China's Top Human Rights Attorney, U.S. Lawmaker, VP of EU Parliament, and Former Canadian Cabinet Member Discuss Beijing Olympics |
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By: Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in Posted: 2007-09-23 09:01:10 |
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Once again defying his captors, human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng sent a 16-page letter from Beijing to the U.S. Congress in which he calls attention to the anomaly of a genocidal regime hosting the Olympic Games.
Today, at a press conference on Capital hill, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Gao's voice for the "dislocated, the abandoned, and the oppressed." The 10th term Representative said the regime passed up the opportunity to make the Olympics a time for greater openness. "[Instead, Communist China] sees it as a mandate for further control and repression of the Chinese people." Attorney Gao was arrested on August 15, 2006. Gao has been forbidden by the regime to communicate with the outside world. However, Gao decided to break the silence after seeing that the Chinese communist regime not only did not improve human rights in China as promised to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but instead, has intensified its persecution of the Chinese people. Excerpts from Gao's letter were read aloud. He explains how the promises China made to the IOC back in 2001 were hollow and deceitful. "What the Chinese authorities failed to predict is how wildly the corrupted officials are taking advantage of the Olympics. Under the name of securing the success of the Olympic Games, all kinds of evils have been committed in broad daylight, including forced evictions, illegal arresting and persecuting people who petition to the authorities, and the suppression of religious people. It is plain as day to all Chinese people that, with successes in hosting the Olympic Games, the communist regime is trying to [appear as a] legal government despite all the tyranny and all horrible crimes against humanity the Party has committed during the past decades at the cost of at least 80 million Chinese lives." Rep. Ros-Lehtinen said, "Without substantial concrete progress in human rights within the next year, the Olympic celebration in Beijing will ring hollow." A number of steps have to be taken, she said, to demonstrate they are worthy of Olympic host, including ending the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and ending support for the genocidal regime in Sudan. David Kilgour, former Canadian MP and Secretary of State for Asia, spoke of the forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners and the ongoing genocide in China. He said he was "dismayed" that nations would want to attend the Beijing Olympics when people are being killed for their beliefs. Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament, spoke at the news conference via telephone. Gao and his family may suffer a lot more for his letter on the Olympics, but he said, "If we all back off because of this fear, then who will step up?" For more information on the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China, visit: http://cipfg.org. Contact: Dr. Sherry Zhang of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China, +1-415-845-5295 |
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