four years and three months imprisonment. 

On April 26, 2012, after local government official discovered that T had escaped, the deputy 

Communist Party secretary of the town of Shuanghou, Zhang Jian, who is in charge of politics 

and law, led a few dozen club-wielding men in climbing over the courtyard wall of my elder 

brother's home. After breaking the lock to the courtyard gate from the inside and letting in more 

men, they broke down all the doors in the house and dragged my pajama-clad elder brother from 

his bed, put a black hood over his head and twisted his arm and stuffed him into a vehicle that 

took him to the criminal police section of the Yinan County Public Security Bureau, where they 

tortured him for a several dozen hours. According to the accounts of some residents in the 
12


80362a-2.eps

vicinity of the police station, they all heard my elder brother's screams as they tortured him that 

night---! After my elder brother Chen Guangfu had been kidnapped and taken away, they 

continued to beat, smash and rob my elder brother's home, which is also the home of Chen Kegui. 

They beat Chen Kegui and his mother Ren Zongj u in different rooms, and they grabbed Ren 

Zongju's hair and beat her so badly that she cried out wretchedly for help. Because clubwielding guards were closely monitoring the courtyard premises and surrounding area, the other 

villagers were not able to come to her rescue. Meanwhile, Chen Kegui was beaten to the ground 

several times in another room, sustaining multiple injuries, especially to his head, neck and legs 

which were all bleeding from multiple places. Finally, facing the possibility of being beaten to 

death ifhe did not resist, Chen Kegui grabbed a kitchen knife lying on a cutting board and 

scratched several of the thugs that had been beating him; actually, their injuries were very light. 

Right after that, Chen Kegui ran away and called the police to report the incident but several 

hours passed without any police showing up. Nonetheless, he was still arrested on the charge of 

intentional homicide, which was later changed to intentional injury, for which he was sentenced 

to a prison term of three years and three months. From the time of his arrest until the day of the 

trial, the lawyers hired by the family in accordance with the law asked for permission numerous 

times to meet with him, but they were never allowed to meet with Chen Kegui, never mind 

discussing his defense him. Even on the day of the trial, the court refused to allow his own 

parents to observe the proceedings. The reason given was that they were to be called as 

witnesses, but by the time the trial had ended, Chen Kegui's parents, who had been held the 

entire time in a police car, had neither been allowed to observe the trial nor been called as 

witnesses. 

To date, the lawyers that the family has lawfully hired, Ding Xikui, Si Weijiang and others, are 

still being prohibited by the authorities from meeting with Chen Kegui, preventing the lawyers 

from representing him in his case in accordance with the law. It was not until a visit on February 

28, 2013 that, with fear and trepidation, Chen Kegui brought up the fact that he had been tortured 

and threatened while at the Yinan County Detention Center. Ma Chenlian, secretary of the 

Yinan County Politics and Law Committee and director of the Public Security Bureau, and Yi 

Chuandong, political commissar of the Public Security Bureau, have on many occasions come to 

the detention center and threatened Chen Kegui to his face, saying "If you appeal, you'll be 

sentenced to life in prison. If you listen to us and do as we say, you'll get a light sentence. 

Moreover, if you appeal, the case will be sent back to Yinan County for a retrial, in which case, 

you'll be brought back to Yinan County's criminal police section. Last time, you didn't get much 

of a beating, but it's hard to say what might happen if you are sent back." These threats could not 

be any more clear. Last time, during the short period that he was in the hands of the Yinan 

County criminal police section, the torment caused him to lose more than 10 kilograms (more 

than 22 pounds). To them, this is regarded as "not much of a beating." The implication was, if 

Chen Kegui is sent back for a retrial, his torment would be doubled. Moreover, they have also 

threatened to take his parents and his child as hostages. This was why Chen Kegui said in court 
13


80362a-3.eps

that he would not appeal. In Linyi Prison, he is still under threat now. The authorities have told 

him that ifhe appeals, he will be sentenced to life in prison. 

Even more outrageous is that on March 7, an ofllcial from the local family planning ofllce, Xu 

Xicai, was asked by the local Party Committee leaders to go to the local kindergarten and 

remove Chen Kegui's four-year-old son. Fortunately on that day, Kegui's father, that is, my 

eldest brother Chen Guangfu, was one step ahead of the ofllcial sent by the authorities in picking 

up the child. On the morning of March 11, as my brother Guangfu was taking the child to the 

school, they were followed by a man in a helmet and an army overcoat on a motorcycle. This 

was most likely the authorities' way of threatening them, to show that the life of the child and of 

Kegui's parents are in their hands. 

To sum up, we cannot continue to tolerate the Chinese Communist authorities continuing to go 

back on their words and deceiving the international community at will. When the Chinese 

Communist Central Party Committee can act like this in brealdng its promises to me, to the 

United States and to the whole world, and when it can willfully break agreements in a case that 

has attracted the world's attention, how can we expect it to improve the human rights situation in 

other areas and to take up its international responsibilities and obligations" 1 hereby request Mr. 

Chairman, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform and other related committees to formally obtain from the relevant 

departments of the administrative authorities-and publish-the written and oral diplomatic 

agreements between China and the United States with regard to this incident of mine, including 

my letter to Premier Wen Jiabao that I wrote while I was in the U.S. embassy. I hereby urge the 

U.S. government to solemnly demand that the Chinese Communist leaders do as they promised. 

Thank you! 

Chen Guangcheng 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013; Washington D.C. 

Relevant online reports: 

1, English translation EU~rr 2012 ijo 5 i=J 2 m~lt'fU!i,:l¥;i;&H~:@llMG3jI(: on May, 2, 2012, 

1955J2 

hilQ.:ii}'Y}:vY"s,llu.laai d~QcgDmn/O 5 furgen t -aliG.JJ_! on -CJl.'d:l::£lE!DG;hITlg:,cillbl!1mJ. 

2, English translation of20 12 -1f 5 H 2 li 8 }i?, 1tr iit?~\iJI*1tinxJ.lll.l;r; Jli ;!;i:nqttt:t l~ 8)j Ijtf:YtiJ1-Q 

mIT lJ:r'mynfji3t: 

h1!P.:~'Y'''-'~~ chjil~~112!'g/20 1 'lJ..O 5/z~g:-jimr_"\l-ch 9JJ::Rlhl!.LIlf-QcJl!l.::111.LIigQ:I.o. html 
14


80362a-4.eps

3, English translation Yuan Weijing 's smuggled written letter about tbe persecution experience: 

ltTI1'> 2011 {f 6.H cptiE'li~gfji: 

l:rrIDJLWvyw. c hi!)Jllli!igrgL~QU106/ q~llil!§St:jlJlll<i::~gi vi ~ch ~l}:illlilll£..dl()!!Rhl!.rr! 

4, 20ll:qc 2 Jj <) H 0;fjj~jj~* n*1tj,;i:A~::::3KftiW.!:I', ng:l,jijU~tJl[1~i~lIii~~cpngm-1',* 

f~trHf: 

hl!Q;LL'v,v~:sllinaajJtorgi2Q1Jl!J2icx(;l!lc'd..~cyidco-shmvs-ill-Jre~!!Di'l!.Lh1!Dl 

5, 2012~ 4 fj 30 Di*SA:~xb\tE«j~/1.:1&1.'!:»:;f:iil;;Ui:;x,;2:'0: ")Hlii,E:';U!E:fY: 

Pi),l; LR : Il'G tE ~Jtt': lit {I~ T " 

ht1\l10Y\"]Y foreigJ1l291~com!arti cl es!20 12/04/3 O/che1L.EllilIlllChen g .. hum ilJL.Iighl s'12ri nt~yes.IK 

hidecummcniFves&pa[(ec'lull 

Why America Must Save Chen Guangcheng 

li'ow is one oflhose times when the united States must live up to its ideals. 

6, 20101' <) J-~ 16 Ii f,lJi¥JjjGYi;xng t3 L1Jm)il Fj'i G' li'~5ff;jj(*i.;ljfli~t', I~J'{;;*X~3clJrji, :$-ll; 

~MMrjJU'l'IIfEiSl~!T>t±~ 'fHWJ: 

httQ/lwY:!]YsNnaaid.org/21:11Qf09/cQ@::b'lJlill£..<;h®,g-asks-for.::m:g,<m:t:hdJLb1I!ll 

Chen Guangcheng asks for urgent help; the attomey appeals for the mobilization of people 

worldwide. 

By Zhang Min. reporter for Radio Free Asia 

English Translation by ChinaAid ! PDF 

September 16, 2010 

7, Latest NYT report(shows his main assessment about China and his relatives treatment: 

Chinese Activist, Now in U.S, Says His Relatives Remain Under Surveillance 

ht1\l:! h'UYly'pvtimcs.,g@.!10 13iQ3i 14f

t, orl.d/asiqifami.l v-ot"chil}yse-acti vi~\-<:he!1-~!.~lJg,cili§lill: 

said-to-be-harassed.html'l r=O 

8, About Chen Guangchcng's nephew Chen Kegui's case and latest CECC (Congress-Executive 

Commission on China) analysis (Chen GC will talk about this case a lot): 

the CECC published two analysis pieces relating to Chen Kegui: 

Authorities Use Threats, Abuse, and Harassment To Maintain Control Over Chen Kegui and 

Family - httpJiYi.WWc(;ccg(')v!Pilg(;S!vjl1tli!lAc8dli.ndex.)2hjJ<:1')show~i1lgle~lJl'748.8 

Chen Kegui Serving Criminal Sentence, Legal Experts Refute Conviction -

ht1\l:! !w\Vw .cecc. govipages!virlualAcadb,Ddex .phRd0showsingl~·c ! g6C)CJ~ 
15

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chen, thank you very much for your extraordinarily powerful and historic testimony. I can assure you we will 

follow up on your request and do everything possible to get the administration to be forthcoming and to provide those documents 

about your, as you called it, your incident, and again thank you for, 

and I hope the press will convey this to the world, including the 

American public, this retaliation against families and against children. Not only are children deemed disposable via the one-childper-couple policy, but the way that the Communist dictatorship 

hurts the dissidents the most is by hurting their families, and you 

have in a very powerful way reminded us of that with very specific 

examples of your own family, including your nephew. So thank you. 

I would like to now yield to Pastor Fu. 

STATEMENT OF PASTOR BOB FU, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, 

CHINAAID ASSOCIATION 

Pastor FU. Mr. Chairman and honorable members of this committee, thank you for conducting this important hearing. My friend 

Mr. Chen Guangcheng just recalled what had happened barely a 

year ago while he was hearing the desperate cries from the 

Chaoyang Hospital. The first night Mr. Chen walked out of the 

U.S. Embassy and the next morning I was here in this hearing 

room testifying with a cell phone that enabled Mr. Chen to speak 

to you and this committee and to the American people and to the 

world about his real intention. 

The overall situation in mainland China in the past 3 months 

has been worrying, from the serious air pollution in the capital city 

of Beijing, the large number of dead pigs that polluted the Yangtze 

River, and other incidents highlighting the rapid deterioration of 

China’s natural environment to the situation for freedom of religion, the rule of law, and basic human rights that continues to 

present a grim picture. They all indicate that the Hu Jintao-Wen 

Jiabao political agenda still persists, dominating everything. This 

being the case, even though Xi Jinping’s administration now holds 

political power in China, people still have reason to worry, do we 

have to wait another 10 years before seeing progress in China’s 

human rights record and the rule of law? 

The wretched state of freedom of religion and the rule of law and 

the basic human rights. First of all, the persecution suffered by 

house churches in China is just one example. In the past 3 months 

there has been a troubling series of persecution cases. They occurred in over 10 provinces and two municipalities directly under 

central government jurisdiction, including Beijing, Shanghai, 

Heilongjiang, et cetera. One of the cases is Beijing’s Shouwang 

Church, now going into its third year of being forced to hold outdoor worship services, which it began doing on April 10, 2011. 

Shouwang believers have been arrested more than 1,000 times and 

there have been more than 800 short-term detentions. Their senior 

pastor, Pastor Jin Tianming, and some church leaders have been 

under long-term house arrest since April 2011 without stop. In 

2011 the Chinese Government issued two important secret documents aimed at attacking the Christian faith that were directly responsible for the systematic escalation in the persecution of churches that has continued to this day. In September 2011 at the soVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
16

called Patriots in Christian Circles training class held by the State 

Administration for Religious Affairs, a secret document jointly 

issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the 

Ministries of Public Security and Civil Affairs was circulated that 

detailed a plan to eradicate house churches in 10 years. Of course, 

as we all know, even the most conservative estimate on the number 

of Chinese Christians is more than 18 million. I don’t think they 

will be successful. Of course, they are going to try anyway. 

Last year China Aid Association obtained the so-called suggestions for doing a good job of resisting foreign use of religion to infiltrate institutes of higher education and preventing campus religious activities, the so-called Document No. 18, jointly issued on 

May 15, 2011, by six ministries of the Chinese Communist Party’s 

Central Committee. The purpose of this secret document was to 

prevent and attack the spread of the Christian faith on campuses. 

At the same time, the Chinese Government continues to employ 

strict control measures over Catholicism, continuing to ordain clergymen without Vatican approval, which is a serious interference in 

the internal religious affairs of the Vatican. 

In 2012 the government forced Bishop Ma Daqin, the Bishop of 

Shanghai, to disappear because he had openly expressed his loyalty 

to the Vatican. His whereabouts to date remain unknown. In addition, the tragedy of the self-immolation of Tibetan lamas and nuns 

continues to play out, demonstrating the persistent worsening of 

religious freedom in Tibet. 

On the rule of law, in accordance with the principle held by the 

Hu-Wen administration that maintaining stability was of paramount importance, the National People’s Congress on March 14, 

2012, passed an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law that 

went into effect on January 1 this year. One of its articles, Article 

73, provides the legal basis for public security agencies to secretly 

arrest and detain citizens under the pretext of so-called residential 

surveillance. This is a serious step backwards in the rule of law in 

China. In January of this year the Public Security Ministry announced that it was suspending the labor camp system. I hope that 

they will practice what they said, not only suspending but to stop 

immediately this evil system. In its treatment of petitioners, a vulnerable group, the government continues to be as brutal as ever, 

arresting them, locking them up in ‘‘black’’ jails, beating them, implicating friends and relatives, and employing other illegal measures. Furthermore the Internet freedom is still harshly restricted. 

In March the SSH, representing the security shell network protocol 

for secured data communication, was blocked, and this is important 

evidence that freedom to use the Internet has been further restricted. Mr. Chen repeatedly called to push down Beijing’s Internet Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, I think Western democracies have 

done too little and too late to counter the Internet circumvention. 

You can read the latest article in The Economist magazine: Instead 

of becoming a tool for freedom of information, the Communist regime in China has used the Internet and its censorship to build a 

wall to be a master of control. For every $1,000 in China that was 

spent to censor the information on the Internet, in the West, especially in the United States, we only spend $1, $1 to $1,000. I think 

we certainly can do more to promote the Internet freedom, along 

17

with my friend Mr. Chen and many dissident friends, as well as 

the millions of Chinese people of faith. When the Internet, China’s 

Internet Berlin Wall falls, I think that will be the day the freedom 

of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of association will come, 

and I think the democracy in China will come also very soon. 

And the basic human rights on the bloody cases in China’s 

forced, forcefully enforced one-child family planning policy and 

forced demolition of residential homes and relocation of residents 

continue to take place. And on the forced family planning, even in 

the last month, the ministry of public health publicly announced 

the so-called achievements of the family planning policy in the past 

40 years. Three hundred and thirty million abortions performed on 

Chinese women. What is really distressing is that these bloody 

numbers continue to climb, and that the majority of those abortions 

were forced on the women by the government. In the United 

States, you can be pro-life, pro-choice. As Congressman Mr. Bera 

said, you don’t need to agree on everything here. But one thing is 

very clear, forced abortion is not a choice. On March 13, a woman 

in Henan province who had had a forced abortion was found 

hanged at the local family planning office with suspicious injuries 

all over her body. And just this month, we just reported yesterday 

there is woman called Shen Hongxia. She already had two children. 

And when she went back for family visit from another work unit 

and she was captured and then she was forced to do the forced 

sterilization. And even though her doctors—and we have two 

ultrasounds and various methodologies showed and warned the 

family planning official who kidnapped her and told the family 

planning official it will be deadly for her to endure this forced sterilization. 

They did it anyway that day on March 19. And a few hours later 

she was found dead. And we have been advocating on behalf of the 

following people whose cases have representative values, besides 

the cases of attorney Gao Zhisheng and Mr. Chen Kegui. And I 

want to mention another case. It is Mr. Zhu Yufu. At the time of 

Arab Spring, Zhu Yufu, a Christian dissident based in Hangzhou 

Zhejiang Province, wrote a poem and posted on the Internet to encourage people to strengthen their thinking. As a result, he was 

summoned by police on March 5, 2011, and subsequently in April 

he was sentenced to 7 years for one poem for the so-called inciting 

subversion of state power. 

Mr. Chairman, today we have three of Mr. Zhu Yufu’s family 

members who just recently escaped from China because in their 

last visit in November of last year, they saw their brother, 60-year 

old Mr. Zhu Yufu was dying. So they were racing to rescue their 

family members by leaving everything behind in China. 

So I want you to recognize them. And they are sitting behind me. 

Mr. Zhu Qiaofu, Mr. Zhu Xiaoyan, and Miss Zhu Yanmin. They are 

three brothers and sisters of Mr. Zhu Yufu. So I hope Members of 

Congress and the media could help. I made the motion for immediate help. This is a life-and-death decision, a moment of time. I 

have escorted them in the past few days, talking with the staff of 

the Members of Congress. And the horrible stories surrounding the 

family of this brave man, Mr. Zhu Yufu has already spent 11 years 

18

imprisonment for his democracy activities. And I also request that 

the addendum to my written testimony be included. 

And including, in addition to the above, there are three other 

people worth our attention. Mr. Wang Bingzhang case and Mr. 

Peng Ming were prominent dissident leaders who were both kidnapped by the Chinese agents in Vietnam and in Burma in 2002 

and 2005, respectively. Both of them are serving life in prison. 

A third person, of course, is the wife of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, Ms. Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest 

since 2010 without any freedom of movement. And the following 

other—the continuing arbitrary detention, the long-time imprisonment of other prominent prisoners of conscience, including Mr. 

Alimujiang Yimiti from Xinjiang, Mr. Liu Xianbin from Sichuan, 

Ms. Yang Rongli from Shaanxi province, Professor Guo Quan from 

Jiangsu province, Mr. Li Bifeng from Sichuan, Mr. Chen Wei from 

Sichuan, and Mr. Chen Xi also from Sichuan. 

I want to also point out we just received yesterday the information from the wife of Mr. Chen Xi. She learned that her husband, 

Mr. Chen Xi, also a prominent democracy activist, was sentenced 

for 7 years during the Jasmine Revolution in 2011. His blood was 

being drawn in his prison multiple times recently, which is an indication, usually, of a possible forced death. So we need to watch this 

case and Mr. Chen Xi very carefully. 

Finally, I want to also mention the persecution case of the family 

member of one of my staff, Mark Shan and his brother Randy 

Shan, simply for working with China Aid Association in the United 

States. Randy Shan had been persecuted repeatedly and had to flee 

out of China in the summer of 2012. The security forces repeatedly 

threatening Mark Shan to stop, using Randy as a hostage to force 

his brother to not work with China Aid. 

My appeal is that the situation for freedom religion, rule of law, 

and human rights in China has continued to deteriorate following 

the 18th party Congress last fall, especially during the first 3 

months of this year, which is a cause for continued worries among 

the international community. The Xi Jinping administration has 

between in full control over China for a month already. And we 

have not seen any encouraging signs of any immediate change. 

And so we need to be alert to help China in the following way 

from Western democracies. For the U.S. Government, we hope that 

it will make more real progress in the next 4 years than was the 

case in the last 4 years. The U.S. President and the Secretary of 

the State ought to have the courage to urge the Chinese Government publicly and in unequivocal terms to improve its record on 

human rights and the rule of law. And to adopt a standard that 

stresses the value of universal human rights. 

The U.S. Embassy can officially request permission to visit prisoners of conscience in prison and it can meet regularly with the 

family members of these victims, not waiting for them had to escape from China to come here to meet. And also to meet with 

human rights defenders who are still active in society and provide 

necessary help. In future human rights dialogues, strategic and 

economic dialogues, and dialogues with experts in the rule of law 

in other major diplomatic activities in the coming months, the U.S. 

Government should grasp these opportunities to unequivocally 

19

point out the problems in China’s human rights record and the rule 

of law and actively assist the Chinese Government in implementing 

real reforms in these areas. We harbor great hope for this. 

And, finally, I ask that the committee to enter in the record 

China Aid’s 2012 Annual Report on the Chinese Government persecution of Christians and churches in Mainland China. Thank you 

very much. 

[The prepared statement of Pastor Fu follows:]

20


80362b-1.eps

How Much Longer Must We Wait? 

China and the United States must not let new historic opportunities pass them by 

---Testimony of Pastor Bob Fu, China Aid Association 

Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng: Human Rights in China 

Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights 

2 p.m, April 9, 2013. 

Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C. 

The overall situation in mainland China in the past three months has been worrying From the 

serious air pollution in the capital city of Beijing, the large number of dead pigs that polluted 

the Yangtze River and other incidents that highlight the rapid deterioration of China's natural 

environment, to the situation offreedom of religion, the rule oflaw and basic human rights that 

continue to present a grim picture, they all indicate that the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao political 

agenda still persists in following its bigoted course, dominating everything. This being the 

case, even though Xi Jinping's administration now holds political power in China, people still 

have reason to worry: do we have to wait for another 10 years before seeing progress in 

China's human rights record and the rule oflaw? 

1. The wretched state of freedom of religion, the rule of law and basic human rights 

1. Freedom of religion: The persecution suffered by house churches in China is an example: 

in the past three months, there has been a troubling series of persecution cases. They occurred 

in 10 provinces and two municipalities directly under central government jurisdiction and 

included Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Tnner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, 

Guangdong, Henan, Anhui, Sichuan. One of the cases is Beijing's Shouwang Church, now 

going into its third year of being forced to hold outdoor worship service, which it began doing 

on April 10,2011. Shouwang believers have been taken into police custody more than 1,000 

times and there have been more than 800 short-tenn detentions. Their senior pastor Jin 

Tianming and some church leaders have been under long-term house arrest. 

In 2011, the Chinese government issued two important documents aimed at attacking 

Christianity that were directly responsible for the systematic escalation in the persecution of 

churches and Christians that has continued to this day. Tn September 2011, at the "Patriots in 

the Christian Community" training class held by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, 

a secret document jointly issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the 
21


80362b-2.eps

ministries of public security and civil affairs was circulated that detailed a plan to eradicate 

house churches in 10 years. Last year, China Aid Association obtained the "Suggestions for 

Doing a Good Job of Resisting Foreign Use of Religion to Infiltrate Institutes of Higher Education and 

Preventing Campus Evangelism" (Document No. 18) 

(http://wwwchinaaid.org!2012112!secret-central-committee-documellt.html) jointly issued on May 

15,2011 by six ministries of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee. The purpose 

of this secret document was to prevent and attack the spread of Christianity on campuses. 

At the same time, the Chinese government continues to employ strict control measures over 

Catholicism, continuing to ordain clergymen without Vatican approval, which is a serious 

interference in the internal religious atfairs of the Vatican. In 2012, the government forced Ma 

Daqin, the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Shanghai, to disappear because he had openly 

expressed his loyalty to the Vatican; his whereabouts to date remain unknown. 

In addition, the tragedy of the selt:immolation of Tibetan lamas and nuns continues to play out, 

demonstrating the persistent worsening of religious freedom in Tibet 

2. The rule of law: In accordance with the principle held by the Hu-Wen administration that 

maintaining stability was of paramount importance, the National People's Congress on March 

14,2012, passed an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law that went into effect on January 

1,2013. One of its articles, Article 73, provides a legal basis for public security agencies to 

secretly arrest and detain citizens under the pretext of "residential surveillance." This is a 

serious step backwards in the rule oflaw in China. In January this year (2013), the Public 

Security Ministry announced that it was scrapping the labor camp system. This is an 

encouraging step in the right direction. We hope the Xi Jinping administration can put this into 

practice and can also revise Article 73 of the Criminal Law. 

In its treatment of petitioners, which is a vulnerable group, the government continues to be as 

brutal as ever, arresting them, locking them up in "black" j ails [that is, pri vate, illegal jails], 

beating them, implicating friends and relatives, and employing other illegal measures 

Furthermore, Internet freedom is still restricted. Last December (2012), the British newspaper 

The GIlGldian reported that some Internet users in China had their access blocked when 

authorities started to employ new technology that can "learn, discover and block" virtual 

private network (VPN) services, which enable Internet users to get around the Great Firewall 

that blocks access to most Western news sites as well as popular sites such as Facebook and 

YouTube. (See 

http://www.guardian.co.ukltechno!ogy!2D12/dec!14/china-tightens-great-firewall-intemet-control) 

In March, the Secure Shell (SSH) network protocol for secure data communication was 

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disrupted, resulting in blocked access for some users. These developments constitute 

important evidence that freedom to use the Internet has been further restricted. 

3. Basic human rights: Bloody cases in China's forcibly enforced "one-child" family 

planning policy and in forced demolition of residential homes and relocation of residents 

continue to take place; the Chinese people's basic right to life cannot be guaranteed at all. 

Forced family planning: Last month, the Ministry of Public Health publicly announced the 

"achievements" of the family planning policy in the past 40 years: 330 million abortions 

performed on Chinese women. What is really distressing is that these bloody numbers 

continue to climb and that the maj ority of these abortions were forced on the women by the 

government. On March 13, a woman Henan province (Daxuzhai town, Taikang county) who 

had had a forced abortion was found hanged at the local family planning office with suspicious 

injuries allover her body. On March 22, a woman in her seventh month of pregnancy in Anhui 

province (Chuzhou, Fengyang county) was kidnapped by family planning cadres and taken to a 

hospital where a lethal injection was given that killed her seven-month-old unborn baby and 

caused her to deliver a dead fetus. ChinaAid has interviewed the husband of this woman and 

has offered to help them. At the end of March, a mother of two in Hubei province (Tongshan 

county) named Shen Hongxia was forced by local family planning officials to have a tubal 

ligation against doctors orders that led to her death. 

Forced demolition and relocation: Over the past 20-plus years, government-backed forced 

demolitions and relocations have taken place across the entire country, creating a situation 

where the citizens' property and basic right to life are willfully violated-and not only has it 

never stopped, it is becoming more and more serious. For example, on March 27, Song Heyi, a 

villager Henan province (Zhongmou county in the city of Zhengzhou), was run over and killed 

by the developer when he tried to protect his land. Tn the same month, another peasant in 

Henan province (Yuanyang county in the city of Xinxiang) was driven to suicide by forced 

demolition and relocation. On March 30, Zhang Ruqiong, a woman villager in Hubei province 

(Badong county) was deliberately crushed to death by a construction vehicle 

II. ChinaAid has long been advocating on behalf of the following people, whose cases 

have representative value 

Gao Zhisheng: Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Christian human rights lawyer who has been 

severely persecuted for many years by the Hu-Wen administration and who had disappeared 

into police custody for over 20 months, was transferred in December 2011 to Shaya County 

Prison in the Aksu district of the far western region of Xinjiang to start serving a three-year 

sentence. Shortly thereafter, Gao Zhisheng's brother Gao Zhiyi, accompanied by Gao 

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Zhisheng's father-in-law and two sisters, traveled several thousand kilometers to the remote 

Shaya Prison and requested a meeting with Gao Zhisheng, but prison authorities refused. On 

August 27, two prominent human rights lawyers from Beijing, Li Xiongbing and Li Subin, 

were authorized by Gao Zhisheng's eldest brother Gao Zhiyi to make a special trip to Shaya 

Prison to apply for permission to meet with Gao Zhisheng. Their request was rejected by 

Shaya Prison and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Prison Administration Bureau. On 

January 12 this year, Gao Zhisheng's family members were finally allowed to visit him. 

Chen Kegui: The nephew of blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng, Chen Kegui was 

arrested in May 2012 because the prosecution had concluded that when police launched a 

surprise night-time raid and searched the Chen family home, Chen Kegui used a knife and 

attacked and injured at least one plainclothes police officer. The authorities initially charged 

Chen Kegui with "intentional homicide," which they later changed to "intentionally inflicting 

injuries." At 2 p.m. on November 30,2012, the Yinan County People's Court of Shandong 

Province tried the case. Chen Kegui's parents were not allowed to enter the courtroom. The 

court affirmed the circumstances of Chen Kegui voluntarily surrendering to the authorities but 

refused to accept his defense that his actions were an appropriate act of self-defense, and it 

announced a sentence for Chen Keh'lli of a three-year, three-month prison term. Because he 

had been tortured and threatened, Chen Kegui said in court that he would "not appeal the 

sentence." Legal experts in China and the United States are in agreement that this conviction 

and sentence was unjust because Chen Kegui's actions were completely in self-defense and 

that the court's decision was an act of revenge against Chen Guangcheng 

Zhu Yufu: At the time of the Arab Spring, Zhu Yufu, a Christian dissident based in Hangzhou, 

Zhejiang province, wrote a poem and posted it on the Internet to encourage people to awaken 

their thinking. As a result, he was summoned by police on March 5, 2011 and detained at the 

Wangjiang Police Station, in the Shangcheng District Branch of the Hangzhou Municipal 

Public Security Bureau. On April 11, he was formally arrested on suspicion of "inciting 

subversion of state power." Zhu had already served a total of nine years on two earlier 

convictions, and this would be his third prison term. Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate 

People's Court of Zhejiang Province heard his case on January 31,2012, and reconvened on 

February 10 to announce its verdict: on the charge of inciting subversion of state power, Zhu 

YUill was found guilty and sentenced to a seven-year prison term, with a three-year deprivation 

of political rights, with the sentence to run from March 5, 20 II to March 4, 2018. Please see 

the details ofZhu's life, his lifelong pursuit of democracy in China and the many ways he and 

his family have been persecuted by the Chinese authorities for decades, as well as his family's 

appeal for help from the U.S. government, in the addendum to my written testimony. 

In addition to the above, there are some other people worth our attention. The first is the 

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prominent Christian pro-democracy activist Wang Bingzhang, who was secretly kidnapped by 

the Chinese government in Vietnam in June 2002. He was sentenced in 2003 in Guangdong to 

life imprisonment and he is currently still serving his sentence. The second person is the 

Chinese dissident Peng Ming, who was met by eight pistol-wielding Chinese agents in Burma 

in May 2004 and forcibly taken across the border into China. In October 2005, he was 

sentenced to life imprisonment. The third person is Lin Xia, wife of Nobel Peace Prize 

laureate Liu Xiaobo. The government has kept her under house arrest since her husband was 

sentenced to an II-year prison term and then awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010. 

No visitors have been allowed. On January 31 of this year, Liu Xia's younger brotherLiu Hui 

was detained, and in March he was formally charged with fraud-a move widely regarded as 

intended to put more pressure on Liu Xia 

There is also the continuing arbitrary detention and long-time imprisonment of other prominent 

prisoners of conscience, including Mr. Alimujiang Yimiti in the region 

of Xinjiang, Ms. Yang Rongli in Shaanxi province, Prof. Guo Quan in 

Jiangsu province, and Messrs. Lin Xiunbill Li Bifeng Chen We; (1BJ1.) 

and Chen Xi all of Sichuan province. These cases all show that the Chinese 

Communist regime has no intention of engaging in any meanin!,'ful political refom1 anytime 

soon. 

Finally, I would like to mention the persecution case of Randy C. Shan and his family. Randy 

Shan used to operate a large underground house church printing network in China. In 200S, 

one of his publishing co-workers, Mr. Shi Weihan, was arrested and sentenced to a three-year 

prison term. Putting Randy Shan even more at odds with the Chinese authorities was the fact 

that his brother works for China Aid Association. Beginning in June 2011, Randy Shan was 

asked by authorities to convey to his brother in the United States the Chinese government's 

threats to harm his family in China in retaliation for his work for ChinaAid. In the summer of 

2012, after a year ofliving under government harassment, surveillance and being tailed, etc., 

the threats against Randy Shan and his wife and two young daughters had escalated to the point 

where they feared for their lives and thought their freedom might be at stake. They fled to 

Thailand and applied last December for political refugee status with {IN High Commissioner 

for Refugees. They are currently awaiting their first UNHCR interview. 

Conclusion: Appeals to and suggestions for the governments of the United States and 

China 

The situation for freedom of religion, the rule of law, human rights and the environment in 

China has continued to deteriorate following the ISth National Congress of the Communist 

Party of China last fall and especially in the first three months of this year, which is a cause for 

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continued worries among the international community. Xi Jinping's administration has been in 

full control over China for a month already. We hope and urge this new administration to 

proceed from the perspective of China's best interests and the tide of historical progress, 

abandon the ultra-leftist political agenda of the Hu-Wen administration and its corrupt mode of 

governance, and effectively promote the development of a constitutional government, the rule 

oflaw and a civil society. We are cautiously optimistic about this. 

As for the U.S. government, we hope that it can make more real progress in the next four years 

than was the case in the past four years. The U. S. president and the secretary of the state ought 

to have the courage to urge the Chinese government in unequivocal terms to improve its record 

on human rights and the rule oflaw and to adopt a standard that stresses the value of universal 

human rights. The U.S embassy can otfIcially request permission to visit prisoners of 

conscience in prison, and it can meet regularly with the family members of these victims and 

with human rights defenders who are still active in society and provide necessary help. In 

future human rights dialogs, strategic and economic dialogs, dialogs with experts in the rule of 

law and in other major diplomatic activities, the U.S. government should grasp these 

opportunities to unequivocally point out the problems in China's human rights record and the 

rule of law and actively assist the Chinese government in implementing real reforms in these 

areas. We harbor great hope for this 

Finally, I ask that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs enter into the Congressional record 

ChinaAid's 2012 annual report on "Chinese Government Persecution of Christians & Churches 

in Mainland China." 

Thank you. 

Pastor Bob Fu 

Founder and president, China Aid Association 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013. Washington D.C. USA 

vv'ww.ChinaAid.llet www.ChinaAid.org 

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Addendum 

Zhu Yuru's Bio and His :Family's Statement 

Zim Yufu's Bio 

Zhu Yufu (born on Febmary 13, \953) is a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. He is a 

Christian and a prominent political dissident In 199R, he helped found the China Democracy 

Party 

Zhu graduated in June 1971 from the Chinese Department orlhe Hangzhou Education Institute 

and was assigned to work at the Hangzhou Botanical Garden. He took part in illustrating the 

book ,)'electioll of hee Species for Urban ~iliJreslatioll. 

Later, Zhu collaborated with the famous sculpture artist Chen Weimin in founding the Urban 

Sculpture Creativity Room and participated in creating sculptures in scenic spots around 

Hangzhou's major tourist site, West Lake. 

At the end of 1978, Zhu threw himself into the Democracy Wall movement in Hangzhou and 

\vas one of its founders 

The following year. he founded the major pro-democracy publication April 5 A10llthly and was 

elected head of the publishing house. 

Thereafter, Zhu was summoned by the authorities many times and his house was also searched 

many limes. 

Tn 1987, he was transferred to Housing Administration Bureau of Jianggan Disttict of 

Hangzhou Municipality and served as the head of tile Working Committee of the Labor Union. 

Tn 1989, during the student-led Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, Zhu was again 

summoned by authorities for voicing his support of the student protestors 

In June 1998, he devoted himself to the preparatory vvork of the China Democracy Party, and 

after the party's Zhejiang Preparatory Committee was founded on June 25, Zhu took to the 

streets to distribute "Public illinonncement of the Founding of Zhejiang Preparatory 

Committee of China Democracy Party" Hyers. For this, he was detained by the police for 48 

hours. During the July 10 incident, his home 'Nas searched and a large quantity of Public 

Annollncement Hyers, computers, printers and otherilcms were seized. He Vvas detained for 10 

days and was kept under surveillance for 50 days. On November 8, he was elected general 

secretary of Standing Working Group of the China Democracy Party's Zhejiang Preparatory 

Committee and elected to the National Preparatory Committee. 

Zhu was detained again on June 19, 1999, and was officially arrested on September 15. On 

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:-Jovember 2, he was convicted of trying to subvert state power and sentenced to a seven-year 

prison telm with three years deprivation of political rights. 

Following his release, Zhu was once again arrested on May 18,2007. On July 10, Hangzhou's 

Shangcheng District Court convicted him of obstructing government business and sentenced 

him to two years in prison. His son, Zhu Ang, was implicated in this case and was an'ested at 

the same time. He was sentenced to a one-year prison term. 

Tn 2010, Zhu hecame a Christian and was baptized in Chongyi Hall in Hangzhou Christian 

Church. 

On March 5, 2011, he was again arrested, this time for publicly supporting the Jasmine 

Revolution in China. OnApri! 11, he was charged with trying to subvert state power. 

At 3:30 p.m. on February 10,2012, Hangzhou Intermediate COUIt convicted Zhu of "inciting 

subversion of state power" and sentenced him to a seven-year prison term, with a three-year 

depri vatioIl of political rights. 

Zim Yllfu as a Christian dissident 

Tn 2010, Zhu Yufu, who had been imprisoned twice and had pursued democracy for over 20 

years, finally understood that only God could save mankind and save his compatriots. So, Zhu 

was baptized at the Chongyi Hall of the Hangzhou Christian Church and became a Christian. 

After his baptism, Zhu Yufu became increasingly devout and increasingly dedicated and was 

prepared to heed the Lord's caU at any time. 

In March 20 11, just before his most recent troubles, Zhu Yufu told his family that hi s time was 

at hand. At the time, his family members thought that it was very unlucky for him to say such 

things. He explained that the time for him to sacrifice himself had come, the time for him to 

take up the Cross for the suffering Chinese people had come; he had felt the Lord's call on his 

life. That was a period when autocratic and totalitarian govemmems were quickly collapsing 

around the world. 

Soon thereafter, Zhu Yufu posted his poem "It's 

Ti me" (hURl/news. nati onal post com!20 12/02! 1 O!thi s-i s-the-poem -that -flot -a-chi nese-activi slseven-vears-in-jaili) on the Internet, and Zhu was quickly arrested again by the authorities for 

publicly supporting a Chinese Jasmine Revolution. On Feb. 10, 2012, he vvas sentenced to 

seven years in prison by the Hangzhou intermediate Court for "inciting subversion of state 

power" and deprived of his political rights for three years 

Before this, Zhu Yufu had written a poem, "My Bags are Packed," expressing his willingness 

to sacrifice himself to God and to the suffering Chinese people. 

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Zhu Yufu's current situation is critical 

In the second half of 20 12 when his family visited him al Zhejiang's Prison No.4, they found 

that Zim Yuru, who was then already 60 years old, could walk only by suppOiting himself 

against a walL He told his family that his cerebral arteriosclerosis. coronary heali disease, 

lumbar disc herniation, severe high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary artery tumor and 

other ailments were getting worse. Because the prison forcibly deprived him of his right to 

wear a hat, Zhu Yufu had several fainting spells due to constricted blood vessels in the head 

when he caught a chill Regardless, the prison authorities still forced him to perform hard 

physical 1 abor. 

Zhu Yuiu also revealed the various ways the prison was abusing him' He was the only one in 

the entire prison who did not get a Nutritious Meal or a Patient's Meal; he was denied medical 

treatment and not allowed to take his medications, on the grounds that Zhu's illnesses were not 

life-threatening and that. if he were about to die, then certainlv treatment would be given; he 

was the only prisoner not allowed to make calls to "loved ones" on the grounds that he had 

harmed his family and none of them wanted to take his calls; he also had been deprived of his 

right to write letters to his family members on the grounds that his letters contained prison 

secrets .. 

Zhu Yufu told his family unequivocally that he was already 60 years old and was physically 

unable to survive seven long years in prison. He said that from the increasingly brutal 

persecution and abuse by the authorities it is likely that he would die in prison soon. He hoped 

to get the basic human right of medi cal parole. 

Family members are implicated and persecuted 

Because of Zhu Yufu's pursuit of the ideals of democracy and freedom, his family has been 

persecuted in unthinkable ways 

Around July 1999, Zhu Yui'u's younger brother, Zhu Qiao[u, and their younger sister, Zhu 

Xiaoyan, went to the US. consulate ill Shanghai in an elfort to rescue Zhu. Zhu Qiaofu gave to 

US. diplomat Peter Lu leditor's note: Lu might be the Chinese version of a non-Chinese 

surname] photos of Zhu Yufu in a detention center and some of Zhu Yufu's hand-wlltten 

manuscripts. Because of this, they were put under direct surveillance and subjected to 

government persecution 

On November 2, 1999, the day his brother was sentenced to prison, Lhu Qiaofu shook hands 

with "Peter Lu" from the U.S. consulate who attcnded the trial as an observer. Because of this. 

Znu Qiaofu was detained for two days. In December 1999, Zilu Qiaofu was forced to quit his 

job at Zhejiang TV station because he was "not fit to work at the mouthpiece of the Party and 

other sensitive posts." In 2002, Public Security otilcers of the Chinese Communist Party 

unequivocally told Zhu Yufu's family that the high-pressure tactics used against them was 

because the family could be used as "hostages" to make Zhu Yufu give up his pursuit of 

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democracy. They said that as long as Zhu Yufu's anti-Party actions continued without break for 

a single day, they vlOuld continue to harm and tomwnt the family without stopping for a single 

day. 

On December 3, 2000, when Zhu Qiaofll published an article called "Is the Double-Headed 

Baby a Specimen Il'om the Hospital's Expeliment0" in Zhejiallg 'Youlh Dai~y, he was once 

again forced to quit his job. Tn 2004, Zhu Qiaofu published a book called The Scale in a 

Reporter's Hearl. The book was regarded by the Domestic Security Protection Squad as 

intentionally exposing the dark side of society and an expression of the author's dissatisfaction 

with China's political system. The book was banned from various large bookstores and most of 

the printed copies were contiscated. In June 2012, because of Zhu Yufu's "Jasmine Incident" 

poem "it's Time," Zhu Qiaofil was classitied as a person to be put under heavy 

surveillance. On December 28,2012, Zhu Qiaofu was once again forced to quit his job 

At the end of 1994, their younger sister, Zhu Xiaoyan, \vas forced to quit her job because she 

had helped Zhu Yufu pass materials to Fang Xinghua, another member of the China 

Democracy Pm1y. As a result, her rather-in-Iaw was demoted, her family broken up and her 

apmtment confiscated. In July 1998, because Zhu \~fu had set lip the Zhejiang Preparatory 

Committee oCtile China Democracy Party, her home was searched and it was concluded that 

she had used it to "let members of China Democracy Party hold meetings where they conspired 

to suhvert the state power" She was threatened with the imprisonment and almost had a 

miscarriage. After that, Zhu Xiaoyan's business on which she depended for her livelihood was 

forced to shut down. 

On September 21,2003, their mother made a deathbed request to see Zhu Yufu one last time, so 

Zhu Xiaoyan went to Zhejiang Prison Administration Bureau to request a visit by Zhu YUUl 

with their dying mother. Her request was denied and she was detained for a day. As a result of 

this, Zilu Xiaoyan. was not able to perform her final filial duty, waich sbe will regret for the rest 

of her life. In 2007, because Bu Junxiong, a member of China Democracy Party, spent the 

night at Zhu Xiaoyan's residence, she was detained for a day and a night by the police. In 

March 2011, when Zhu Yllfu posted his poem "It's Time" on the lntemet, her home was 

searched by the police and she was put under police surveillance for several months. On 

November 11,2012, because she went to visit Zhu Yufu in prison and told foreign media about 

Zim Yufu's mistreatment in prison, she was illegally detained for three days and three nights, 

suffering great mental and physical harm. A few days later, her work unit forced her to quit her 

joh. 

The family's requests 

Zhu Yutu is in critically ill health. The various ways the prison authorities treat him indicate 

that they want him to die of his illnesses in prison. Zhu Yulh's family appeals to the U.S. 

government to respond to this urgen.t call and exert pressure on the Chinese Communist 

government to induce it to approve Zhu Yufu's request for medical parole and let him come to 

the United States for medical treatment If possible, we ask that the officials in charge of 

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human lights at the US embassy or the US. consulate in Shanghai go visit Zhu Yufu in 

prison. Doing so will help Zhu Yufu get the necessary medical treatment. This will at least 

cause the Chinese Communists to have some apprehensions about their persecution of Zhu and 

exercise some moderation. At the same time, we call on the US govemment to show concern 

for the increasingly worsening human rights disasters in China and the worsening persecution 

of political prisoners by the Chinese Communists and to exert real pressures on the hooligan 

Chinese Communist regime without break. 

11 
31

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Fu, thank you very much. Without objection, all 

of your full statements and materials you want added to the record 

will be made a part of the record. And, again, I want to thank you 

because without you, we would have never heard Chen 

Guangcheng’s voice when he was in a hospital room at the hearing 

last year. So thank you so very much for your leadership and your 

testimony, and again, for making that possible. 

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

STATEMENT OF MS. GENG HE, WIFE OF CHINESE HUMAN 

RIGHTS LAWYER GAO ZHISHENG 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Ms. GENG. Dear Congressman Smith, chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Commission, members of Foreign Affairs 

Committee and guests, greetings. Let me express my thanks to the 

Congress forgiving me this opportunity at this meeting to speak on 

behalf of my husband, Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer in 

China. Let me also express my thanks, my gratitude to everyone 

here for showing concern to Gao Zhisheng’s case. 

In 2005, Gao Zhisheng began to defend the persecuted Christians, Falun Gong adherents, and other persecuted groups. Because 

of this, the Chinese Communists shut down his law office and revoked his lawyer’s license. 

One day in August 2006, the police illegally kidnapped him. On 

December 22, 2006, they sentenced Gao Zhisheng to 3 years in 

prison with also 5 years’ probation on the charge of inciting to subvert the state power. During the 5-year probation, Gao Zhisheng 

was kidnapped and made to disappear by the Chinese police at 

least six times. Among this, the longest disappearance lasted 20 

months. Each time he disappeared, he suffered torture. 

In September 2007, Gao Zhisheng wrote an open letter to the 

U.S. Congress in which he exposed human rights abuses of the 

Chinese Communist authorities. Because of this, the Communist 

police put a black hood on Gao Zhisheng’s head and kidnapped 

him, making him disappear. And he was missing for 50 days. On 

the same day they kidnapped him, this time they took him to a 

room, stripped him naked, and brutally beat him. They also hit 

him all over his body and his genitals with electric batons, so much 

so that his body shook violently and the skin on his body became 

black. The torture made him lose his consciousness, and he had 

urine incontinence as a result. 

At the time police smoked Gao Zhisheng’s eyes with cigarettes 

and inserted a toothpick into his penis. After that, and lawyer Gao 

implored them to lock him in the prison to avoid further torture, 

but the police officer said, ‘‘Do you want to go to prison? Do it in 

your dream. Whenever we want you to disappear, we will do so.’’ 

In fact, that is what they did. 

Now Gao Zhisheng has been brutally persecuted for 7 years. In 

this 7 years, the police have lived in my house to supervise me and 

my children. They didn’t allow my daughters to attend school, and 

they even besieged me and my daughter—and beat both of us. 

I want my children to be able to go to school. I took them with 

me and escaped from China to the U.S. in January 2009 with the 

32

help of some friends. In February 2009, Gao Zhisheng was again 

kidnapped. 

In April 2010, 14 months after Gao Zhisheng disappeared, the 

Chinese Government made an arrangement for him to accept an 

interview with the Associated Press. During the interview, he 

didn’t talk as the Chinese Communist Government instructed him. 

Instead, he exposed and described in detail how he suffered torture. After that, the Chinese Communist police officers beat him 

for 2 days and 2 nights with the handle of a pistol. According to 

Gao Zhisheng, it was the most brutal torture that he ever suffered 

till then, and his life hung thinly in the air. 

Just a few days after the interview with the Associated Press, 

Gao Zhisheng again disappeared. In December 2011, 4 days before 

Gao Zhisheng’s 3-year probation was due, Xinhua News Agency of 

the Chinese Communist party published the news, in the next 3 

years Gao Zhisheng would be locked up in the prison. After that, 

at the end of 2011, Gao Zhisheng was secretly transferred to the 

far away Shaya County Prison in Aksu District of Xinjiang. 

In the 1 year and 4 months Gao Zhisheng was detained in the 

prison, family members have seen him only twice, and each time 

the visit lasted only 30 minutes. There was a period of 10 months 

between the first visit and the second visit. During the visit, the 

police prohibited the family members to ask any information about 

him. 

August 27, 2012, his elder brother authorized two lawyers, Li 

Subin and Li Xiongbing, to meet with Gao Zhisheng, but their request was rejected by the prison authorities. As you all know, Gao 

Zhisheng has always been a political prisoner of conscience under 

the strict control of Chinese Communist authorities. I am very concerned that the torture and the long-term detention pose a very serious threat to his life. I hereby call on the international community to persist in paying continuous attention to attorney Gao 

Zhisheng, as this is probably the greatest protection it can offer to 

Gao. 

Today, the Chinese tyrannical Communists are still brutally persecuting the Chinese people. The miserable experience of Gao 

Zhisheng, Hu Jia, Guo Feixiong, Guo Quan, Xu Wanping, Wang 

Dengchao, and others is clear evidence of the persecution by the 

Chinese Communists. These brutal facts have demonstrated that 

the Chinese people don’t have human rights, rule of law, freedom, 

or democracy. I hope the international community can rescue the 

above-mentioned people as it did to Guangcheng. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Geng He, thank you so much for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Geng He follows:]

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80362c-1.eps

Testimony of Geng He, wife of imprisoned Christian human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng 

before US Congressional Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, 

and International Organizations the House Foreign Affairs Committee 

Rayburn House Building Room 2172 

April 9, 2013 

Honorable Congressman Smith, chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Commission, 

members of the Foreign Affairs Committee and guests: 

Let me express my gratitude to Congress for giving me this opportunity at this hearing to speak 

on behalf of my husband Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer in China. Let me also express 

my thanks to everyone here for their concern for Gao Zhisheng's case. 

Gao Zhisheng began in 2005 to defend persecuted Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and other 

persecuted groups. Because of this, the Chinese Communist authorities shut down his law office 

and revoked his lawyer's license, and they also openly suppressed and persecuted him. In 

August 2006, the police illegally kidnapped him, and on December 22,2006, they sentenced Gao 

Zhisheng to a three-year prison term, suspended for five years, on the charge of "inciting 

subversion of state power." During the five-year suspension, Gao Zhisheng was kidnapped by 

the Chinese police and disappeared at least six times. The longest of those disappearances was 

20 months. Each time he disappeared, he was also tortured in various ways 

In September 2007, Gao Zhisheng wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress in which he exposed 

the human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist authorities. Because of this, the Chinese 

Communist police again put a black hood on Gao Zhisheng's head and kidnapped him, making 

him disappear for 50 days. On the day they kidnapped him this time, they took him to a room, 

stripped him naked and brutally beat him. They also used electric batons to attack him all over 

his body and his genitals, so that his body shook violently and his skin turned black allover. The 

torture made him lose consciousness and lose control of his bladder. Later, a police officer blew 

cigarette smoke into his eyes and stuck a toothpick up his penis. Lawyer Gao pleaded with them 

to lock him in a prison so as to escape the torture, but the police officer said: "You want to go to 

a prison? Do it in your dream then I Whenever we want you to disappear, we can do so." 

In fact, that's exact! y what they have done. 

To date, Gao Zhisheng brutal persecution has lasted seven years In these seven years, the police 

have lived in my house to monitor me and my children. They didn't allow my daughter to attend 

school and even set upon her as a group and beat my daughter. 

To protect my two children, in January 2009 I escaped from China with my two children with the 

help of some triends In February 2009, Lawyer Gao was again kidnapped. In April 2010, 14 

months after Lawyer Gao disappeared, the Chinese government arranged for him to be 

interviewed by the Associated Press. During the interview, he did not follow the Chinese 

Communist government's instructions in what he said; instead, he exposed and described in 
34


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detail to the Associated Press the torture he had personally suffered. After that, the Chinese 

Communist police officers beat him for two days and two nights with the butt of a pistol. He 

said it was the most brutal torture he had ever suffered up to that point and his life hung by a 

thread. After that interview with the Associated Press, Lawyer Gao once again disappeared. 

Because my daughter missed her father so much, she has had a nervous breakdown and often 

dreams that her father has left this world. Whenever Father's Day comes, my son always cries 

and he has told his teachers over and over again in tears, "I don't have a father." 

In December 2011, four days before the end of Gao Zhisheng's [suspended] three-year prison 

term, the Chinese Communist Party's Xinhua News Agency released a report saying: "For the 

next three years, Gao Zhisheng will be locked up in a prison." Shortly thereafter, at the end of 

2011, Lawyer Gao Zhisheng was secretly transferred to far-away Shaya County Prison in the 

Aksu district of Xinjiang. 

In the one year and four months that Gao Zhisheng has been held in that prison, family members 

have seen him only twice and each time the visit lasted only 30 minutes; 10 months passed 

between the first visit and the second one. During the second visit, the police prohibited the 

family members from asking him for any information about himself In the three months since 

then, we have been unable to get any information about him. On August 27,2012, his eldest 

brother hired lawyers Li Subin and Li Xiongbing to go meet with Gao Zhisheng, but their 

request was rejected by the prison authorities 

As is known to all, Gao Zhisheng has all along been a political prisoner of conscience under the 

strict control of the Chinese Communist authorities. I am very concerned that the torture and the 

long-term imprisonment pose a serious threat to his life. 1 appeal to the international community 

to persist in paying continuous attention to Lawyer Gao Zhisheng as this is the best way to 

protect him. 

Today, the tyrannical Chinese Communists are still brutally persecuting the Chinese people. The 

miserable experience of Gao Zhisheng, Hu Jia, Guo Feixiong, Guo Quan, Xu Wanping, Wang 

Dengchao and others is clear evidence of the Chinese Communists' persecution. These brutal 

facts show that the Chinese people do not enjoy human rights or the rule of law, and do not have 

freedom or democracy. 

I hope the international community can rescue the people just named as it did Chen Guangcheng. 

Thankyou l 

Geng He 

April 9, 2012 
35

Mr. SMITH. And I think all of us will redouble our efforts. We 

have never ceased. People on this panel, members of the House and 

Senate. Certainly the administration has to do more because your 

husband—your tenacious appeal on his behalf has been stunning. 

And we thank you, I thank you on behalf of all of us for that. 

Mr. Genser. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JARED GENSER, FOUNDER,

FREEDOM NOW 

Mr. GENSER. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chairman 

Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Congressman Weber, Chairman 

Wolf as well. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today 

about the ongoing persecution of Chinese lawyers and their families in China. The work of this subcommittee highlighting the 

plight of individual victims of human rights abuses around the 

world is absolutely essential. And I want to beginning by thanking 

all of you for your principled support for prisoners of conscience. 

Mr. Chairman, I am particularly pleased to be here with my 

friends, Pastor Fu and T. Kumar, and human rights heroes and 

champions Geng He and Chen Guangcheng. They, unfortunately, 

represent flip sides of the same coin. Geng He is here as the wife 

of an imprisoned Chinese rights lawyer, while Chen Guangcheng, 

himself a rights advocate and former prisoner of conscience, is now 

advocating on behalf of his own family and their ongoing persecution by Chinese authorities. 

As founder of Freedom Now, a legal advocacy organization that 

works to free prisoners of conscience around the world, and as 

international pro bono counsel to both Chen Guangcheng and Geng 

He, my testimony today will highlight briefly the ways that China’s 

ongoing persecution of both the two of them and their family members violates international law. And, more importantly, I am actually going to focus my testimony today on what specifically the 

Obama administration can do and what more the Congress can do 

to try to bring an end to the suffering of these courageous people 

and their families. 

As you know, Gao Zhisheng is one of the most prominent rights 

lawyers in China. What he and Geng He have been through has 

been absolutely horrific. I am not going to go into it in much detail; 

it has been described in a lot of detail here. But I want to highlight 

in particular the persecution that Geng He and her children have 

been through. After Gao Zhisheng was detained and disappeared 

and horrifically tortured, and then released, his wife and children 

were persecuted extensively. And this included persecuting their 

then 10-year-old daughter Grace, who was taken to school every 

day by four or five Chinese security officials who sat in her classroom every single day, who insulted her in front of the class, who 

followed her into the restroom and made her—a man made her—

a Chinese security official made a 10-year-old girl keep the door 

open to the bathroom while she went to the bathroom, to humiliate 

her. And told people in the class that if any of them let her use 

their cell phone that they could go prison and there is nothing that 

the school or their families would be able to do for them. 

Putting this kind of pressure on a 10-year-old girl as a way to 

get after her father is not only beyond the pale, it is horrific and 

36

inhumane in every sense of that word. This is the reality of the 

Chinese Communists today, and this is the reality of the fear that 

the Chinese Communist party and the Chinese Government has of 

their own population, particularly talented rights lawyers like Gao 

Zhisheng, who, despite losing most of his cases, tenaciously stood 

up for human rights victims and pressed incredibly hard for their 

rights to be secured. 

Chen Guangcheng’s story is also well known. And what he has 

been through and what his wife and child have been through is 

also horrific. Living in rural China with no education to speak of, 

he began as a rights advocate advocating initially on behalf of local 

people with disabilities who were being taxed, in violation of Chinese law. He then moved on, as has been discussed extensively 

here, to advocating for women who were victimized by China’s onechild policy through forced abortion and sterilization. And by exposing the horrors of the one-child system and how it was implemented in China, he himself became a target and has become a 

hero to the international community and to anyone in China who 

knows what he has done to try to stop the ongoing abuses of the 

one-child system. But the fact that since he escaped to the U.S. 

Embassy and in the Chinese Government’s view, embarrassed 

them, that they then came into his family compound where many 

of his family members live, this was not—to be very clear, this was 

not the police. This was government-sponsored thugs and local 

party officials who came into their home, destroyed everything in 

front of them, looted and stole things, beat up most of the people 

there. Initially, took away his brother, who was only returned 24 

hours later after being tortured, and then came and arrest and 

came close to killing his nephew, Chen Kegui, who reacted by grabbing a knife for only the prospect of self-defense. 

When you have five government-sponsored thugs in your house, 

on your property, and several of them are yelling, ‘‘Kill him, kill 

him,’’ under those circumstances, what can anybody do? What can 

anybody do? I am a human rights lawyer; I believe in nonviolence. 

But under those circumstances, when you have people yelling to 

kill you, and they are in your own home, I don’t know what else 

anyone can do but pick up a knife and try to save their own lives. 

And he didn’t even injure people in any serious manner. Nobody 

was even hospitalized. One guy had a scratch. But, I mean, at the 

end of the day, this was clearly self-defense. And, of course, they 

wouldn’t have even shown up at the family compound but for the 

fact that 48 hours earlier, Chen Guangcheng had courageously and 

extraordinarily escaped from his home to Beijing. 

It is an amazing, amazing story. But the striking feature of these 

cases is that they demonstrate how Chinese authorities act with 

impunity, violating the fundamental rights of their citizens. As a 

country of 1.2 billion people, and a government that is one of the 

most powerful governments on Earth, how can a government that 

is so powerful feel so weak and so afraid that they are afraid of 

people like Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng? And what they 

need to do is they need to come down on them with the full weight 

of the state, not only on them as rights advocates, but on the backs 

of their families to crush them. How can a government that claims 

to be so powerful be, in fact, so weak? 

37

And even worse, when human rights defenders seek help from 

competent legal counsel in a country that claims to abide by the 

rule of law, their own lawyers get targeted. Indeed, as long as the 

government is not held accountable for the continued detention and 

mistreatment of rights defenders and their families, we can only 

expect these violations to continue. When we consider the most important metric, the freedom of Gao Zhisheng and Chen Kegui, one 

can only conclude that the Obama administration’s approach on 

Chinese human rights has not achieved the results that these families desperately deserve, and that its tactics have to change. 

This family is especially striking because of the special duty our 

country owes to both of them and their families because they reside 

here in the United States and they are here with the protection of 

the United States. 

In the absence of progress on these cases, it is my view that the 

Obama administration has to increase the pressure. For example, 

we requested that President Obama personally meet with Geng He 

and Chen Guangcheng during their visit to Washington. In my 

view, such a meeting would send a clear, unequivocal message that 

the continued of targeting of rights lawyers and their families by 

Chinese authorities would no longer be tolerated by the international community. I was disappointed, frankly, to receive a response from the White House which indicated to me that, instead 

of meeting at the White House, it was recommended that we go to 

the State Department and meet with officials at the State Department. 

And my response to that reply from the White House was to say 

that I didn’t consider it to be a serious response. And the reason 

I don’t consider it to be a serious response is, to their credit, the 

State Department has been pressing in a range of ways on both of 

the cases in Chen Guangcheng and his nephew as well as on Gao 

Zhisheng’s case. Indeed, Secretary Clinton raised Gao Zhisheng’s 

case publicly, calling for his release. 

Former Assistant Secretary Mike Posner was relentless on Gao 

Zhisheng’s case. Obviously, the State Department was able to negotiate Chen Guangcheng’s release, to its credit, ultimately. But at 

the end of the day, it is quite clear and very apparent, and very 

sad to say, that without executive leadership from the President of 

the United States, I fear that people like Chen Guangcheng and 

Geng He and their families will not obtain the relief that they so 

desperately need. I wish I could say that this was the only time I 

have been disappointed with the White House. But, unfortunately, 

I have had similar experiences on other cases. I serve as international counsel to Liu Xiaobo, who won the 2010 Nobel Peace 

Prize. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest for more than 

2 years, since a week after Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize. 

This past December, we initiated a major action on their behalf. 

We had 134 Nobel laureates, across all six disciplines, reaching out 

to Xi Jinping, the incoming Chinese President at this time—this 

was this past December 4. And saying to Xi Jinping, you need to 

understand, we, these 134 Nobel laureates across all six disciplines, the one commonality between us all—we have all achieved 

extraordinary things in different fields, but the one commonality 

among us all is that without freedom of expression, without freeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
38

dom of association, without the creativity that a free society provides us, we could not have achieved what we have achieved in our 

respective careers. And we consider Liu Xiaobo one of us. 

We asked President Obama to sign on to that letter. As you will 

recall, he won the Nobel Peace Prize himself. And, unfortunately, 

we never received a response from the White House for that request. And the request that we had to the White House to speak 

out publicly against Liu Xia’s ongoing house arrest has never been 

responded to as well. 

At the end of the day, ultimately, without executive leadership, 

I do not think that the Chinese will take our concerns about Chinese human rights seriously. I understand we have many important issues with the Chinese Government. I understand that there 

are huge economic, social issues, cultural issues, intellectual property, Iran, North Korea, I could go on with a long list of concerns. 

But it seems to me that even during the Soviet Union and the Helsinki process, we were able to walk and chew gum at the same 

time. We were able to talk about nuclear issues, economic issues, 

human rights issues, and we were able to engage in all of those 

discussions simultaneously with the Soviet Union. 

And it seems to me that that is precisely what we need to do 

with respect to the People’s Republic of China. And until we act 

consistently and unequivocally and repeatedly and publicly to make 

clear our concerns about Chinese human rights, we will not get the 

results that we want. 

The last thing that I will note is that one of the other ways that 

we could be more creative would be by working multilaterally, 

something that we haven’t seen. Working on Chinese human rights 

issues, at least, up front and publicly we haven’t seen it. 

As an illustration, Baroness Ashton of the European Union is 

going to China at the end of this month to discuss a whole range 

of issues. We have never seen any public statements from President Obama and Baroness Ashton or President Obama and, for instance, Francois Hollande, the French President, and David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, publicly saying to the Chinese 

Government, ‘‘Release Liu Xiaobo, release Liu Xia, release Gao 

Zhisheng, release Chen Kegui.’’ It seems to me that, at a minimum, 

we should at least be able to privately engage in these conversations with the Chinese Government and say, if we do not start to 

see the progress that we need, we are going to have no choice but 

to speak publicly about these issues. At least we can privately say 

that to the Chinese. But, sadly, I have not seen an indication or 

a willingness of the White House to be willing to even take those 

private actions. So, in conclusion, it is my view that until a clear, 

unequivocal, and consistent message on human rights is delivered 

to the Chinese Government with benchmarks, timelines, and consequences for inaction, we should not expect its behavior to change. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Genser follows:]

39


80362d-1.eps

U.S. House of Representatives 

House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Heath, Global Human Rights, 

and International Organizations 

Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhishellg: Human Rights in China 

Testimony of Jared Genser 1 Founder of Freedom Now and International Pro BOllo Legal 

Counsel to the Chen and Gao Families 

April 9, 2013 

Good afternoon Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, and Members of the 

Subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the continued 

persecution oflawyers and their families in China. The work of this Subcommittee highlighting 

the plight of individual victims of human rights abuses around the world is essential and I want 

to begin by thanking you for your principled support for prisoners of conscience. 

Mr. Chairman, I am honored to join this panel with Geng He and Chen Guangcheng, two 

brave individuals who represent different sides of the same coin-Geng He is here as the wife of 

an imprisoned Chinese rights lawyer, while Chen Guangcheng, himself a lawyer and former 

prisoner of conscience, is now advocating on behalf of his own family members who continue to 

face persecution by Chinese authorities. As the Founder of Freedom Now, a legal advocacy 

organization that works to free prisoners of conscience, and as international pm hmw counsel to 

the Gao and Chen families, my testimony today will highlight the ways in which the Chinese 

government's continued persecution of rights lawyers and their families blatantly violates 

international law. I will also outline how I believe the United States can help protect these 

victims of injustice by engaging more forcefully and publicly with Chinese authorities. 

As you know, Gao Zhisheng is one of China's most prominent rights lawyers and has 

become a frightening symbol how far the authorities will go to silence the peaceful criticism of 

1 Jared Genser can be contacted atjgenserrIIfreedom-now.org or + 1 (202) 320-~135. 
40


80362d-2.eps

those that stand up for the rights of others. After arresting Me Gao in 2006 on charges of inciting 

subversion-an accusation now essentially synonymous with promoting political reform and 

respect for human rights in China-police forced him to confess by making threats against his 

family. After a trial that lasted less than a day, the court issued a suspended three-year prison 

sentence, subject to a five-year probationary period. Despite his release, Me Gao was placed 

under de jel(;lo house arrest and the family was subjected to constant, humiliating surveillance. 

Over the next five years, Chinese authorities repeatedly disappeared and brutally tortured Mr. 

Gao. Then in December 2011, the government announced that he would serve the full three year 

prison term for allegedly violating the terms of his probation. Even with his reappearance, the 

family has only been allowed to visit Mr. Gao twice and he has had no access to an attorney. 

Needless to say, Mr. Gao's detention is clearly arbitrary. First, the government has 

already held him in excess of three years since his arrest in 2006. Second, his imprisonment is 

the direct result of his peaceful and internationally protected work as an advocate. And finally, 

the government violated basic standards of due process by coercing a confession from him, 

denying him access to chosen legal counsel, and revoking his probation without any legal 

process whatsoever. Recognizing that the detention of Mr. Gao is a violation of international 

law, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for his immediate release-but 

despite this finding by the UN, Me Gao remains in prison and separated from his family. 

Mr. Gao's wife, Geng He, has spoken compellingly about the intense pressure placed on 

the families of Chinese prisoners of conscience. While under surveillance, her family was 

monitored constantly. Officers were stationed in their home and followed their young daughter to 

school, insulting her in front of classmates and following her everywhere, even into the 

bathroom. Unfortunately, the Chinese government's practice of targeting family members has 

2 
41


80362d-3.eps

become increasingly common. In addition to the extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia, the wife 

of the imprisoned 2010 Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Liu Xiaobo, both of whom we also represent, 

the Chinese government continues to target Chen Guangcheng's family, even after his arrival in 

the United States last year. 

While Chen Guangcheng's harrowing escape from illegal house arrest was widely 

reported, the mistreatment of his family and the continued imprisonment of his nephew, Chen 

Kegui, have garnered much less international attention. Chen Guangcheng-who like Mr. Gao 

rose to prominence as a fearless advocate for the rights of China's most vulnerable citizensspent four years in prison on fabricated charges before being placed, along with his wife and 

children, under extra-judicial house arrest in 2010. On April 27, 2012, just after midnight and 

only days after Chen Guangcheng's escape to the US. Embassy in Beijing, local party officials, 

uniformed police, and government thugs stormed the home of his brother, Chen Guangfu. 

Although they did not have a warrant, the police took Chen Gugangfu to an investigation facility 

where they repeatedly beat him. The party officials and thugs, however, returned to the home 

armed with clubs. When they discovered Chen Kegui, they began beating him-during the 

attack, one yelled "kill him, kill him." Chen Kegui tried to defend himself by swinging around a 

kitchen knife and three of his attackers were injured. The intruders briefly left the home without 

assistance or arresting anyone, but when authorities returned for a third time, Chen Kegui had 

already fled to seek medical treatment They responded by severely beating his mother instead, 

turning away neighbors who came to investigate her screams of , 'help me, help me." 

Chen Kegui was disappeared sometime after he left the home and was held 

incul1ll1lunir.:adu until the government formally arrested him in early May on charges of 

attempted murder. As in Mr. Gao's case, the government denied Chen Ket,'ui access to the 
42


80362d-4.eps

family's chosen lawyers and sentenced him to three years and three months in prison after a trial 

that lasted only hours. He remains in prison, despite having acted in self defense 

The striking feature of these cases is that they demonstrate how Chinese authorities 

continue to act with impunity violating the fundamental rights of their own citizens. Even worse, 

when human rights defenders seek help from competent legal counsel, their own lawyers are 

targeted as well. Indeed, as long as the government is not held accountable for the continued 

detention and mistreatment of rights defenders and their families, we can only expect such 

violations to continue. 

When we consider the most important metric-the freedom of Gao Zhisheng and Chen 

Kegui-one can only conclude that the Obama Administration's approach on Chinese human 

rights has not achieved the results these families so desperately deserve - and that its tactics must 

change. This failure is especially striking because of the special duty our country owes to both 

Geng He and Chen Guangcheng given they reside here. In the absence of progress on these 

cases, the Obama Administration must increase the pressure. For example, we have requested 

that President Obama personally meet with Geng He and Chen Guangcheng during their visit to 

Washington-such a meeting would send a clear and unequivocal message that the continued 

targeting of rights lawyers and their families by Chinese authorities will no longer be tolerated 

by the international community. But at a minimum, the White House could privately convey to 

the Chinese government its intention to allow such a meeting to happen if their cases are not 

swiftly resolved. Unfortunately, so far, we have yet to see these kinds of creative etforts be 

deployed by the Obama Administration. Unless and until a clear, unequivocal, and consistent 

message on human rights is delivered to the Chinese government - complete with benchmarks, 

timelines, and consequences for inaction - we should not expect its behavior to change. 

4 
43

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Genser. Excellent comments and I look forward to asking some questions. 

Mr. T. Kumar. 

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith. First of all, 

I would like to insert our statement. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

STATEMENT OF MR. T. KUMAR, DIRECTOR OF 

INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you. Amnesty International is extremely 

pleased to testify here. And we would like to recognize your leadership, Congressman Smith, over the years on a number of countries, 

not only in China. And today, one of your activism produce results, 

and we are seeing Chen here. We strongly believe that the hearing 

you had here where we also testified, his testimony from the hospital bed, changed the tide. Secretary Clinton was in China. It was 

not sure that the U.S. would take the leadership in asking for his 

release and bringing him here over to U.S. And the hearing you 

had made a difference. So thank you, Congressman Smith. 

We also like to express our appreciation to Congresswoman Bass, 

and Amnesty International is looking forward to working with you. 

And thank you for inviting us to testify. We can’t conclude this 

hearing without bipartisanship. We can’t have active human rights 

legislation or even pressure without having bipartisan leadership. 

And we are glad to see it is working out here. 

Before I go into detail, I would like to summarize Amnesty International’s research over the years and what the current situation 

in China is. First of all, there is a system called ‘‘Reeducation 

Through Labor’’ camps under which tens of thousands of Chinese 

citizens have been imprisoned without charge or trial. Simply at 

the whim of local police officers. 

That particular system is encouraging police officers and the government officials to silence critics and also silence non-practitioners 

and others. So Amnesty International is campaigning to ensure 

that that system is abolished, and we want Congress to take the 

leadership as well. Because they have not gone through any fair 

trial before they have been imprisoned. They were just imprisoned 

without charge or trial. And the labor conditions are extremely sad; 

16 hours a day, they have to work forced labor. 

The second that relate to Chen is the treatment of human rights 

defenders and lawyers. These are the human rights defenders who 

get abused purely because they are standing up for others’ rights. 

In this case, more or less, it is for one-child policy and they are trying to bring justice to the victims. It is not only the human rights 

defenders have been abused, their families have been targeted, 

which we heard here. So it is a practice that Chinese have been 

taking on and going after not only human rights defenders, but 

also their families. 

Third is the death penalty. China executes more people than the 

rest of the world combined, after unfair trials. As you are aware, 

Congressman, we oppose death penalty everywhere, including in 

this country. So we are having a major campaign again around the 

world to abolish death penalty. Because more so, it is the victims 

are poor and marginalized communities. 

44

And then the other issue is the one-child policy, abuses committed in one-child policy. We have document that women have 

been forcibly aborted and forcibly sterilized purely because to maintain that one-child policy quota. Even though the Chinese Government has instructions, allegedly, instructions to say that you 

should not forcibly abort or sterilize women, that practice is going 

on. 

We have never seen even one prosecution or one punishment of 

a government official who was involved in forced abortion and sterilization. That is a challenge everyone can put to the Chinese, that 

if you are serious about stopping abuse, prosecute people who have 

been involved in this practice, which Amnesty International has 

documented years after years of forced abortion and sterilization. 

Then there is torture. People have died in prisons in hundreds, 

mostly Falun Gong, as well as Tibetan and Uyghur, mostly Uyghur 

from Xinjiang. And finally the plight of religious minorities there, 

or religion, per se. Any religion that is not been recognized by the 

government and any followers have been abused, detained, and tortured. Catholic church members who have connections to Vatican 

have been singled out and abused. Then we have Tibetans, which 

we have seen years and years. 

Now the situation has come to such an end, over 100 people have 

burned themselves, self-mutilated them, out of desperation. What 

the Chinese Government is doing is trying to contain the demonstrations coming out rather than addressing the root causes of 

what the grievances there are in Tibet. 

Then we have Uyghur, Uyghur Muslims. They were singled out 

again. They have been called terrorists because, unfortunately, 

they belong to—they practice a faith called Islam. Hundreds have 

been detained. Even Rebiya Kadeer’s son is still imprisoned there. 

The only mistake he did was to born as a son of Rebiya Kadeer. 

So what can we do? Human rights organizations can report, campaign, lobby. But in the U.S. there are two branches that can be 

very active. One is a Congress, which we believe you are doing the 

right thing, including this hearing. Then the other one is the administration. There is a golden opportunity for the administration 

that is going to come less than a week now. Secretary Kerry is 

going to visit China this weekend. This is his first visit as Secretary of State. He should make sure that he sets the right tone 

about human rights while he is there. He should speak up. He 

should mention to Chinese leaders, both privately and publicly, 

that they should abide by the international standards. 

It is not the United States’ standards, Chairman, they are the 

international standards that U.S. should advocate. Failure to do 

that will send the wrong message to the Chinese leaders that 

United States and in exchange, the international community is not 

concerned about the way Chinese Government treats its own citizens. The U.S., as one of the five members of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have a special responsibility. And 

also China is a permanent member of the Security Council. U.S. is 

a member of the Human Rights Council, U.N. China is a member 

of the Human Rights Council. 

So the U.S. have all the right to speak up and to put markers 

there. We hope Secretary Kerry will not lose this golden opporVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
45

tunity by speaking up. When he speaks up in China, he is not only 

speaking up to the leaders of China, he is speaking to the people 

of China. Human rights, by the end of the day, it is about the people’s rights. The only things that we are asking Secretary Kerry to 

champion are the rights of the people of China. One thing that we 

want to point out is that if Secretary Kerry fails to speak up in a 

meaningful manner, he will lose all his moral credibility to speak 

about human rights in any other countries. So he should, and we 

expect him to speak up. We will know in a week’s time whether 

he is up to that task. And he is the Secretary of State who can rise 

up to the occasion and speak up about human rights abuse, not 

only against the weak countries and poor countries, but also to the 

powerful countries. 

In conclusion, Amnesty International thank you again for holding 

this hearing. And we believe these hearings will have enormous 

impact in affecting U.S. foreign policy and also send a strong message to countries around the world that U.S. values human rights. 

Thank you very much for inviting me. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Kumar, thank you very much for those very 

strong words. And, certainly, since you have been here on so many 

other countries, your consistency is greatly appreciated. So thank 

you so much for that. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kumar follows:]

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Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng: Human Rights in China 

Before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 

International Organizations 

Testimony by 

T. Kumar 

International Advocacy Director 

Amnesty International, USA 

April 9, 2013 

Thank you Mr Chairman and members of this Committee; Amnesty International USA is 

pleased to testify at this important and timely hearing. 

This hearing is important because of the scale of human rights abuses in China and the urgent 

need for the US to address those abuses. It's timely because Secretary Kerry will be making his 

first trip as the Secretary of State soon. 

We strongly believe that Secretary Kerry should set the tone of US - China relations in the new 

Obama Administration. This is a crucial moment to signal to the Chinese Government that the 

quality of its relationship with the United States will depend in part on whether the Chinese 

Government lives by universally accepted human rights norms in its domestic and foreign 

policies. 

Failure to speak up and address serious human rights concerns will send a wrong message to the 

new Chinese leaders about US priorities, and may encourage them to allow abuses to continue 

While we do not oppose the US seriously engaging with the Chinese Government on other issues, 

including economic relations, the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, and other security issues, we 

strongly urge Secretary Kerry to engage with the same vigor on human rights concerns 

Secretary Kerry should remember that his audience in China includes not just the Chinese 

government, but the Chinese people. Secretary Kerry should not to miss this opportunity to 

speak directly to the Chinese people about issues they care deeply about, including justice and 

equality before the law. 

It would be impossible for me to cover the vast scope of human rights violations in China, which 

is staggering. Let me speak briefly to the major categories ofviolations 

First, hundreds of thousands of individuals are held under administrative detention, including the 

"re-education through labor" system. They may be detained in these "laogai" forced labor camps 

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for up to four years without trial. Secretary Kerry should echo calls from prominent Chinese, 

including many in government, to abolish the laogai system. 

Second, China often intimidates, harasses, assaults, abducts, arrests, and places under house 

arrest lawyers and other human rights defenders who dare to speak out against injustice or try to 

protect the rights of others. 

Third, China continues to execute more prisoners than the rest of the world combined, usually 

following unfair trials with no right of appeal. 

Fourth, torture by law enforcement personnel is endemic, resulting in many prisoners' deaths 

while in custody. 

Fifth, as a consequence of the government's one-child policy, women are still compelled to 

undergo forced abortion and sterilization, notwithstanding official assurances that such practices 

violate Beijing's wishes 

Sixth, thousands face brutal religious persecution and political repression. Religious persecution 

has led to the detention and repression of thousands of Tibetans, Uighurs, "unofficial church" 

members, and Falun Gong practitioners. Other targets for repression include democracy activists, 

political dissidents, advocates of political reform, and people using the Internet to disseminate 

information deemed by the authorities to be politically sensitive or corrosive to state authority. 

Mr. Chairman, the Chinese government's record on keeping its promises on human rights has not 

been impressive. Assurances by authorities that the human rights situation in China would 

improve if Beijing were awarded the 2008 Olympics have proved false, and repeated promises to 

reform the system of administrative detention in China have been left unfulfilled. 

Below are some of Amnesty International's specific concerns: 

Freedom of Expression 

The authorities continue to abuse criminal law to suppress freedom of expression They detained 

or arrested close to 50 people and harassed and intimidated dozens more during the crackdown 

on "Jasmine" protests that began in February 2012 in response to the popular movements in the 

Middle East and North Africa. An initially anonymous call for peaceful Sunday strolls spread 

across a growing number of cities as a form of protest against corruption, the suppression of 

rights, and the lack of political reform 

Amendments in March 2012 to the Regulations on the Administration of Publications added a 

new requirement that those who distributed publications over the internet or information 

networks must be licensed, or risk criminal penalties. The authorities shut down or took direct 

control of a number of publications that had published investigative journalism pieces on 

sensitive issues. They reportedly banned hundreds of words from mobile phone text messages, 

including "democracy" and "human rights" 

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The authorities continued to harass, intimidate, persecute and criminalize pro-democracy and 

human rights activists. Activists supporting the China Democracy Party were sentenced to long 

prison tenns. 

Enforced Disappearances 

The number of people subjected to enforced disappearances grew in recent years. Many were 

held in secret detention, including Hada, a Mongolian political activist. Many others remained or 

were placed under illegal house arrest. They included Liu Xia, wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner 

Liu Xiaobo, and Zheng Enchong, a housing rights lawyer from Shanghai 

On 30 August, the authorities released draft revisions of China's Criminal Procedure Law, the 

first proposed changes since 1997. Notwithstanding some positive amendments, the revisions 

proposed to legalize detention of individuals for up to six months without notification of their 

family or friends. Many legal commentators regarded this as a legalization of enforced 

disappearances. Prohibitions against the use of illegal evidence, including coerced confessions 

and other evidence obtained through torture and other ill-treatment, were incorporated into the 

draft revisions. However, torture remained pervasive in places of detention, as government 

policies, such as ones requiring prison and detention center staff to "transform" religious 

dissidents to renounce their faith, fostered a climate conducive to torture. 

FORCED EVICTIONS 

Despite international scrutiny and censure of incidents offorced eviction of people from their 

homes and farmland amid preparations for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the pace of forced 

evictions has not subsided. On the contrary, Chinese housing rights activists, lawyers and 

academics report that such abuses remain widespread and that the problem has intensified over 

the past four years amid a nationwide construction boom that has spurred as the local authorities 

attempt to cover debt incurred during the global financial crisis. Amnesty 

International is concerned that the forced eviction of people from their homes and farmland has 

become a routine occurrence in China 

The Chinese authorities have not made public official statistics or disaggregated data on 

evictions or homelessness across the country as was recommended by the Committee in its 2005 

Concluding Observations; but Amnesty International estimates that in the past four years, 

millions of people across the country have been forced from their homes without appropriate 

legal protection and safeguards 

Chinese authorities fail people at every stage of the eviction process Chinese citizens are rarely 

legitimately consulted prior to evictions and there is little to no transparency over the proposed 

evictions in most cases. Those who resist are subj ected to a range of high-pressure tactics aimed 

at forcing them to cooperate. Amnesty International has been told of many instances where the 

authorities have cut services such as water, heat and electricity in an attempt to drive residents 

out of their homes 

In a number of cases, these campaigns to pressure residents into surrendering their property 

escalate into violence. People facing evictions have been beaten, abducted, murdered, and in at 

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least one case, buried alive by an excavator. In many cases, violence is carried out by state actors 

such as police, chenggllClll ("urban management" para-police) or other government employees. In 

other cases, local authorities have colluded with developers to hire thugs to intimidate and rough 

up residents. In such cases, police often refuse to respond to calls for help. The incidents are 

rarely investigated and perpetrators brought to justice except when a case involves a particularly 

violent incident that receives a lot of public attention. 

Amnesty International has recommended to the government to immediately halt all forced 

evictions, and to develop and adopt guidelines for evictions based on the Basic Principles on 

Development-Based Evictions and Displacement of the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate 

housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to 

nondiscrimination in this context that comply with international standards. 

REEDUCATION THROUGH LABOR 

Under the current system, public security officials (police) can assign people up to four years in 

Re-education Through Labor without trial or judicial overview. People who are assigned to 

Re-education Through Labor are accused of minor offences which do not amount to "crime" and 

which therefore are not prosecuted under the Chinese criminal justice system. The system is also 

often used against perceived "troublemakers", activists and human rights defenders, as well as 

Falun Gong practitioners and others who practice their religion outside officially sanctioned 

channels. 

People assigned to Re-education Through Labor are typically forced to work for many hours 

a day, often up to 16 hours or until they meet their "quota", frequently under extremely 

harsh and unsafe working conditions, and for little or no pay. The type of work they are 

required to undertake includes manufacturing small electronics and clothing and packaging 

goods. Despite often having to work with hazardous, materials, inmates are given little or no 

safety equipment. Tn addition to systematic torture of political prisoners, inmates may be 

beaten by guards or other inmates for minor infractions or simply at random 

Furthermore, Re-education Through Labor inmates report extremely poor living conditions. 

They are sometimes held in excessively overcrowded cells, often made to sleep on hard 

boards with inadequate bedding, and are sometimes not able to go to the toilets freely. They 

are being fed inadequately on a nutrient poor diet of rice or bread, with small quantities of 

vegetables and generally no meat They are also typically not provided with basic necessities 

such as soap, toothpaste, and shampoo but have to purchase these at a "store" within the 

facility with money provided by relatives. However, items in these stores are reported to be 

extremely expensive and money provided to inmates by their families often "disappears" from 

their "accounts". 

The possible abolition ofRe-education Through Labor, a form of punitive administrative 

detention, that includes detention without trial and forced labor, is currently again the 

subject oflegal debate in China. In January 2013, the Chinese Communist Party's National 

Conference on Political and Legal Work announced four areas that are a priority for reform 

this year; these included Re-education Through Labor and the household registration 

(hukou) system. 

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The head of the Chinese Communist Party's central Political Legal Committee Meng Jianzhu 

was quoted in the press saying that China will "stop" using Reeducation Through Labor by the 

end of2013 and once the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress approves it. 

However, the authorities have not made public the details of their plan for the abolition or 

significant reform ofRe-education Through Labor. The reform ofRe-education Through Labor 

was on China's legislative agenda between 2005-201 0 but to date has not resulted in any 

concrete reforms. 

During China's first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2009, a Chinese Ministry of Justice 

representative stated that at the end of 2008, approximately 190,000 individuals were being held 

in China's 320 Re-education Through Labor facilities More recently, Chinese authorities have 

been quoted in the media citing significantly lower numbers for Re-education Through Labor 

inmates. However, it is clear that even on the lowest estimates provided by the 

government tens of thousands of individuals are still being subjected to forced labor under 

the Re-education Through Labor system and other forms of administrative detention 

China has not ratified ILO Convention No 29 on forced labor, nor have they implemented the 

recommendation of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading 

Treatment or Punishment, following his visit to China in 2005, to abolish Re-education Through 

Labor and similar forms ofre-education in prisons, pre-trial detention centers and psychiatric 

hospitals. 

Amnesty International has systematically over the years called on the Chinese authorities to 

abolish Re-education Through Labor and other fonns of punitive administrative detention. 

DEATH PENALTY 

In February, the National People's Congress passed the eighth revision of China's Criminal Law 

which removed the death penalty as punishment for 13 crimes. At the same time, it added a 

number of new capital crimes and expanded the scope of others. China continued to use the 

death penalty extensively, including for non-violent crimes, and to impose it after unfair trials 

Executions were estimated to number in the thousands. However, statistics on death sentences 

and executions remained classified 

FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF 

The authorities pursued their goal of bringing all religious practice under state control, including 

state oversight over religious doctrine, appointment ofreligious leaders, the registration of 

religious groups and construction of sites of worship. People practicing religions banned by the 

state, or without state sanction, risked harassment, detention, imprisonment, and in some cases, 

violent persecution. Banned religions included underground Protestant house churches and 

Catholics who accept the authority of the Holy See. Around 40 Catholic bishops remained 

unaccounted for, and were presumed to be held by the authorities. 

Between 10 April and the end of the year, members of the underground Shouwang 

Church in Beijing were detained on a weekly basis as they attempted to hold an outdoor 

Sunday service in north-west Beijing. Most detainees were held in police stations or 

under house arrest to prevent the service from taking place. The Church had been 

repeatedly expelled from rented locations and prevented from taking possession of a 

building it had purchased years ago 

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Falun Gong 

The authorities continued to pursue a systematic, nationwide, often violent campaign against the 

Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned since 1999 as a "heretical cult". The government was in the 

second year of a three-year campaign to increase the "transformation" rates of Falun Gong 

practitioners, a process through which individuals were pressured, often through mental and 

physical torture, to renounce their beliefin and practice of Falun Gong. Practitioners who refused 

to renounce their faith were at risk of escalating levels of torture and other ill-treatment. The 

authorities operated illegal detention centers, infonnally referred to as "brainwashing centers", 

for this process. Falun Gong sources reported that one practitioner died every three days while in 

official custody or shortly after release, and said that thousands remained unaccounted for. 

XINJIANG UIGHUR AUTONOMOUS REGION (XUAR) 

The authorities escalated security measures through a succession of "strike hard" campaigns 

which increased around-the-clock street patrols and involved "mobilizing society to wage battle" 

against acts the authorities claimed hanned state security. In Urumqi, whole neighborhoods were 

reported to have been sealed offby security checkpoints. Extreme restrictions on the flow of 

infonnation within and from the XUAR left uncertain the fate of many hundreds detained in the 

aftennath of the 2009 crackdown on protests in Urumqi. In January, the head of the XUAR High 

People's Court referred to ongoing cases connected to the 2009 protests, but the authorities 

provided no information on the trials. Family members of detained individuals were often not 

infonned of the fate or whereabouts of their loved ones and were often too afraid to 

communicate with those outside China, for fear of retribution by the authorities. 

Freedom of expression in the XUAR continued to be severely restricted, including by vaguely 

defined crimes of "ethnic separatism" and "terrorism", which included distributing materials or 

literary works with "separatist content". 

Noor-Ul-Islam Sherbaz died on 13 November, allegedly as a result of torture in prison. 

He was serving a life sentence on charges of "murder" and "provoking an incident" after 

an unfair trial. He was alleged to have thrown stones during the July 2009 protests, and 

was aged 17 at the time of his detention. According to a family friend with access to 

infonnation from the jail, Noor Ul-Islam had been regularly beaten with electric batons in 

prison. His family were not allowed access to his body and the authorities buried him 

before an autopsy was done. The authorities failed to provide adequate evidence at his 

trial, except for his "confession", which may have been extracted through torture. During 

his trial, he was represented by a lawyer appointed by the court 

The Chinese government used economic and diplomatic pressure on other countries, including 

Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand, to forcibly expel or hand over more than a dozen 

Uighurs to the Chinese authorities. Uighurs forcibly returned to China were at high risk of torture, 

arbitrary detention and unfair trials, and were often held incommunicado. 

TIBET AlJTONOMOlJS REGION 

From 16 March to the end of the year, 10 monks or former monks and two nuns in the Tibetan 

areas of China set themselves on fire. Six were believed to have died as a result. These protests 

appeared to be in response to increasingly punitive security measures imposed on religious 

institutions and lay communities in the region, following the March 2008 protests The first selfAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA' 600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE SE, 5TH cLOO~ I WASHINGTON, DC 20003 

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immolation, by Phuntsok Jarutsang, was followed by protests, mass arrests (including of 300 

Kirti Monastery monks), enforced disappearances and possible killings by security forces. Two 

elderly Tibetans (a man and a woman) died after local residents clashed with security forces 

while trying to stop the arrests. A third man died from injuries sustained following a police 

crackdown on demonstrators outside a police station. Individuals connected to protests around 

the immolations were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 13 years. Despite the rash 

of self-immolations, there was no indication that the Chinese authorities intended to address the 

underlying causes of the protests or acknowledge the grievances of the Tibetan community. 

Gao Zhisheng 

Gao Zhisheng is one of the most respected human rights lawyers in China, and has been 

subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, illegal house arrest and detention as a result of his 

work. He is currently imprisoned in Shaya county prison in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous 

Region in northwest China, after being sent to prison in December 2011 for apparently violating 

the conditions of his suspended three-year sentence. Prior to this, his whereabouts had been 

unknown for almost 20 months. He has been repeatedly tortured since 2006, and continues to be 

at high risk of further torture 

Family members were able to visit Gao Zhisheng in prison on 12 January. This is the first time a 

visit has been granted in nine months. The visit was tightly controlled - Gao Zhisheng's brother 

and father-in-law were only allowed to meet with him for half an hour, and were told that they 

could not ask any questions about Gao Zhisheng's treatment, any case details or ask ifhe has 

received any letters in prison. The family was allowed to send him 600 yuan (USD 96) but not 

any clothes or necessities. He looked fine physically and appeared clear-minded. Gao Zhisheng 

did not speak or ask much about the family but simply asked that his wife Geng He take good 

care of the children and not worry too much about him in the prison. 

His wife has passed on the following message to Amnesty activists: 

"Following a Letter Writing Marathon organized by Amnesty International at the end oflast year 

and actions trom the international community, the family of the Gao Zhisheng was granted a 

second prison visit on 12 January of this year. It is a small improvement, but it could not be 

achieved without the international community's concerns and the etTort and support from the 

membership of Amnesty International, for which my family and I feel most grateful. I hope 

Amnesty International will continue to promote this activity, allowing more people to come to 

know my husband's situation, until he gains his freedom." 

What follows is more detailed information about his case 

Enforced disappearance and torture 

In December 2011, state media announced that Gao Zhisheng had violated terms of his 

suspended sentence and was being sent to serve his sentence in prison. This news shocked his 

friends and family, who had not heard from him since April 20 I 0, and did not even know if he 

was dead or alive. 

Gao Zhisheng disappeared for the tirst time on 4 February 2009, when police took him from his 

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family home in Shaanxi Province whilst he was under illegal house arrest. Fourteen months later 

at the end of March 2010, he re-appeared in Beijing for two weeks. 

Gao Zhisheng gave a televised interview to the Associated Press at a Beijing teahouse on 7 April 

2010. Tn the interview, Gao Zhisheng said that "T don't have the capacity to persevere. On the one 

hand, it's my past experiences. It's also that these experiences greatly hurt my loved ones. This 

ultimate choice of mine, after a process of deep and careful thought, is to seek the goal of peace 

and calm." 

A couple of days later between 9-12 April 2010, Gao Zhisheng was seen leaving his Beijing 

home and getting into a vehicle parked outside his building. He was carrying just a backpack 

when he disappeared for the second time 

Tn April 201 0, the Associated Press said that Gao Zhisheng had refused to discuss his 

disappearance and his treatment during the interview. However, in December 2010, the 

Associated Press released new details about Gao Zhisheng' s ordeal, saying that they had acted 

upon Gao Zhisheng's request not to make his account public unless he went missing again or 

made it to "someplace safe" like the US or Europe 

According to the Associated Press report, published in December 2010, during the 14 months 

between February 2009 and end of March 2010 Gao Zhisheng had been held in hostels, farm 

houses, apartments and prisons in Beijing, his native Shaanxi province, and in the Xinjiang 

Uighur Autonomous Region, where his in-laws live. On several occasions during this period, he 

was hooded, tied up with belts, made sit motionless for 16 hours, told that his children had had a 

nervous breakdown. Plain-clothed police, who were holding him, threatened to kill him and 

dump his body in a river. 

In the interview with the Associated Press, Gao Zhisheng said that "for 48 hours, my life hung 

by a thread" in reference to a week of brutality from 25 September 2009. The week culminated 

with three police officers taking turns for two days and nights to beat him with handguns in 

holsters and do other things Gao Zhisheng refused to describe in the interview. He was stripped 

bare, and when the officers needed to catch their breath in between, they bound his arms and legs 

with plastic bags and threw him to the floor 

Human rights work and the start of his persecution 

The Ministry ofJustice named Gao Zhisheng "one of the nation's top 10 lawyers" in 2001 for his 

pro bono work on public interest cases. He had represented human rights activists and worked on 

other politically sensitive cases including those involving Falun Gong practitioners as well as 

death penalty cases. In late 2005, the Beijing Municipal Justice Bureau revoked his lawyer's 

license and suspended the operations of his law tirm Shengzhi Law Otlice. This was a direct 

result of Gao Zhisheng's open letters to the government calling on them to stop religious 

persecution, including persecution of Falun Gong practitioners His letters were published on 

numerous overseas Chinese-language web sites 

In February 2006 Gao Zhisheng organized a hunger strike campaign to draw attention to the 

persecution of human rights activists in China. Shortly after the campaign ended, the authorities 

detained Gao Zhisheng, holding him without charge from 22 August until 21 September, when 

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he was charged with the vaguely-defined offence of "inciting subversion." He remained in 

custody until he was sentenced, on 22 December 2006, after a closed trial, to three years' 

imprisonment, suspended for five years, and one year's subsequent deprivation of political rights. 

His lawyer was not allowed to attend the trial. Gao Zhisheng was allowed to return home a few 

days after he was sentenced, but he and his family were kept under illegal house arrest. 

In April 2007, Gao Zhisheng told other activists he had been tortured during the period of 

detention before his trial. He said he had been handcuffed and forced to sit, either in an iron chair 

or cross-legged, for hours at a time, with bright lights shone in his eyes. He also said that he had 

been forced to confess after state security officials repeatedly threatened they would harm his 

family. When the authorities discovered he had given out this infonnation, they increased the 

harassment of him and his family. 

On 13 September 2007, Gao Zhisheng had an open letter to the US Congress published in the 

US-based Epoch Times newspaper, drawing attention to the deteriorating human rights situation 

in China. In the letter Gao Zhisheng also said that he did not support the country's staging of the 

2008 Olympics. On 22 September 2007, a group of plainclothes police came into his home, 

stripped offhis clothes and beat him unconscious. He was then taken from his home and held 

incommunicado for nearly six weeks 

During this time, the police subjected Gao Zhisheng to beatings and repeated electric shocks to 

his genitals. They also held lit cigarettes close to his eyes for hours, which left him partially blind 

for days afterwards. After he was released his acquaintances described him as "a broken man," 

physically and mentally. Throughout this time and after he returned to his Beijing home in 

November 2007, Gao Zhisheng's family were continually harassed by the security forces, and 

under illegal house arrest. Their friends and other human rights activists tried repeatedly to 

contact his family but were never able to speak freely with them, as the family's telephone line 

had been cut, and their house surrounded by police. 

His family fled China because of constant harassment by the authorities, and arrived in the 

United States on 11 March 2009. The authorities had prevented his children from attending 

school since summer 2008 and his family's bank accounts have been frozen. His daughter had 

attempted suicide as a result of the strain. In October 2010, his daughter wrote an open letter to 

the President of the United States of America. In her letter, she writes: "President Obama, as the 

father of two girls yourself, please ask President Hu Jintao of China to tell this daughter where 

her father is." 

Recommendations re Gao Zhisheng 

During the China-US Human rights Dialog and in meetings with the ambassador of the PRC and 

Chinese authorities, request that: 

Gao Zhisheng is released immediately and unconditionally; 

Gao Zhisheng is not tortured or otherwise ill-treated 

An independent investigation into allegations that Gao Zhisheng has been tortured is 

conducted with a view of bringing those responsible to justice 

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Gao Zhisheng is given access to legal assistance and any medical treatment he may 

require 

Gao Zhisheng is allowed regular access to his family 

Chen Guangcheng 

Blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng was released trom prison on 9 September 2010 

after serving his four-year and three-month sentence in full. Upon release, he was escorted back 

to his home village ofDonshib'll in Linyi city, Shandong province, where he and his family were 

immediately placed under illegal house arrest. 

Chen is best known for exposing forced abortion and sterilization practices in Linyi County, 

Shandong Province, and for seeking legal redress for the victims. He also gave legal support to 

many others whose rights have been violated, including fanners forcibly removed from their land 

without due process or compensation 

Chen escaped from his home in late April 2012 and tled to Beijing where he took retuge in the 

US embassy. Eventually he and his immediate family were allowed to leave China for the US. 

Chen has taken up a fellowship at NYU 

Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, was detained on 30 April 2012, after tleeing for his safety 

following a violent raid by local authorities on his family's home on 26 April. The raid - which 

happened just days after Chen Kegui's uncle, human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, escaped 

from illegal house arrest - was conducted by around 20 plain-clothed individuals who failed to 

show any i denti fi cati on or search warrant 

According to those present, Chen Kegui picked up a knife in self-defense and injured several of 

the intruders, before tleeing the house. On 9 May, Chen Kegui's family was notified that he had 

been arrested on suspicion of "intentional homicide". However, in October when the police 

submitted the case to the prosecuting official, the charge was changed to "intlicting intentional 

injury". Chen Kegui was sentenced by the Yinan County Court in Linyi, Shan dong province, in 

November. He was denied the right to a lawyer of his choice and his family were not called as 

witnesses or allowed to attend the trial. 

On 31 January, Chen Kegui's father, mother and wife were able to visit him for the first time 

since he was detained. His father, Chen Guangfu, said that the visit at Linyi prison took place 

behind a glass screen, lasted only 30 minutes and was monitored by two prison staff. He reported 

that Chen Kegui looked in good health, but was agitated and "feeling a sense of injustice". 

Chen Kegui, nephew of Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, was sentenced to three 

years and three months imprisonment in November 2012. 

Recommendations re Cheng GuangchengiCheng Kegui 

The authorities to ensure that Chen Kegui is not subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and to 

immediately cease all harassment of Chen Kegui 's family. 

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Recommendations: 

Chinese authorities should allow human rights defenders and their families to carry out 

their peaceful work without fear of hindrance, intimidation, arbitrary detention or 

imprisonment, in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. 

Chinese authorities should review the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, to 

bring them into line with the UN Convention Against Torture, including by making 

inadmissible evidence obtained through torture, strengthening the right of detainees to 

prompt access to legal counsel and regular family visits, and ensuring the definition of 

torture encompasses mental torture as a form of torture. 

Chinese authorities should put an end to impunity for torture and other ill-treatment by 

making institutional reforms necessary to ensure effective implementation of existing 

laws prohibiting torture. 

Thank you for inviting Amnesty International to testify in this hearing. 

T. Kumar 

International Advocacy Director 

Amnesty International USA 

Email. tkurnar@aiusa.org 

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Mr. SMITH. I would like to just ask a few questions and yield to 

my colleagues. I want to assure Mr. Chen that we will follow up 

on your request to get all relevant data and documents concerning 

your situation as it was in China. And we will ask the Oversight 

and Government Reform Committee to do likewise. But also the 

Foreign Affairs Committee. So thank you for that request. 

I do hope the press takes very keen note of this. Back in 1984, 

I offered the first amendment conditioning United States contributions to organizations as to whether or not, if they were involved 

with forced abortion or forced sterilization, they would be precluded 

such funds. That morphed into what became known as the KempKasten language, which is the current law of the land. 

Earlier in this hearing, one of my colleagues mentioned that 

UNFPA had an unblemished record. I think the documentation 

couldn’t be more clear that we have aided and abetted, by aiding 

and abetting an organization, it is on the ground, implementing 

Chinese law, which is a one-child-per-couple policy, which relies on 

what they euphemistically call social compensation fees, huge, ruinous fines, up to 10 times both husband and wife’s salaries—no 

one can pay them—or bribes or having a child on the run. Which 

some women are able to do. 

The Financial Times did a report on March 15 pointing out that 

there have been more abortions, and most of those are forced, in 

China, than there are people in the United States of American. 

Three hundred and thirty million. 

Mr. Chen mentioned a moment ago about the 130,000 forced 

abortions in his small area. I would—and your list which you lifted 

up and held for our look, which will be made a part of the record, 

we will send to the administration and ask them to enforce the 

law. We have a law—I wrote it—in the year 2000 that says anyone 

who is complicit in forcing a woman to abort her child, or a man 

or woman to undergo a sterilization, is made inadmissible into the 

United States of America. You cannot get a visa. We asked the 

Congressional Research Service to look into it to see how many 

times it has been implemented, it is less than 30. 

So, Mr. Chen, your list becomes, I think, a blueprint for action, 

an engraved invitation for the administration to look at those individuals and bar entry into the United States of anyone who has 

committed such violence against women and children pursuant to 

the law. Just enforce United States law. It is on the books; I know 

because I wrote it. So I would hope that that would be the case. 

So I look forward to following up with your list, Mr. Chen, to see 

if the administration will do that. 

Let me ask just a couple of things. You know, Mr. Genser, you 

mentioned that we basically risked super power confrontation with 

the Soviet Union by ensuring—and you, Mr. Kumar, said it as 

well—that human rights were central, a main, central pillar of U.S. 

foreign policy. All of us were greatly chagrined when Hillary Clinton said in route, first trip to Beijing, I am not going to let human 

rights, ‘‘interfere with global climate change and other issues.’’

So as long as it is put askance or aside and compartmentalized, 

human rights will not be seen by the Chinese Government as being 

something we absolutely cherish and will fight to the end for. 

58

I would respectfully submit we would be working much closer 

with the Chinese on North Korea had we insisted, as you pointed 

out, clear consistent, unequivocal support for human rights, Mr. 

Genser, we would have a greater partner in standing up to the tyranny of the new leader, the new leader in Pyongyang. 

Human rights pay dividends in far more ways than just helping 

great individuals like Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guangcheng and 

others who have suffered so much for freedom and human rights. 

It has great positives in other areas as well. 

We will follow up on all of these things as you have recommended. Try anew with the administration. Hope springs eternal. My hope is that they will grab this and run with it. It is in 

the interest of the suffering people of China. It is also in global interests. Because we have seen in Africa and elsewhere, because 

this subcommittee covers Africa and human rights globally, global 

human rights obviously applying to China and everywhere else, but 

we have seen that the bad governance model of China is being exported as well. People like Bashir in Sudan love the Chinese model 

of dictatorship and secret police; you don’t have to worry about the 

messy details of democracy and checks and balances. 

So I would like to yield to Ms. Bass. 

If you would like to comment on any of that, any of our distinguished witnesses, or I will yield for some other questions. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions. But 

before I get there, though, I feel I must follow up in terms of the 

testimony that was given by my colleague, Congressman Bera. Because I believe what he was referring to was, first of all, I think 

he very strongly articulated that he was opposed to China’s onechild policy and was opposed to forced abortions under anybody’s 

policy. But that he was talking about support for the United Nations Population Fund. And he was making a distinction by saying 

that no government should intrude in the right of a woman to control her own body. So I just want to state for the record that that 

is what he was referring to. 

Mr. SMITH. The gentlelady would yield? 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Mr. SMITH. Very briefly. But there have been findings repeatedly, 

probably the most comprehensive one was done by Secretary 

Negroponte back in 2008. And pursuant to Kemp-Kasten, which 

very simply says that no funds for any organization that supports 

or co-manages a coercive population control program, that it 

couldn’t have been more clear in their finding that the U.N. Population Fund had so violated U.S. law and then, therefore, was ineligible for U.S. funding. Because the UNFPA at the end of the day 

enforces—is part of, it is integral because they do also provide 

training to the one-child-per-couple policy. And it relies, that policy, 

on coercion to achieve its ends. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. I, again, just want to state that I do believe that 

my good colleague, who is a new member of the House, was not in 

support of that policy, and I believe he made that very clear. 

Moving on, though, I did want to ask a few questions of Mr. 

Genser. You know, you were talking about what the administration 

should do, you know, in terms of being more forceful. And I am also 

a relatively new Member of Congress, I am in my second term. And 

59

I was wondering if maybe you could talk about some past administrations in regard to China and what they might have done. And 

so, twofold, I am asking about past U.S. administrations, but I 

think you also reference several other countries. And so if you look 

at other major international powers, what have they done in regard 

to taking on China and its policies? 

Mr. GENSER. Sure. Well, thank you, Ranking Member Bass for 

the question. I think it is an important one. Let me respond to the 

two parts in turn. The first is I have been at this as a human 

rights lawyer for about a dozen years in Washington. For me, not 

surprisingly, this is not a partisan question, this is a human and 

human rights question. And what I try do is just speak to it as I 

see it, as any administration goes, and as any Republican or Democrat goes on human rights questions. So there are champions on 

human rights in the House that are, of course, Democrats and Republicans. 

Ms. BASS. I am sorry, just—not human rights in general. I am 

referring specifically to China’s policies that we are discussing 

today. 

Mr. GENSER. Understood. I think that all administrations, all 

White Houses, in my experience, only goes back a couple of White 

Houses, have some hesitance at advocating for human rights. But 

I can speak based on personal experience, particularly to the 

George W. Bush administration, the difference in approach between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. I 

represented for 5 years an imprisoned Chinese dissident Yongchun 

Li. He was imprisoned for 5 years. His wife and kids were American citizens. So it became a very high profile case here in the Congress. 

We had at one point 112 Members in Congress going on one letter to George W. Bush asking him to raise the case to Chinese 

President Hu Jintao. He did that. And it was announced publicly 

that he had done that. And ultimately, although it took a lot of 

work and a lot of time, Yongchun Li was released from prison and 

is now back here in the United States with his family. You know, 

I think that the optics from where I sit are just different between 

different administrations. 

I think that George W. Bush very much enjoyed meeting with 

dissidents and having their views heard and speaking publicly 

about what he experienced. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen President 

Obama take the same approach. He has, as far as I can tell, and 

as far as I have observed over the last 5 years, one meeting over 

the course of the last 5 years with about a dozen dissidents at one 

time, on one occasion. 

It seems to me that whenever the President travels abroad, particularly when he is engaging with countries that are not allies of 

the United States in every sense of that term, that it is very important to send the view to the world that he understands and is concerned about the suffering of the people in that country, even 

thought the U.S. has very different kind of interests associated 

with that country. 

So I don’t fault the President personally for saying, you know, we 

have a lot of interests with China and we need to be careful where 

we tread. And I do agree with Chairman Smith and with those who 

60

would say that we need to be consistent and coherent and deliver 

the message from all quarters of the administration that China 

human rights matter and are important. 

And so what I would say is, you know, this administration’s 

record, in my view, is not as strong as the prior administration on 

raising China human rights matters. 

Ms. BASS. And other——

Mr. GENSER. I don’t think it is too late to change that——

Ms. BASS. Sure. Could you comment, because I want to move on. 

Mr. GENSER. Of course. 

Ms. BASS. Could you comment about other major powers what 

you see them doing? 

Mr. GENSER. Sure. I think there are mixed messages, I think, 

from other major powers. I mean, I think that, you know, we will 

see what Baroness Ashton does at the end of the month. But the 

EU has spoken up publicly about Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia’s case 

and in my experience much more than the United States has, as 

the European Union. And individual member states of the EU, particularly, the United Kingdom have been outspoken publicly. 

I am not following every country in the world simultaneously, of 

course, so I can’t speak to a lot of details. But I would just say that, 

you know, everybody can do more. So my criticism is not lodged exclusively at the United States. It is saying, if we want human 

rights to actually matter and we want the Chinese Government to 

view human rights as something that is actually a concern of ours, 

if we don’t deliver that message consistently, we are not going to 

get the results that we want. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. I think this question—I am sorry. Go right 

ahead, Mr. Kumar. 

Mr. KUMAR. Is that okay if I comment on that issue? 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Mr. KUMAR. Amnesty International believes that U.S. Government should incorporate human rights in all its activities, all its 

interactions with Chinese Government. For example, they have 

dialogued with the Commerce Department, the Defense——

Ms. BASS. They dialogued with—I am sorry? 

Mr. KUMAR. Defense, Commerce, everyone should have a brief on 

human rights. It is not only the Human Rights Bureau at the State 

Department that should talk about human rights. Unless it cuts 

across every department, they are not going to take it seriously. 

They know this is kind of a—for the sake of doing, U.S. doing. 

And there is also innovation. There are two dialogues that U.S. 

is having with China. One is U.S./China human rights dialogue. 

Every year, they talk. The other one is U.S./China economic and 

security dialogue. We are urging U.S. Government for years to 

make sure, don’t single out human rights, just incorporate that 

human rights into economic and security dialogue. So it should be 

called economic, security, and human rights dialogue. Then only 

they will get the message. They are not going to get the message 

it is only human rights dialogue. 

So there are lots of things U.S. can do without getting permission 

from China, without getting any concern about China. Only from 

this end they can do, which they are not doing. 

61

And the issue of major powers, it is a reality, U.S. is the only 

superpower. And it is a reality that the only country that can 

meaningfully pressure China is U.S. There are maybe a group of 

countries like European Union that can ever put their act together 

and come with a strong message. So U.S. has a special responsibility when it comes to China. It may not be a special responsibility 

if some other countries, the other countries can take on. But we 

need to come to China, the U.S. should take the leadership along 

with other countries. Again, it is not lecturing China, it is about 

urging China to ensure, to respect the internationally recognized 

human rights norms and practices. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. You know, I know a reference had been 

made to Secretary Clinton’s trip over to China, and I think in her 

tenure as Secretary of State she was certainly known for her leadership on women, women’s rights around the world, and I certainly 

recall numerous times when she pointed out the abuses in China, 

but moving on, I wanted to ask a couple of other questions. 

I believe Mr. Chen had made reference to the reeducation 

through labor system, and I know that there are, there have been 

some proposed reforms to that system, and I just wanted to know 

if you—I believe it was you that was referencing that, and I wanted 

to know if you thought the reforms had done anything at all, I 

mean the fact that the labor camps exist, I don’t really know how 

you reform them. It seems like they would need to be eliminated. 

But the Chinese Government have talked about proposed reforms. 

What reforms were those supposed to be? I am sorry, it was Pastor 

Fu that had mentioned that. 

Pastor FU. Thank you. The reeducation through labor system is 

really the most extrajudicial evil law in the land of China, and the 

Chinese Government is basically using that practice to primarily 

target those so-called soft crimes, meaning political dissidents, the 

members of the underground church, the Falun Gong practitioners, 

and of course other democracy activists. Basically, the Chinese security chief can make you lose freedom up to 4 years without going 

through any judicial review, I mean without going through any 

other branches, like the court or prosecutors review. Of course, 

there is a mechanism that said you can continue to appeal. Rarely 

you can win any of these cases. Basically many people were sent 

to these labor camps and forced to work sometimes up to 18 hours 

a day in these labor camps. As you mentioned, the Chinese Government from this year ironically the minister of public security, the 

former minister was Mr. Meng Jianzhu made that announcement 

this year, the beginning of this year by saying China actually will 

stop the reeducation through labor system, but then the Chinese 

official news reports actually corrected him by saying the Chinese 

Government is seriously considering to reform the reeducation 

through labor. 

Ms. BASS. So they made him retract his statement? 

Pastor FU. Yes. And of course there are a few provinces make the 

announcement by the provincial security heads, I believe including 

Gui Zhou make that public that they will suspend the practice, 

which means they were not using that system to imply to the 

other, to those people subject for reeducation through labor, and of 

course, you know, I am very, very hopeful because this evil practice 

62

has been so long and offended so many innocent people and has 

been—make so many families suffering so much, I think the whole 

China, even those Communist Party affiliated scholars and numerous legal scholars, even some members of the People’s Congress in 

the judicial committee publicly advocate for abolition of this system, and I hope this will happen in reality, and I also hope the 

Communist Party, all the People’s Congress by finally suspending 

or abolishing this system would not find another system to substitute for their extrajudicial activities for targeting those people. 

Thank you. 

Ms. BASS. And then final question to Mr. Chen. I wanted to know 

what your plans are when you return to China. How do you expect 

to be treated and how is your family doing? 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. I have not thought about that too much, and now in 

the U.S., I just want to continue to push for human rights in 

China. I just wanted to add that on the reeducation through labor 

camp, before they actually added a clause to the law that they 

could actually beat the people and then force them—they could 

make the person disappear without notifying their relatives for 6 

months. 

Ms. BASS. It says that in the law? 

Mr. CHEN. It says it in the law. This starts from January 1 this 

year. 

Ms. BASS. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank each one 

of you for your testimony. I wanted to follow up. Most of what it 

sounds like today is that we just need to continue to highlight this 

particular issue. I have been following it for some 20 years and find 

it amazing that some of the testimony that has been given today 

is just very disturbing and even with someone who has been following it closely for that length of time, and yet at the same time 

highlighting the issue seems like that is what we need to continue 

to do. The chairman of this very committee brought this issue up 

with the Secretary General of the U.N., and I was somewhat concerned in his facial and his response to act like he didn’t even know 

about these atrocities that are going on, and so I want to commend 

the chairman for bringing that up in that environment. 

But Mr. Kumar, let me start with you if I might. In your testimony you mention the importance of having Secretary Kerry remember his audience. I think is in your written testimony that you 

talked about when he travels to China and that the audience is not 

just the Chinese Government, but the people of China. What, in 

light of social media and some of the other things that get out, 

what do references to human rights violations and democracy, do 

they garner any special attention among the Chinese people? 

Mr. KUMAR. Yeah, there are even though there are so many restrictions being placed. For example, even in text messages, human 

rights and democracy cannot be texted, that is what we heard. So 

there are ways people are getting, but Secretary Kerry speaking 

out is totally different from every Chinese citizen’s getting information about human rights from human rights organizations or others. Secretary Kerry’s first trip and during his first trip, if he fails 

63

to speak up in a meaningful manner, then Chinese people will feel 

that U.S. as a country—I am very careful to say that U.S. should 

not lecture, they should only insist on international standards. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So am I hearing you—let me interrupt for just a 

second. So what you are saying is the most important thing that 

Secretary Kerry could do on his trip coming up in just a few days 

is to highlight this particular issue diplomatically but make sure 

that they know the importance that he and this administration 

places on human rights violations? 

Mr. KUMAR. Yes. But he has to send a message to the leaders 

as relates to the people of China is that U.S. considers economic 

relationship and human rights and security and environment at 

the same level. That is the message. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What you are saying is tying the economic and 

the human rights together. 

Mr. KUMAR. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. For example, we have a manufacturing plant here 

in the United States, we wouldn’t tolerate these kinds of human 

rights violations——

Mr. KUMAR. Abuses. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. Within our own borders, so how dare 

we import other economic goods from China when we are tolerating 

it there, is that what you are saying? 

Mr. KUMAR. Yeah, that is what exactly I am trying to say. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So what do you think are the hopes, 

and I would give this to you, Mr. Kumar, and then Mr. Genser as 

well, what do you think the hopes that clear kind of message will 

be articulated in the coming days? 

Mr. KUMAR. The host will accept because they expect U.S. to 

speak up, and one example that we have seen U.S. leadership that 

provided results is Mr. Chen. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. KUMAR. If not for U.S. leadership, Chen will not be here. 

U.S. leadership came, to my opinion, if not for the special hearing 

that was held here when Mr. Chen was testifying from his hospital 

bed. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So is it your opinion that the other two that we 

have highlighted today in terms of the testimony that are held in 

prison, that their release is only dictated by the leadership of this 

particular government speaking out on that behalf and that if they 

don’t speak out, those folks will not be released? 

Mr. KUMAR. U.S. should take the leadership, other countries 

should join, but U.S. should take the leadership. As I mentioned in 

my opening remarks, U.S. is the only superpower left, so the U.S. 

as a superpower should also have responsibilities in terms of 

speaking out. Not speaking out will send the extremely wrong message to the leadership and to the people at large. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Kumar. Mr. Genser. 

Mr. GENSER. Sure. Well, let me just make two brief comments in 

response to your question. My first public recommendation to Secretary Kerry, which he could do privately when he goes in several 

days, is he could privately bring a copy of the op-ed that Chen 

Guangcheng and Geng He had in the Washington Post asking for 

a meeting with the President, and he could say to the Chinese 

64

leaders, help us help you, right? We don’t want to have this meeting between Chen Guangcheng and Geng He, but we are under a 

lot of pressure here in Washington. There was a hearing on Capitol 

Hill, there was an op-ed in the newspaper, we need to some 

progress on these cases. We have mentioned these cases publicly 

and privately over many, many years, and we haven’t seen 

progress, and people are getting impatient, so we want to give you 

a private opportunity to get that done. Now that is something he 

could do very concretely in the next several days that I think if he 

were to deliver that message we would start to see some movement 

on these cases. 

And then the second and last thing that I would just say is that 

it is also very, very important from where I sit to not just talk 

about human rights at 100,000 feet and talk about the need for advancing the rule of law. This is what the Chinese love to do, they 

love to come to these bilateral human rights dialogues and they 

love to sit there in those rooms, and in essence what we have is 

sequential monologues with both sides talking past each other, and 

the Chinese issue a press release and say this was a wonderful dialogue that we engaged in, and it is the dialogue itself which is the 

outcome, but from where I sit that is not the outcome. The outcome 

is are we seeing progress in a bunch of ways? And yes, of course, 

progress can come by changing laws in ways that are compatible 

with international law, and I am not trying to discount the importance of it, but I think we always need to be focusing on, like we 

have today, a handful of actual live people’s cases and people’s lives 

where you can have a clear and unequivocal benchmark with large 

photographs of people, and are they or are they not still in prison? 

And if they are, the tactics that we are deploying by definition have 

failed, and we need to think about new tactics. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Do you think that there is a clear understanding 

with the Chinese Government that we are not asking them to abide 

by U.S. law but just by U.N. guidelines? Do you think there is a 

clear understanding of that? 

Mr. GENSER. I think the problem is that the Chinese receive different messages from different actors in the United States, and the 

messages from within the administration, from the State Department and the White House aren’t the same, the messages from the 

Hill are different, depending on who you talk to, and I think that 

unfortunately a lot of people in China and the Chinese Government 

think that human rights is somehow a sword to use to get political 

advantage and not something that is consistent with our values, 

and the only way that they are going to perceive it differently—to 

be clear, I am not justifying that perception because I do think it 

is fundamental to our core values, to our Constitution, to our Declaration of Independence, but I do think that the only way that we 

can combat that perception is, as Kumar was saying, by consistently raising it to the Chinese Government across all the different 

aspects of the relationship, and it is only when we do that consistently across the executive branch and the legislative branch that 

the Chinese will understand that we take it seriously, but if we are 

going to start censoring ourselves and be afraid of raising human 

rights to the Chinese for fear that they might, you know, not give 

us what we need on other important issues, then if I were them, 

65

I probably also wouldn’t take all that seriously our concerns about 

human rights. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman, do I have time for two more questions? Okay. Let me go on a little bit further with that because it 

is all about the message, and as I think has been pointed out, you 

made pretty straightforward actions that the Obama administration could take in order to promote human rights in China including a meeting between, you know, the President and the distinguished guests that we have here today. You know, can you explain 

the reluctance that the White House has in why this meeting has 

not taken place, given the kind of visibility that we have with Mr. 

Chen here today and Pastor Fu and et cetera? 

Mr. GENSER. Obviously, I work as pro bono lawyers for the two 

distinguished guests here, so I can’t answer for the White House. 

I will say there is a genuine reluctance on most White Houses’ 

parts to be viewed as doing things that are provocative to important partners of ours on multiple issues, but, again, I think that 

they are not looking at it the right way. I think that they need to 

look at the fundamental values that are important to us as a country to have a true north which is grounded in our Declaration of 

Independence and our Constitution and to implement policy on the 

basis of our fundamental values, and that means that at times we 

are going to have to do the thing that isn’t politically expedient but 

that is consistent with our values, which is speaking up for human 

rights. If it is only about what is politically expedient, human 

rights is almost never going to be a priority for this country. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, do you believe, and I would ask this of Mr. 

Kumar as well, do you believe if the American people as a whole 

knew the kind of atrocities that have been highlighted here in this 

hearing plus others that have not been covered, do you think that 

they would see that and have an economic revolt, as Mr. Kumar 

said, they have to be tied together, do you see that the American 

people would speak up? 

Mr. GENSER. You know, I do think so. Louis Brandeis said that 

sunlight is the best disinfectant, and I think that sadly for most 

Americans there isn’t much attention paid to what is happening 

10,000 miles away, whether it be China human rights or what is 

going on in Darfur or a whole long list of the situation in Syria, 

you could go through a long list of things that the average American isn’t familiar with. I think that these issues are so extraordinary and the persecution of these two individuals and their families is so beyond the pale, and if the United States of America as 

what I believe right now is the most powerful Nation on Earth 

can’t stand up for the most persecuted people in those countries, 

Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia, Gao Zhisheng, you know, Chen Kegui. If we 

can’t stand up for those people who are most persecuted because 

we are afraid of our own interests on other matters with China, 

then who is going to stand up for these people? And I think that 

is really just the fundamental bottom line. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Would you agree with that, Mr. Kumar? 

Mr. KUMAR. Yes, I agree, and I believe generally overall U.S. citizens are aware of the situation purely because of Tiananmen 

Square massacre that took place over 20 years ago. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

66

Mr. KUMAR. But we as an international human rights organization also have major campaigns. We have about 700,000 members 

in this country, we have hundreds of high school and college chapters. We also campaign on human rights issues, including human 

rights issues in China. So we believe the people of the U.S. get the 

message, and that is why we are confident that there will be 

change in the U.S. policy as well. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So last question, Mr. Chairman. If we 

have, one is communicating to the American people. The second 

part of that is getting this message out to the Chinese people that 

would know that, and there are reports that clearly indicate that 

China spends billions of dollars, truly billions of dollars employing 

over 100,000 people to monitor and to really try to make sure that 

the Internet is not a public place, and we see that. Would you 

think that the best peaceful means of trying to get that message 

out to the Chinese people would be to make a significant priority 

of circumventing those firewalls that are there to monitor on the 

Internet? 

Mr. KUMAR. Obviously yes. That is why Congressman Smith introduced the Global Online Freedom Act, which is to prevent U.S. 

corporations from helping countries around the world, including 

China, from using U.S. technology to block information flow and 

also monitor peaceful dissent within the country. So that dissent is 

an essential aspect of freedom of expression where any country 

should be allowed to do and U.S. can push for that. 

Mr. GENSER. I would agree as well. I mean, I think that there 

are literally dozens of things that could be done to try to advance 

human rights in China if we had both the political will and the 

consistent commitment to actually make those things happen, and 

I think that it is really only a matter of our own imagination. One 

other issue that I will mention as well is, you know, the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square is coming up June 4, 2014, and I 

would love to see, you know, for example, a Congressional Gold 

Medal resolution introduced to honor, let’s say, a half dozen Chinese dissident heroes to be able to put pressure on the Chinese 

Government to secure the freedom of these kinds of individuals and 

others and to be able to have an event where the President of the 

United States and both Houses of Congress would stand in solidarity with the Chinese people. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That kind of a picture would be worth much more than 

that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, my thank you. 

Mr. CHEN. Hold on. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, Mr. Chen. 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. I am sure that many Chinese netizens and Chinese 

people know that we are here for this hearing. Probably not as 

many because of the great firewall in China. The amount of money 

the U.S. invested in information is not proportionate compared to 

how much the Chinese invest in forbidding its people from using 

the Internet. We need to invest and break down the great firewall 

so that the Chinese people can freely speak. With the free flow of 

information it would be harder and harder to deceive Chinese people. 

67

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I want to thank each one of you for coming 

in for your boldness in testifying and illuminating this issue, and 

I thank Mr. Chairman for this very worthwhile hearing, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Meadows, thank you for your incisive questioning 

and commentary. Mr. Weber. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier in the remarks 

figures were quoted that there were 330 million forced abortions 

and there were 130,000 I think abortions in Mr. Chen’s area, and 

I don’t remember who made those remarks. The chairman did? 

Gotcha. What is the time period? Since 1979. 

Pastor FU. 2000. Oh, you mean the first number, the 330 million? 

Mr. WEBER. Right. 

Pastor FU. Yes, that was since 1979 when the one-child policy 

was carried out. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Pastor FU. And the number for 130,000 cases, that was documented by Mr. Chen, that happened only within a 6-month period 

of time in his city alone. 

Mr. WEBER. Right. So it is interesting to me that—thank you, 

Mr. Chairman—amidst the discussion of human rights violations 

that a major plank in our discussion is the taking of innocent 

human life, that would be unborn babies. So would you all agree 

that part of your reason for being here is to stop those atrocities 

and that we would include those as a basic human right as well? 

Would you all agree with that? 

Pastor FU. Absolutely. And I would like Mr. Chen to also answer 

that question, too. 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. Forced abortion is definitely a human rights issue. No 

mothers want to kill their own children. This is definitely dictated 

by the Central Communist Party because the Communist Party is 

above the law, so nobody can sue the Chinese Communist Party. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, thank you. The point I am driving to, of 

course, is that it is a basic human right. Life is a basic human 

right, and we have had a lot of discussion here today about our 

country and the values that we have. I am glad to hear you all including that in your discussion today. It doesn’t matter whether the 

government forces the taking of that innocent human life or, in my 

opinion, whether the mother takes an innocent human life, the outcome is that an innocent human life is taken. So I am glad that 

we have made that distinction. 

Pastor Fu, you mentioned in your discussions that the U.S. Embassy can request permits to meet with those prisoners of conscience. Is there a list of the prisoners of conscience? 

Pastor FU. Yes. The U.S., I think, even the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) has a very comprehensive list, 

and of course for specific cases, those family members. If for any 

Member of Congress, if any of the Cabinet or ministry officials 

want to visit China or visit these family members when they are 

in China, we would be glad to facilitate, we would be glad to provide the most accurate information in terms of location, names, 

contact information. I think this should be part of the systematic 

68

and persistent effort and all-out effort not only by congressional 

leaders but also by all levels of the bilateral exchanges with China. 

For instance, Mr. Zhu Yufu, the prisoner I just mentioned who is 

dying in his prison, we have his prison address, we also have the 

wife’s phone number, her next visit to Mr. Zhu is April 13. 

Mr. WEBER. How many prisoners of conscience would you say 

that list entails? Is it 1,000, 10,000? 

Pastor FU. It is thousands, yes, thousands of names. 

Mr. WEBER. Thousands? 

Pastor FU. Yes, yes. 

Mr. WEBER. And so it is probably too much to ask that Secretary 

of State John Kerry would even entertain that idea? Have you all 

made that request to the State Department? 

Pastor FU. My organization, we have not made that request yet. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, let me jump over to Mr. Kumar. Have you all 

made that request of the State Department? 

Mr. KUMAR. We urged Secretary Kerry to meet with the families 

of some of the human rights defenders. But he is going to be there 

only for a day, less than a day actually. 

Mr. WEBER. Did you get a response from him? 

Mr. KUMAR. Not yet. 

Mr. WEBER. How long ago was that request? 

Mr. KUMAR. We had a meeting about a week ago and we verbally 

asked him. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And Mr. Kumar, you also talked about Secretary John Kerry, putting some pressure on him, and then I was 

glad to hear my colleague Mark Meadows’ comments about social 

media and trying to build that awareness. Of course, I am aware 

of what I guess we could now call the great firewall of China. No 

longer the Great Wall, but the great firewall of China—how they 

are intending to keep out all of the Internet, as much social media 

as they can. Do radio signals, for example—from South Korea, do 

they reach into China or do they block those? 

Mr. KUMAR. I have no idea. I know Voice of America usually 

have live discussion, TV. I don’t know whether they get interrupted 

or not. 

Mr. WEBER. Mr. Genser, you said in your remarks, and I don’t 

mean to end on a pessimistic note, but I believe you said we 

should—pretty much you ended with we should not expect their behavior to change? 

Mr. GENSER. Well, I would echo what Chairman Smith said. I am 

an eternal optimist about human nature and about what we can 

ultimately achieve if we put our minds to it. This actually isn’t very 

complicated, it is actually quite simple, it is acting consistently 

with our values. So on the one hand I would say that White Houses 

past and present tend to hedge when it comes to these kinds of 

issues, ultimately there is a lot that could be achieved and the 

President has 3 more years in office, and we will continue to urge 

him to move forward and to raise these issues, and we will continue to be persistent about it. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, that is what I want to encourage you to do. 

The public discourse and the public pressure, I didn’t want you to 

be too discouraged. I wanted you to continue that. 

69

Now let me ask a question of you since I have got you here at 

the microphone. Why should China care what the U.S. says to 

them about human rights? Why should the Chinese Government 

care? 

Mr. GENSER. Well, look, as an international human rights lawyer, what I would say is that China has signed major treaties that 

they want the United States to abide by. For example, you know, 

acceding to the World Trade Organization and rules of trade, and 

international human rights law is equally binding on China as 

international trade law. At the end of the day if they want to be 

a reliable partner for the United States, if they want to attract foreign investment, then foreign investors want to know that they can 

have certainty in their domestic courts system if there is a dispute. 

Mr. WEBER. Are you saying that, as Mark Meadows kind of alluded to, that maybe we should have trade laws that keep Americans from investing in China when they have an abysmal record, 

especially when it comes to intellectual property rights? 

Mr. GENSER. Look, that is sort of a more complex and longer discussion, but what I would say is that it is important to hold China 

to account for their adherence to their international law obligations, and it is in China’s interest, I believe, that the law be consistently applied, and they want it to be when it comes to their 

issues, and we are going to want it to be when it comes to ours. 

So, you know, I don’t think it actually behooves the Chinese Government, for example, you know, to have a court system that is not 

independent and impartial because it makes foreign investors less 

interested in investing there. If you have a court system that is 

independent and impartial, it can help not only businesses invest 

and be certain about outcomes but also help human rights victims 

as well. 

Mr. WEBER. Pastor Fu, why should China care what we think? 

Pastor FU. I think I will echo my colleague attorney Jared 

Genser is saying. Moreover, it is the values, it is the universal values, and if a government that ultimately disregards its own citizens’ basic dignity and rights, and how could they expect to be respected. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. I think I know what you are getting to—let 

me highlight that. A government that disregards the sanctity of 

life, I would call it a basic human right, the dignity of that person. 

Pastor FU. Yes. 

Mr. WEBER. What can we do to put pressure on them to recognize that and change? What is the answer here? 

Pastor FU. I agree with the recommendations. I think the President of the United States of America should speak and stand firmly, publicly, unequivocally, and persistently that the human rights 

issue is not Americans’ concern, it is a universal concern. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to happen, 

but I think you are getting to the very crux of the matter, and I 

am sorry we are getting a little short on time. I would like to direct 

that same question——

Pastor FU. As I suggested, I think we have some concrete steps 

we recommend; for instance, with the U.S. Embassy, the Ambassadors or consular general, they can make requests to meet with 

70

those victims or these prisoners and to visit the prison, even if they 

are not granted. 

Mr. WEBER. At least it brings it to bear, it brings the sunlight 

that Brandeis talked about. Let’s go to Mr. Chen, if I may, with 

the same question. 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. I think we shouldn’t just ask whether or not it is useful to express our concerns to the Chinese Government because on 

one hand they do commit the human rights abuses, and they will 

turn around and look at how the international community reacts, 

and then if they see that the international community does not 

react, they will think that, okay, they don’t really care about 

human rights, they are just saying it. So we should definitely bring 

out this consistent message. I should give an example. In terms of 

freedom of speech, the number of American journalists in China is 

only a little bit over 100. That means the ratio is 10 million Chinese citizens to one American journalist. And the central propaganda department of China has about 800 journalists in the United 

States. That is about one journalist to 300,000 U.S. citizens. We see 

that there is an inequality. They could advertise in the big TV 

screens in Times Square, but can we do that in Tiananmen 

Square? Certainly not. So if we do the right thing, we should not 

be afraid that we will anger the dictators. If we invest in breaking 

down the great firewall, we can certainly do it, and then the Chinese citizens will have this free flow of information, and the government can no longer deceive the people. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, and one last question, if I may, Mr. Chairman, for Mr. Kumar from Amnesty International’s viewpoint, is our 

country the only one that is being called upon to pay attention and 

to make its voice heard? 

Mr. KUMAR. I am not saying U.S. is the only country. U.S. is the 

only superpower, so it has its own responsibilities. 

Mr. WEBER. Let me follow that up, then, by saying, does Amnesty International, do they reach out across the globe to other 

countries? Are there other organizations? Is there a fund mechanism so that people that care and get involved and want to make 

a difference and make their voice heard, is that going on? 

Mr. KUMAR. Oh, yeah. We are in existence from 1960 onwards, 

and we have about 3.2 million members around the world, and in 

about 85 countries we have activities like what I am doing here. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay.

Mr. KUMAR. We lobby, we urge different countries around the 

world, a lot of Asian countries, we are talking about China, Japan, 

Korea, Philippines, small countries like Nepal, everywhere our 

members are campaigning for the rights of individuals around the 

world, including in China. So we are a global movement. We are 

supposed to be—I am here, so that is why I am testifying about 

U.S. foreign policy. My colleagues in Nepal will be testifying and 

calling upon Nepalese Government to take on China about human 

rights abuses, but the reality is U.S. is the only superpower, so we 

have to recognize that. 

Mr. WEBER. All right, and last question, what is your Web site? 

Mr. KUMAR. www.amnestyUSA.org. 

Mr. WEBER. www.amnestyUSA.org? 

71

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your comments. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. You bet. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Let me just ask a couple of 

final questions. Again to Mr. Chen, if you could, with regards to 

your nephew Chen Kegui, has the administration sought to visit 

him? Has anybody within our Embassy sought to go and visit him 

in prison? 

[The following testimony was delivered through an interpreter.] 

Mr. CHEN. I am sure no. The answer is no. 

Mr. SMITH. With regards to other members of your family, has 

the U.S. Embassy been in touch with your brother, your mother 

who is now 80, I believe, just celebrated her birthday, has there 

been contact with other members of the family expressing concern, 

especially not just to them but to the Chinese who would monitor 

such a meeting? 

Mr. CHEN. In fact, I don’t think that any people from the Embassy visited them. I never heard anything about that. In fact, my 

family is still under persecution. They have several groups of people, I don’t know how many groups are there, but each group consists of 16 people. They are constantly there, constantly persecuting 

my family members. 

Mr. SMITH. Are you in touch with them? Can you speak to them 

on the phone, your family? 

Mr. CHEN. Yes, I have talked to them on the phone, but for sure 

the phone lines are monitored, and in fact after my conversation 

with them some of them were taken to the local police station and 

they were threatened, and then they were asking my relatives 

what was the content of the conversation that you guys had. In 

fact, they also spread rumors to the local authorities, they said that 

Chen Guangcheng in America is actually monitored more closely by 

the U.S. Government than when he was in China. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chen, a minute ago Mr. Weber brought up a very 

good point about how do we convince the Chinese, why would they 

even listen to us. Would it be your thought that, this is for any of 

the distinguished witnesses, that while moral suasion and speaking 

out very clearly and unambiguously is important, it is also important that there be linkages to other things? I will give you an example. We are doing a letter right now to Secretary Kerry asking 

that they properly find China to be what we call a Tier III country, 

an egregious violator of human trafficking. I wrote the law in 2000 

called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. We set up tiers. Tier 

III is the worst, and it carries with it a series of sanctions that 

could be imposed if the executive branch so wills it in order to try 

to mitigate this horrible practice of modern day slavery called 

human trafficking. 

As a direct result of the one-child-per-couple policy and the missing girls, we know that there are tens of millions of girls who have 

been slaughtered in the womb simply because they happen to be 

female. When allowed only one, it has put an unbelievable pressure 

on having just a male, and it has led to a gendercide of little girls. 

But now we are seeing the horrific consequences over time of men 

unable to find wives simply because they have been systematically 

eliminated through this one-child-per-couple policy and this 

gendercide consequence. China now has become probably the largVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:32 Sep 24, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\040913\80362 HFA PsN: SHIRL
72

est magnet for trafficking. We are seeing it not just the North Koreans, who have been trafficked, and I have had several hearings 

on that, but we are seeing this rising problem, and this letter 

which will be sent to Secretary Kerry very shortly calls on China 

being named a Tier III country. 

In like manner, under Mr. Wolf’s law, the International Religious 

Freedom Act, China has been designated a country of particular 

concern, or CPC country, and that carries with it 18 prescribed actions, the least of which would be a demarche, but all kinds of 

other sanctions that can be imposed. They are not draconian, but 

they are significant. And there has been no sanctioning of China, 

even though as you pointed out, Pastor Fu, there is an actual plan 

to eliminate the house church movement over a 10-year period, I 

believe it is over a three-phase plan. I wasn’t as aware of it until 

you laid it out in your testimony. They want to eliminate the house 

church movement. When Mr. Wolf and I went to China right before 

the Beijing Olympics, we sought to meet with several pastors. 

Every one of them except one was arrested before they could meet 

with us, and the one we did meet with was brought in after the 

fact, interrogated, and beaten by the Chinese secret police simply 

for meeting with two Members of Congress, and now you are talking about the new plan to eradicate the Christian church movement. It seems to me the administration has two right at hand 

ways of showing their extreme displeasure for trafficking, Tier III 

designation, which comes shortly, as well as CPC, which they already have, but should now take the next step. 

I would agree, with you, T. Kumar; you were in the trenches 

when we were fighting the battle to link Most Favored Nation status with human rights. Bill Clinton linked them and it was, I 

think, a very good linkage with respect to what the human rights 

benchmarks had to be. Sadly, 1 year later, on a Friday at 6 o’clock 

o’clock or so in the afternoon, he ripped up his own Executive 

Order, and that was when we lost China, I believe, or lost much 

of it in terms of human rights. The administration said profits 

trump human rights. 

So we do have two things at hand, if you might want to speak 

to that, any of you, because I think moral suasion is important, but 

I think we need to have some real tools and levers. 

Mr. CHEN. There is much we can do. For example, when U.S. 

journalists apply for a visa at the Chinese Embassy, they may tell 

the U.S. journalists that we don’t need American journalists there. 

We can actually do the same thing to Chinese journalists applying 

for visa to the United States. If we give them the impression that 

human rights is only a secondary issue, the human rights issue in 

China will continue to worsen. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I ask, is it Mr. Chen’s belief that the Obama 

administration has made it a secondary issue? And Mr. Kumar, if 

you would speak to that, and Pastor Fu. 

Mr. CHEN. This is how I feel, yes, in fact. But I think that 

human rights should not be just part of a diplomacy issue. It 

should be diplomacy in itself. 

Mr. SMITH. Pastor Fu. 

Pastor FU. When we talk about the delinkage between trade and 

human rights, it reminds me about how the U.S., these 

73

transnational or U.S. large corporations’ social and moral ethics 

and their social responsibilities. I think if the Apple or the Google 

or especially these large corporations in China if they operate in a 

way that just be compatible with the international human rights 

standards, I think the human rights in China would not come to 

this far, this worse in China. 

Just back to the end of last year Mr. Chen and I, along with another American investor from New York City, we sent a letter to 

Mr. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and requested a meeting to just 

brief him and ask him about how the factories in Apple enforce the 

one-child policy in their own factories to the women and men working there, and today unfortunately we have not heard a single response, and instead we heard and we have seen after the CFO or 

COO of Apple went to China to apologize to the Chinese consumers 

and at the same time or the same day in Apple’s application there 

is a classic literature library. All the so-called sensitive books on 

the Chinese Government blacklist were taken off from their 

shelves, electronic shelves, and these are books written by Tibetan 

or Uyghur writers, very prominent writings, and so it makes you 

think what had happened behind the scenes, and I think that is 

a shame. 

Mr. SMITH. Now just one question. 

Mr. KUMAR. Go ahead. 

Mr. SMITH. This would be to you again, Mr. Chen. In an interview that you did just a couple days ago, you underscored just how 

brutal the one-child-per-couple policy was, and you pointed out 

something that you asked that the press take note of, that while 

some may be under the impression that forced abortions only happen to those who have had more than one child, it is simply not 

true. If a family hasn’t obtained a birth permit, whether it is their 

second or first child, the women are kidnapped and taken to a hospital where they are forced to have their babies killed. You point 

out that some of these are done in the eighth and ninth month of 

their pregnancies and that you literally have to get permission, this 

is your quote, from the government to have your own child, even 

the one, and I think that is not largely recognized by a lot of people. They tell you when and if you can have your one. 

If you wanted to comment on that. These are your quotes, of 

course, but, Mr. Chen, please do. 

Mr. CHEN. Even though official figure says there are only 

500,000 people participating in forced abortions, but that is probably around 2 million. Because in China they have this rule that 

if the party secretary cannot do this well, the forced abortion in 

terms of a one-child policy, he cannot continue in his post. In order 

to meet the quota they not only abort the second child or third 

child but also the first child in order to meet the quota, in order 

to have a child needs to acquire a permit from the government. If 

they don’t give it to you, you can bribe them with money. 

Mr. SMITH. Is there anything else any of our distinguished witnesses would like to conclude with? Mr. Kumar? 

Mr. KUMAR. I am fine. 

Pastor FU. Just a final word on this issue. When China just 

proudly announced their achievement of the last 40 years population control and announced that 330 million abortions prevented, 

74

children from being born. Everybody knows most of them were 

forcefully aborted. This is almost the entire population of today’s 

United States of America who were wiped out basically, and I 

think this is perhaps the single most horrible human rights violation and atrocity on this Earth in the history of human beings. I 

think we should certainly pay more attention and continue to urge 

the Chinese Government to stop this policy. In the past year we 

know there are several high profile cases that called attention by 

some Chinese citizens. Even some Chinese Government affiliated 

scholars publicly advocate to abandon this one-child policy, and for 

the long run, as the Mr. Chairman pointed out, with the gender imbalance, the human trafficking, all this, even the ramification for 

the economic problems is not going to be sustainable even for the 

best interests for China itself. 

Mr. SMITH. I do want to thank all of our distinguished witnesses. 

Chen Guangcheng, thank you for your extraordinary bravery. I can 

assure you that Chen Kegui will be a primary focus of this chairman, but I know we will be working side by side with members on 

both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, on his behalf and 

on behalf of your family. To speak out so bravely when you know 

your family has suffered so much should inspire each and every 

one of us to do much more than we have d1 months or years to 

date. So thank you for inspiring us as well. 

The hearing is adjourned. Did you want to say something? 

Mr. CHEN. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 5 o’clock p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(75)

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SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6128 

Subcommittee ou Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations 

Christopher H, Smith (R-NJ), Chairman 

April 5, 2013 

TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

You are respectfully requested to attend an OPEN hearing of the Committee on Foreign 

Affairs, to be held by the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 

International Organizations in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building (and available live on 

the Committee website at \v\l,.vl.fofCignaffiilrs.house gov): 

DATE: 

TIME: 

SUBJECT: 

WITNESSES: 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 

200 p.m. 

Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng: Human Rights in China 

Mr. Chen Guangcheng 

Chinese human rights activist 

Pastor Bob Fu 

Founder and President 

ChinaAid Association 

Ms. GengHe 

Wife of Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng 

M r. Jared Gen ser 

Founder 

Freedom Now 

Mr. T.Kumar 

Director ofTnternational Advocacy 

Amnesty International 

By Direction of the Chairman 
77

f


80362m.eps

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN A}'}'AIRS 

M IN UTES OF SUBCOTYllVHlTr.n ON A/Hea, (./()hai Healllf, Glubal HlIInan Rigf,fs, (/mi Iutl'maf;onal OJ'gflnizatiom. HEARING 

D.y __ ~,-u",e",s",d",a",Y __ D,.t. __ -"A-"I",,,,,i,-l ",9,,-,2,,,O,.,I,,,3,-_Room 2172 Ravburn HOB 

Starting Tim e 2·00 n m Rnlling Time 4:57p.m. 

Recesses ( __ ,0 __ ) ( __ to __ ) L-to ---> L-to __ )( __ IO ---> L-lu __ ) 

Presiding Member(s) 

Rep. Chrl<ii Smith 

Check all ~fti1e fo/lowing t/tot apply: 

Open Session ill Executive (closed) Session D Televised [2] 

TITLE OF HEARING: 

Electronically Record~t.ped) [2] 

Stenographic Record l£J 

Chen Gllangcheng and Gao Zhi"heng: Human Right, in CMna 

Sl!BCOMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: 

Rep, Mark Meadow." Rep, Steve Stockman, Rep. Randy Weber, Rep. Karen 8" .... , Rep. 4mi Rem, Rep. Da"itI 

Cicillille 

NON·SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: (Mark with an" if they are not members a/full committee.) 

Rep. Frank W()(f" 

HEARING WITNESSES: Same as mooting notice attached? Yes D No D 

(Tf "no ", please list belm!) and include title, aKcncy, department, or organizatfon.) 

STA TRMF,NTS FOR THE RECORD: ([ist any ,I,'ialemenl,y ,whmilled fiJr the record.) 

Prepared statementfrom Rep. Frank Wolf 

Li.,t nfpenple who have per,,'emted Mr. Chen and hi., family 

Summary o/Rel'orl/rom ChinuAitl on Chinese GovernmelltPerseclition of Churches 

TlME SCHEDULED TO RECONVENE ___ _ 

S~:t~Ji; or 

TIME ADJOURNED 4:57 p.llI. 
78

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


80362f-1.eps
79

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2 

These men and women deeply love their country and long to see fundamental change on the part 

of the government. Their stories and countless others like them inspire me. Will we stand, on 

the right side of history, with the Chinese people? Or will be short-sighted in our embrace of the 

regime that oppresses them? I am confident that change is coming and it is America's 

responsibility to do all that we can to champion the freedom-seeking aspirations of the Chinese 

people and boldl y advocate on their behalf 
80

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MR. CHEN GUANGCHENG, CHINESE HUMAN

RIGHTS ACTIVIST


80362g-1.eps

Name List of the 44 Persecutors of Mr Chen Guangcheng and his family since 2005 

1, Mr Zhou YongkangPil/k,*: 

Former senior leader in the Communist Party of China (CPC) who served on the 17th Politburo 

Standing Committee (PSC), and the Secretary of the Central Political and Legislative Committee 

between 2007 and 2012. In that position Zhou oversaw China's security forces and law 

enforcement institutions; 

2, Mr Zhang Gaoli ~K~m 

current First-ranked Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China and a member of the 

Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. He was previously CPC Tianjin 

Committee Secretary until November 2012 and was the Party Secretary of Shandong province 

until March 2007; 

3, Mr Li Jianguo:$@!:[;i8 

Current Vice-Chairman of Standing Committee of NPC and fonner Party Secretary of Shandong 

province 2007-2008; 

4, Mr Jiang Yikang325T'*' 

the current secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Shandong committee; 

5, Mr Jiang Darning~*41. 

the current governor of Shandong province; 

6, Mr Wu Pengfei 'i;1Wl ~ 

Former Public Security Minister of Shandong province; 

7, Mr Li Qun:$#'i' 

Current Party Secretary of Qingdao City and Fonner Party Secretary of Linyi city, Shandong 

province; 

8, Mr Liu Jie 71j?,t 

Former Deputy Mayor and Director of Public Security Bureau ofLinyi city, Shandong; 

9, Mr Lian Chengminli:ifililll: 

Fonner Party Secretary and Mayor of Linyi city; 

10, Mr Zhang Shaojun~KY4'; 

Current Party Secretary ofLinyi city; 

11, Mr Yang Rongsan~ 5R'::: 

Former Party Secretary of Yin an county, Linyi city; 
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12, MrXuFeng1~~~~ 

Former County Administrator of Yin an city, Linyi; 

13, Mr Zhou ShaohuaJ0J~* : 

former deputy Party Secretary of Yinan county who was responsible for legal and political 

affairs 

14, Mr Zhu Maochen*&12 : 

former Director of Public Security Bureau if Yin an county, Linyi; 

15, Ms Liu ShuxiuxlJtt)(jIj : 

Party Secretary of Yinan county; 

16, Mr Liu ChangjiexIJ*?t 

fonner Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau of Yin an county, Linyi; 

17, Mr Yin Chuandongj=l·~* : 

Senior oflicer and former director of Criminal Police Division of Public Security Bureau of 

Yinan county of Linyi; 

18, Mr Ma Kun.bhg 

Current deputy Mayor of Linyi city and former Party Secretary of Yinan county; 

19, Mr Yang Xigang*w#[5iJ~ 

Director of Domestic Security Protection Squad of the Public Security Bureau ofLinyi city; 

20, Mr Xue Yunbod¥ft{)J : 

former Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau of Yin an county and Director of "610 Oflice," 

Linyi; 

21, Mr Du JiliangtHl~Hf: 

former Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau of Yin an county, Linyi; 

22, Mr Xue Kewei l\¥7'c: ft 

fonner Director of" 110 Di vison "(in charge of emergency cases) of the Public Security Bureau 

of Yin an county, Linyi; 

23, Mr Ma Chenglong.bhPl(;jt 

Fonner Director of Domestic Security Protection Squad of the Public Security Bureau of Yinan 

county; 
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24, MrHe Yong~* 

Deputy Director of Criminal Police Division of the Public Security Bureau of Yinan city 

25, Mr Hu XiaofengIiR~*: 

Officer of The Office for Legal Afl'airs of Yinan county; 

26, Mr Xie LiweiiM.lz:1'iJ: 

Officer of The Office for Legal Affairs of Yin an county; 

27, Mr Zhang Shengdong~ft-:* 

Fonner Deputy Director of Criminal Police Division of the Public Security Bureau of Yin an city; 

28, Mr Ma Chenglian~pxli 

Current Party Secretary of Political and Legislative Atl'airs Committee and Director of Public 

Security Bureau of Yinan County; 

29, Mr He Zuohai'8'l11=Jjij 

Fonner Party Secretary of Shuanghou town, Yinan county; 

30, Mr Zhang Jian~~ 

Deputy Party Secretary of Shuanghou town, Yinan county; 

31, Mr Zhang Changguo~ ~ I'i'I 

Fonner Division director of the Shuanghou Town Branch of the Public Security Bureau of Yin an 

county; 

32, Mr Yu Mingjiang J ~JllL 

Fonner Deputy Party Secretary of Shuanghou town, Yinan county 

33, Mr Li Xianqiang~}y'!5ii! 

Deputy Bureau Director of the Office for Legal Affairs (the leader of "Monitoring Chen 

Guangcheng Group") of Shuanghou town, Yinan county; 

34, Mr Li Xianli'~HY.!.lz:· 

Otlicer of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county One of the key leaders of "Monitoring Chen 

Guangcheng Group"; 

35, Mr Xue Kewei eHH'iJ 

Secretary of the Omce of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county. One of the key leaders of 

"Monitoring Chen Guangcheng Group"; 
83

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36, Mr Zhang Shenghe~jHt;m 

Officer of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county; 

37, Mr Zhao WeiiI'X1'ii: 

Officer ofShuanghou Town, Yinan county. 

38, Mr Xu Congshan f~~,I;!"i-LI 

Fonner Party Secretary ofShuanghou town, Yinan county; 

39, Mr Zhang Jingbai**1Ei 

Current Party Secretary of Shuanghou town, Yinan county; 

40, Mr Li Xiangan:$l.9! 'f 

Officer of Economic Management Station of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county; 

41, Mr Zhao FengiI'X*: 

Fonner Deputy Administrator of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county; 

42, Mr Xia Fatian]U~~ 

Fonner Deputy Party Secretary of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county; 

43, Mr Liu Guien)(Ij:1lt,~, 

Officer of Shuanghou Town, Yinan county; 

44, Mr Liu CunlixIJi7v: 

Officer ofShuanghou Town, Yinan county; 
84

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY PASTOR BOB FU, FOUNDER AND

PRESIDENT, CHINAAID ASSOCIATION


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Chin. Aid Association Midland, TX, US" U2/U4/2013 

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, 

that you should follow in his steps." 

1 Peter 2:2 

2 

Minister Zhong Silt/guany prayioy in Ilis home in Klwtun, Xiojiany Uygllur Autonomous Region, 

where authorities have cut off the electricity. 

ChinoAid founder and president Bob Fu played a crucial role in the dramatic escape and move 

to the United States of Chinese blind rights defr!l!se lawyer Chen Guangchellg. Photo shows 

Bob Fu speakin,q with Chen, who was in a hospital in Beijing, all a cell phone at a 

Congressional hearing presided over by senior congressmen Frank Wol/and Chris Smith that 

was instrumental in successfully bringing Chen and hisfumily to the United States. 

©" cHINAaitl 

." W\I'W."·IiISA,\fJ);~)IHi 

Copyright C; China Aid Association, Inc. 2013 Jit"fol!l!JIb11ll* J\lj(t7ji,T~ 
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China Aid Assodation l\.1idland, IX, USA 02101/2013 

I. SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS AND 

CHURCHES IN MAINLAND CHINA IN 2012 

The Year of China's Breakdown and of the Church's Sufferance 

In 2012, Christians and churches in China experienced a serious compreht:nsive 

escalation of governmenl persecution. In [;omparing lhe total number of persecution 

[;ases, the number of people persecuted, the number taken illto custody, the number 

sentenced, the number of abuse cases and the number of people abused ,,,ith the same 

figures for 2011, the total ofall six categories rose 13.1 'Yo over the previous year. 

3 

Compared with the statistics in CbinaAid's past annual repOlts, this trend of worsening 

persecution has pej'sisted for the past seven years, \vilh an average geometric annual increase 

uf24.5% in the total of all six categories of persecution statistics tracked by ChinaAid. 

1. Comprehensive Analysis ofthe Main Characteristics of and Reason Behind 2012 

Persecution: To Eradicate Housc Churches 

Persecution in 2012 was not only a continuation ofthe practice in 2008 and 2009 of 

"targeting house church leaders and churches in urban areas," ofthe strategy in 20 J 0 of 

"attacking Christian human rights lawyers groups and using abusc, torture and mafia 

tactics," and of the focu~ in lOll on increa~ingthe intensity of attacks against Christians 

and house churches with societal impact, but also the new approach of rendering house 

churches nOll-functional. 

There ,vas a reason for this strategic change. In September 2011, at the State 

Administration for Religious Affairs' first training class tor "Patriots in the Christian 

Community," a secret document issued jointly by SARA and the ministries of Public 

Security and Civil Affairs was released that addressed the issue of wmpJddy eradicating 

house churches. (htlp://wwlV.chinaaid.urg/2012/04/chinaaid-spccial-rwQLt:gbJJJ!e.s.1t.,htm1) 

Its three main points were: 

Phase 1: from Jan. to June 2() 12, conduct thorough, intensive and secret investigations of 

house churches througbout the country and create files on them. 

Phase 2: ill two to three years, [;OIl[;t:l1trate on cleaning up the "house churches" that have 

been investigated and have had files created. 

Phase 3: in 10 years'time, completely wipe out "house churches." 

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CHINAfl China Aid Assodation Midland, TX, USA 02/04l2013 

I'hao;es I and 2 took place in 2012, as evidenced by the information on the cases that 

ChinaAid has gathered. Throughout China, many house ~hur~hes and their leaders have 

had files created on them and were the subjects of targeted suppression. This kind of 

suppression was not simple punitive suppression, but rather suppression with a clear 

purpose: to stop churches from functioning. The concrete measures were: Forcibly 

banning and sealing up churches, pressuring churches to join the official "ThreeSelf" church system, detaining cJllIrch leaders and sending them to labor camps on 

the pretext of "suspicion of orj!;anizing and using a cnlt to undermine law 

enforcement," and strictly restricting the sprcad ofthe Christian faith among 

students. 

4 

Forcibly banning and sealing up. This so-called "social management" method used in 

2012 to break up churches was no longer cmploycd as in the past hy the Public Security 

Bureau, Domestic Security Protection agents and religious affairs departments to 

suppress churches. Instead. neighborhood committees, village Party ~ommittees, housing 

management departments, municipal administrators in charge of city appearance, public 

health departments, industrial and commercial affairs departments and other functional 

agencies conducted coordinated crackdowns, using various excuses to harass, interfere 

with and ban church services. In most cases, they did not take anyone into custody, or 

detain or sentence, and even if a person was in custody, he was quickly released. The 

unrelenting persecution of Shouwang Church in the past nearly two years has been 

condu(;wd in this manner. For example, landlords were pressured to terminate lease 

agreements with church members, church members who had purchased real estate were 

unable to take possession of them, church leaders were placed under house arrest and 

chureh members were evicted-all ofwhieh was done to make it impossible for the 

hOllse church to operate normally so that it WOllid eventually disband. According to the 

data colkded by Shouwang Church, "by September 2012, because they persisted in 

attending outdoor worships services, members of Shouwang Church were detained 1,600 

times by either Domestic Security Protection agents in variOlls districts [ofBcijing] or in 

more 90 different police stations across Beijing (for periods of several hours to 48 

hours). Sixty people were evicted fi'om their homes and more than 10 people lost their 

johs because they attended Shouwang Church's outdoor worship service~ or simply 

beCaLlSe they were Shonwang Church members; olhers were sent hack to their 

hometowns and some believers were confined to their homes on the weekends." From 

March to Jnly 2012, Khotan House Church in the region of Xinjiang was also targeted tor 

multiple raids and arrests; ckctricitywas also cut offand some of the facilities for the 

meetings were destroyed. Three house churches ill Dongguan, Guangdong province, 

were sealed up in August, with water and electricity cut off and the front gate sealed shut. 

No one was arrested. 

© ,SljJf~l*(~~j(~~; CllJ>yrighl f:' ChinH Ai,1 AS<llciH!i,m, Inc. 7.G13 ~:I;\:.I!JllJl!!/>!ll: Jtli(1R.P!ffi 
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5 China Aid Association Midland, IX, USA 02101/2013 

Pressuring (0 .join the official "Three-Self" church system: This is another way of 

ordering house churches to cease operations. For example, in September, after a house 

church in the town of Jiangzhai in Linquan, Anhui province, held a summer camp, it wa~ 

dispersed by the Ineal government. l ;sing a earrot-and-~tick approach, government 

officials then tried to persuade the church leaders to join the TIn'ee-Self chlirch system. 

The Dongguan churches that were sealed up in August also experient:ed lhis when the 

governmenllold them to apply for a license, which is also a way of joining the Three-Self 

system. Another case was that of a house church in Hou village in Lichuan county, 

liangxi province that held a swnmcr camp in August. Shortly thereafter, the person in 

charge ofthe church was summoned by police tor questioning and the government tried 

to coerce his church into joining the Three-Self system. Also in August, a house church 

in the town ofFangji, Gushi counly, Henan province, was raided, the person in charge 

was beaten, and the government also tried to force the church into joining the Three·Self 

system. 

CJ'ackillg down on church leaders on the IH"etext of "suspiciun uf urganhdng and 

using II cult to undermine law enfurcement"; This ploy was llsed frequently in 2012 

mainly as a way to forestall pnblic criticiS1l1 by covering; up the governmenl's illegal 

actions in cracking down on house churches. In February, two Christians in Yulin, 

Shaanxi province, were sent to a labor camp on this charge. In April, seven leaders of a 

house church in Pingdingshan, Henan province, were arrested and tried on this charge 

(they are sti II a\vaiting sentencing). In August, nine Christians from Ulanhot, in the 

region ofJnner Mongolia, were placed under administrative detention for engaging in 

evangelism while providing free medical services, and two of them were sentenced to 

two years ofre-education-through-Iabor on this charge. In Dec;ember, brother Cao Nan 

of Shenzhen and several other church lay workers \vcrc preaching Christma~ sermons in a 

park whcn he was twice placed under administrative detention. The second time, it was 

on the pretext of being a member of a "Qigong" cult. 

Strictly restricting the spread of Christian faith among students: Last year, 

ChinaAid obtained a May 15,2011 directive, "Suggestions for doing a good job of 

resisting forcign usc of religion to infiltrate institutes of higher education and preventing 

campus evangelism" (Documcnt No. 18) (http://www.chinaaid_Of·g/2012/12/secl.et· 

ccnlral-col11f1littee·docul11eut.btml), jointly issued by six tninh!ries and commissions of 

the Central Commillee of the Communist Party of China. The document's content was 

mainly giving directions for preventing and cracking down on Christian evangelism on 

campuses, using the excuse of "resisting foreign infiltration." Christianity has become 

the fastest growing indigenized religion in China and needs no "foreign infiltration," and 

this kind of suppression can only accelerate the speed and quality of the spread of the 

@ : cHINAald \HI\~.(,JHS·';\IIU1E{; Copyright te· China Aid Association, Inc. 2013 J\!#'lIJlbID1: Jti( &J'Ji 'if 
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6 China Aid Association Midland, TX, USA 02!u~12013 

Chl'islian faith, Looked at from a different perspective, this show~ that lhallh~ Gospel of 

Chrisl is already thriving among intellectuals. One of the characteristics ofthe 2012 

persecution was that many summer camps for Christian students were raided and the 

crackdowns wcre severe. 

Christian churches, especially house churches, and their various evangelistic efforts havt: 

already deeply and comprt:h~nsively impacted social wltun: and lh~ people's ideology, 

In 2011, the politically ultra-left Hu lintao-Wen Jiabao government launched "Operation 

Deterrance" against prominent house churches and Christian leaders, but small house 

churches still flourished Ii ke dandelions in springtime, 'I'he new 20 12 tactics to 

"eradicate house churches" try to root out house churches by strcssing the long-term 

nature of the effort and a "gentle approach." However, just u.s the Bible warns in saying, 

"It is hard for you to kick against the goads," their approach is ignorant. House churches 

will not be eradicated. What will be eradicated are any ideology and forces that try to 

resist the truth of Christ. 

2. Statistical and schematic analysis of the overall persecution of Christians and 

churches in 2012 

Government persecution of Christians and churches and in China worsened continually in 

2012 as compared with 2011. The total of six categories of persecution statistics tracked 

by ChinaAid (number of persecution cases, numbcr of people persecuted, number 

detained, numher sentenced, the number of abuse cases and the number of people abused) 

showed an increase of 13.1 % over 2011. It should be noted that the information 

collected by ChinaAid aboul pers~culion case,<; in China is but the tip ofthe iceberg. Be 

thal as it may, these cases come from most of the provinces and municipalities across 

China, are diverse, and affected urban and rural house churches, Three-Self churches, 

Catholic churches, as well as individual (:hristians, including clergy, human rights 

lawyers, political dissidents, students and one ehild policy victim. Taken together, they 

are sufficient to reflect the overall situation and severity or lhl: persecution suffered by 

churches and Christians in 2012. 

In 2012, ChinaAid collected information on 132 cases of persecution across the country, 

up 41.9'% from 20 I I. The 4,919 people who werc pcrsecuted (442 of who III were elergy) 

rcprcsented a 13.1>%. increase ovel' the pl'evious year. The 1,441 pwple who were 

detained (236 of whom were clergy) was an increase of 11.8% over the previous year. 

Nine people were sentenced, a 125% jump over the previous year. There were 28 cases 

of abuse (beating and verbal abuse, torture, and physical and mental abuse), an increase 

of 16.7% over the previous year, Thirty-seven people were abused, down 51. 3% fTom 

the previous year. 

,~.CHINAaid . \~'!\ I,', \'; if I 'S',~ ,HI!:!) fi (~ 

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Comparing the data in the above six categories· . total number of persecution casc.s, total 

number of people persecuted, number ofpeoplc arrested, number ofpeople sentenced, 

total number of abuse cases, and total number of people abused -the overall situation of 

persecution can be statistically represented as being 13.1 % worse than in 2011,61.1 % 

worse than in 2010,85.1 % worse than in 2009, 120.4% worse than in 2008,308.1 % 

wors~ than in 2007 and 372.7% worse than in 2006. Please see the table below for 

details. 

Comparison by year of persecution nationwide (2006 to 2012) 

(I) Table 

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2012 

comparison 

with 2011 

# of eases 46 60 74 77 90 93 132 HI' 41.9% 

# ofpeopie· 665 788 2027 2935 3343 4322 4919 Up 13.8% 

persecuted 

# of people 650 693 764 389 556 1289 1441 Up 11.8% 

detained 

# ofpeop1e 17 16 35 23 6 4 9 Up 125% 

sentenced 

# of ahuse eases 4 17 19 9 18 24 28 Up 16.7% 

# of people abused 7 35 60 111 63 76 37 Down5t.3% 

Statistical As the graph below shows, persecution u\'~rall Gan b~ slalislically 

representation of represented as being 13.1 % worse in 2012 as compared with 20 II, 

the worsening trend 61.1 % worse than in 2010, 85.1% worse than in 2009, 120.4% worse 

I of persecution than in 2008, 308.1% worse than in 2007 and 372.7% worse than in 

uv~rall 2006. 

7 
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(2) Graph 

440 ----

:~~ ~I----- ------------------:F---, ----- 380 ' 

300 ~~gt-, ----------.~~ 

280 ---------~~------ ---------

260 

240 

220 +----------~~----------

200 ,,------

180 ____ ~L------------

160 

140 ~----------------~~ 120 -! _______ ~-------_____:=:--------______::_""'.T=-_____::<.,."---'------

100 

80 +-----~~-~~~~~~~ __ ~~~~~~~~-----

60 +--..... """= 

40 2g J ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~;;~::;:::::::~~~== 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 

,--_----#-o-f -pe-r-s-ec-u-t-io-n-c-a-s-es-------------_---#-o-f-p-er-s-o-n-s-p-e-rs-e-c-ut-e-d-X-1-J 

_# of persons detained x 10 -# of persons sentenced 

_# of abuse cases w~I!;7="# of persons abused 

L--,.. ________________ aYear-by-year comparison, 2006-2012 _ 

8 

Having n;porled on the overall situation of church persecution in mainland China and the 

five main charaderisLit:s of the perset:ution, the rest ofthis report will examine the 

situation in 2012 in greater detail through case studies, statistical analysis and diagrams. 

©~\!~.,! ~b!~I~~~i~; Copyright i} China Aid Association, Inc_ 2U13 JOt:lf..JllJt1II~ J!!HRjiJj-'/j