U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern
Co-Chair
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
B-318 Rayburn HOB
TLHRC HEARING: OPENING STATEMENT
The Status of Human Rights in China: The U.N. Universal Periodic Review (UPR)
Good morning.
I want to thank my colleague and fellow Co-Chair, Congressman Frank Wolf, and the staff of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, for bringing together today's incredible panel of experts to talk about the current status of human rights in China.
I regret that I need to attend a Budget Committee hearing on the worsening state of the American economy. So, I would like to take a couple of minutes to make a brief statement and pose a couple of questions in advance of the panelists' presentations.
The last in-depth look at China's human rights record by the Human Rights Commission happened during the period leading up to and during the Summer Olympics.
A great deal has happened inside China since then - and I wish it were good news. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, it is not.
Last summer, in the period leading up to the Olympics, the Chinese government:
• Severely tightened restrictions on human rights defenders;
• Disrupted and cracked down on activities by civil society;
• Created new obstacles in the ability to carry out protests or to file complaints by ordinary Chinese citizens; and
• Increased the security controls on key regions and minorities, in particular exercising extreme control over Tibetans and the Uyghurs.
During the Olympics, I was especially engaged on the status of leading human rights defender, Hu Jia, and his wife Zeng Jinyan and their infant daughter. In August 2007, Hu was one of 42 Chinese intellectuals and activists who co-signed an open letter calling for greater attention to human rights in China. In September 2007, Hu and lawyer Teng Biao published another open letter, -The Real China and the Olympics,- assessing specific human rights concerns inside China within the context of the Beijing Games and China's promises to the international community and to the Chinese people. On December 27, 2007, Hu was detained prior to being formally arrested on January 30, 2008. He was sentenced on April 3, 2008, to 3-1/2 years in prison after being found guilty of -inciting subversion of state power.-
His wife, Zeng Jinyan, was under constant surveillance at her Beijing house at the start of the Olympic Games, but she had remained in touch with other Chinese activists and some reporters. On the second day of the Games, she and her infant daughter disappeared. No more communication. No word of their whereabouts. I immediately called the U.S. Embassy in Beijing asking that they inquire about her whereabouts and well-being, which I'm happy to report they did. But the Chinese authorities did not respond to U.S. Ambassador Randt's inquiries anymore than they responded to mine. A few days later, at its daily press conference, the US embassy spokesperson raised Zeng's disappearance, along with several other cases, noting that the Chinese authorities had not been forthcoming with any information. Soon afterwards, we were informed that she and her daughter had been held throughout the Olympics at a hotel in Dalian in Liaoning Province to prevent her from having any contact with or speaking to journalists in China covering the Games.
It's my understanding that Hu Jia has since been moved to a prison closer to Beijing so that Zeng may visit him more often and monitor his health. I want to thank Ambassador Randt and the staff at our embassy in Beijing for being so responsive to my calls during that period. And I hope our panelists can shed some light on the current status of Hu Jia and his family.
More recently, on December 10th, on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, over 300 Chinese intellectuals and human rights defenders released a statement calling for more political reform and democracy in China. The group called their statement Charter ‘08 - a reference to Charter 77, a document issued by Czech political dissidents during the Cold War. The Chinese government responded to the document, which has now been signed by thousands of people through the Internet, by detaining and harassing the key authors, including Liu Xiaobo. Congressman Wolf and I immediately sent a letter to our embassy in Beijing in support of Liu and the Charter '08 members.
I would appreciate our panelists describing the importance of the Charter '08 document, with respect to China's human rights situation, and what suggestions you might have about how the U.S. and the international community might monitor and respond to its proposed rights and reforms.
Again, I very much regret that I can't stay to listen and learn more from your testimony. Please rest assured that I will follow-up with Congressman Wolf and the Commission's staff regarding any information you might share this morning on these matters.
