Dear congressman Smith, distinguished guests and friends:
Greetings
First, on behalf of Pastor Bob Fu and the China Aid Association, I wish to express our appreciation to Mr. Smith and other friends in the U.S. Your concern for human rights in China and your support of Chinese human rights activists will encourage us to continue to promote human rights process and to work hard.
As we all know, since Xi Jinping took office, China’s religious freedom, freedom of speech, human rights, and rule of law have been severely trampled on and destroyed so that people think that Xi Jinping is waging a “second Cultural Revolution.”
The Xi administration thinks that Christianity threatens national and cultural security. More than 1,800 crosses on the top of churches have been demolished, and pastors and Christians who oppose the demolitions, such as the government-ordained Pastor Joseph Gu and Pastor Bao Guohua in Zhejiang province, have been put in jail and given severe sentences. The persecution of house churches has been unceasing. This year, a house church that has 700 members in the city of Guiyang was banned, and the authorities arrested the pastor, Li Guozhi, on charges of leaking state secrets.
CCP has also engaged in an unprecedented suppression of the freedom of speech and has almost completely blocked overseas news and political sites as well as the accounts of outspoken persons in social media. Even Gui Minghai, a Swedish bookseller who publishes political books in Hong Kong, was kidnapped from Thailand by the CCP. Another person in the media, Li Xing, has also been kidnapped in Thailand by the CCP and brought to China.
The Xi administration’s trampling of the rule of law is also increasing. Since last July 9, the CCP arrested and interrogated nearly 300 human rights lawyers and dissidents. More than 20 of those arrested, including Wang Yu, Zhou Shifeng and Hu Shigen, anticipate severe sentences. In these human rights cases, the arrested people are unable to meet with their families and lawyers. The arrested persons were forced to confess on television, in a way similar to the “Cultural Revolution,” when such arrested persons were paraded through the streets.
The CCP’s atrocities not only seriously hurt the Chinese people, but also pose a serious threat for the peace and freedom of the international community, including the United States. As with Nazi Germany, a dictatorial internal repression of human rights is bound to carry over to aggressive, external expansion.
So, when Xi Jinping comes to the US capital to attend the nuclear security conference, the international community should be more adamant and require him to stop the violation of China’s human rights. The US government should use a stronger tone to urge China to immediately improve its human rights situation and to assume the responsibilities and obligations of a superpower.
We also hope that President Obama can make human rights the main topic in the “Obama-Xi Bilateral Meeting” and can personally urge that Xi Jinping immediately to stop cross demolitions, and release the arrested pastors, human rights lawyers, and dissidents, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, and all Chinese human rights activists that were detained.
Thank you all.
Pastor Guo Baosheng
3/29/2016
