Introduction
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Alan Adler, and I am the Executive Director of Friends of Falun Gong USA. Friends of Falun Gong USA is a nonprofit human rights organisation established by concerned Americans who support the freedom of belief of people who practise Falun Gong.
With the abolition of the annual review of China's most favoured nation status and with China's accession to the WTO, we would expect this esteemed Commission to aggressively advocate for basic freedom of belief in China. Unfortunately, however, reading this Commission's 2002 annual report, one gets another impression, at least in terms of Falun Gong. Falun Gong was only mentioned in passing in various sections of the report, when it should have instead been a focal point. Why does Falun Gong deserve more attention and advocacy? The sheer numbers of people affected make the persecution of Falun Gong the number one religious freedom violation in China today, and perhaps the world. According to reports from major media and the Chinese government's own statistics, prior to the ban, there were seventy to one hundred million people practising Falun Gong in China. That is a group larger than most nations. And when you consider that their family members, friends, and coworkers are also victimised--some are fined, some are jailed, and others are forced to turn in their loved ones--the numbers are absolutely staggering. The group of people affected becomes comparable to the population of the United States.
This brutal suppression has targeted everyone from schoolchildren who do the practise, to grandparents who rely on it to maintain their health, from military commanders, to doctors, to professors, and even judges. Some reports state that roughly half of all prisoners held in China's forced labour camps are Falun Gong adherents. Based on one estimate, this would put the number of Falun Gong in the camps at 2-3 million. Chinese police and guards routinely brutalise Falun Gong prisoners, raping women with electric batons, binding people in torture devices for weeks on end, stripping them and leaving them outside in below-freezing temperatures, holding them in cages too small for their bodies, and so on. In recent months, we have received reports of people being tortured to death almost daily. Chinese authorities have confiscated and shredded or burned millions of Falun Gong books, and there are even accounts of children in schools being forced to memorise poems denouncing Falun Gong, people being made to trample the photograph of the Falun Gong founder in order to enter train stations, and China's cutthroat college entrance exams now contain questions criticising the practise. Officials have been given bonuses and promoted as a result of their efforts to persecute Falun Gong. This suppression has permeated every level and every facet of China's society.
It is well known that Falun Gong is currently number one on the Chinese government's hit list. When one considers the gravity of this situation, the amount of media attention Falun Gong has received, and the extensive support of local and state governments, it becomes clear that this Commission and the federal government more broadly need to do more. You have a responsibility to put Falun Gong at the forefront when it comes to human rights and rule of law issues in China.
Recommendations
I would like to make the following recommendations:
I'd like to leave you with a few comments. From what I have seen, the Chinese government does not admit that they have a human rights problem, much less that they need to change. It is extremely difficult to engage in fruitful dialogue, to educate, or to reason with a government that flatly denies and routinely whitewashes the grave violations that are occurring. Bold, public, international pressure may be the only truly effective means of change.
Additionally, one of this Commission's recommendations in its annual report was that corporations work to bring about change by giving recommendations to relevant Chinese government entities. On a personal note, I have done business in China for over thirty years and have employed tens of thousands of people there. I have improved workers' rights to the best of my ability. However, I know that even one semi-public statement, such as posting in a factory my company's human rights policy in Chinese, would bring that factory to the immediate attention of the Public Security Bureau and the repercussions would be disastrous. If I were held responsible for the posting, would I be allowed back into China? Would the translator of the document be spared? This is just a simple illustration of the pressure that corporations are under to comply with the repressive environment; one small move brings great risk. I feel that the idea of "developing a long-term collaborative relationship between government and business" is not a realistic approach. Corporations can do little to change the situation without strong support and advocacy on the part of our government.
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