China Aid Association
(Washington, D.C.—Feb. 14, 2012) U.S. Congressional and religious leaders are urging President Obama to press for the release of six imprisoned Chinese human rights activists and political dissidents when he meets Tuesday with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, slated to be China’s next president and Communist Party chief.
In a letter Monday, leaders of three of the nation’s largest religious groups told the President that “a private, clear and determined pledge by you … to achieve the release [of the six] … could make clear to Vice President Xi that such action on his part would generate much goodwill with your administration and significantly advance his interests and those of his government.”
The seven-page letter was from Dr. Richard Land, president of The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. It included detailed biographies of the six prisoners of conscience: human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng; blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, longtime political dissident Liu Xianbin, former judge Guo Quan, Uyghur house church leader Alimujiang, and woman pastor Yang Rongli.
Last Friday, five leading members of Congress—Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), John Carter (R-Texas), Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)—sent the President a similar letter raising the six cases.
Telling President Obama that “‘quiet diplomacy’ … has not yielded results. Arguably it has only emboldened the oppressors,” the congressmen closed their three-page letter saying that “many in China … long for America to champion their plight.”
To read the full text of these letters, go to:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9q8i6gw7oZmOTY1Zjk4NmQtODBhMC00NThmLWE0ZGItODliMjJkMDAyOTk2 and
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9q8i6gw7oZmMTVmNzFkNzktYjY2OS00NTA3LWFiMzItZGM4NWJjZGEzNTE5
ChinaAid is grateful to these members of Congress and the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism for bringing these six cases to the attention of the President.
“The time has come for the President to put into concrete public action words spoken in closed-door diplomatic meetings,” said ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu.
Fu recalled the American campaign on behalf of the former Soviet Jews and called for ordinary Americans to speak out again. “Millions of Chinese will be grateful for the courageous voices of their true friends in America,” he said. “When persecuted Chinese are free from oppression, the world will be a much safer and better place for generations to come.”
China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.chinaaid.org
