Comments from Representatives of a Chinese Government-controlled NGO Are Condemned

In March 2004, during the 60th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, something strange took place in the United Nations, which aroused the delegates’ grave concerns. A non-governmental organization (NGO) from China, dubbed “United Nations Association of China” （UNAC）, was allowed to participate in the United Nations’ consultations, and its representatives walked freely in and out of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. When attending the seminars held by this NGO, the weird acts of this Chinese organization’s representatives in the “Question and Answer” sessions were condemned by other participants.

Basically, the NGOs that participated in the United Nations Human Rights seminars are organizations aiming to promote human rights or monitor governments’ acts, but the UNAC seemed to have a very different purpose. At the “Q and A” session of a seminar on China’s state-terrorism and persecution against Falun Gong, organized by the International Education Development organisation, two representatives of UNAC turned up to spread lies on the topic that Falun Gong doesn’t allow practitioners to take medicine. An IED representative who presided over this seminar said, “Whether it is good or bad to choose Falun Gong as a way to keep fit, or what practice an individual would like to choose for keeping fit, is one’s personal choice. It is not the matter we should talk about here. What we are supposed to talk about in this conference is the state-terrorism persecution Falun Gong has suffered.”

What the UNAC did to instigate hatred against Falun Gong was as if they had relocated China’s Central Television Station to the United Nations. It is hard for people to imagine what this NGO’s objective is. At the “Q and A” session of a seminar on China's Tibet and Xinjiang human rights issues held by UNAC, one of this organization's representatives took advantage of this opportunity to state that she had been to Tibet, and didn’t see any persecution of Tibetans, but actually found that people there were able to freely have their own beliefs. A reply from the representative of "Human Rights in China" called Nicola really hit the bullseye: “It appears that China is not satisfied with the control of its domestic public opinions, but also extends its control to overseas. Furthermore, it has even obstructed NGO’s seminars in the United Nations through the state-controlled GNGO.” Nicola's reply aroused tumultuous applause from the audience. It seemed that the intention of China’s GNGO is apparently known to everybody.

NGOs are supposed to monitor and criticize governments, but this GNGO ended up trying to smooth over the criticisms against the Chinese Government. GNGO is funded by the government. In this regard, it is absolutely incomparable with the other independent NGOs. If things continue this way, the opinions and position of the United Nations Human Rights Commission will eventually be controlled by the Chinese Government. Many people have never seen any government so sensitive to critical opinions. If a government is not only unwilling to listen to critical opinions, but also uses unscrupulous means to influence international opinions and smooth over criticisms, there must be some problems with this government. If every country controls and funds this kind of GNGO and send them to the United Nations human rights Commission, all the human rights issues in the world will not be upheld, and the world will become degenerate, dark and sorrowful.