[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHINA'S PERVASIVE USE OF TORTURE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 14, 2016
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House
Senate
CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Cochairman
ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina TOM COTTON, Arkansas
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona STEVE DAINES, Montana
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
DIANE BLACK, Tennessee BEN SASSE, Nebraska
TIM WALZ, Minnesota DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
MICHAEL HONDA, California GARY PETERS, Michigan
TED LIEU, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
CHRISTOPHER P. LU, Department of Labor
SARAH SEWALL, Department of State
STEFAN M. SELIG, Department of Commerce
DANIEL R. RUSSEL, Department of State
TOM MALINOWSKI, Department of State
Paul B. Protic, Staff Director
Elyse B. Anderson, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S.
Representative From New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-
Executive Commission on China.................................. 1
Lewis, Margaret K., Professor of Law, Seton Hall University
School of Law.................................................. 4
Jigme Gyatso, Tibetan Buddhist Monk; Human Rights Advocate; and
Filmmaker...................................................... 8
Yin Liping, Falun Gong Practitioner.............................. 10
Franks, Hon. Trent, a U.S. Representative From Arizona........... 12
Yin Liping (continued)........................................... 12
Richardson, Sophie, China Director, Human Rights Watch........... 15
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Lewis, Margaret K................................................ 32
Jigme Gyatso..................................................... 38
Yin Liping....................................................... 41
Richardson, Sophie............................................... 45
Smith, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Representative From New Jersey;
Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.......... 104
Rubio, Hon. Marco, a U.S. Senator From Florida; Cochairman,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 105
Submissions for the Record
Written Testimony Submitted by Ms. Geng He, Wife of Lawyer Gao
Zhisheng, April 14, 2016....................................... 107
Witness Biographies.............................................. 109
CHINA'S PERVASIVE USE OF TORTURE
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THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:29 p.m.,
in Room 210, HVC, Hon. Christopher Smith, Chairman, presiding.
Also Present: Representatives Franks, Hultgren, and Walz.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chairman Smith. The Commission will come to order. Good
afternoon to everybody. Thanks for being here.
Gao Zhisheng's account of the torture he experienced is
shocking, offensive, and inhuman. From the time he was first
arrested in 2006 until his provisional release in 2014, Mr. Gao
was regularly hooded and beaten, shocked with electric batons,
had toothpicks inserted in his genitals, was sleep deprived and
malnourished, and his life was threatened repeatedly by guards
and fellow prisoners.
Mr. Gao was tortured because he dared to represent
persecuted Christians and Falun Gong practitioners, and because
he was critical of China's legal system. Gao wanted what was
best for China, but he got the worst.
Mr. Gao's wife, Geng He, submitted testimony to this
hearing, and I urge all of you to read it. It is over on the
side and we will make it a part of the record without
objection.
It is for Gao Zhisheng and the many other victims of
torture that we are holding this hearing today. We are here
today to shine a light on the brutal, illegal, and dehumanizing
systemic use of torture in China. We shine a light in the
dictatorship because nothing good happens in the dark, and as
we will learn today, there are some very dark places in China
where torture is used regularly to punish and intimidate
political and religious prisoners as well as their lawyers.
We are also here to urge the U.S. Government to make ending
torture a higher priority in bilateral relations and to urge
the Chinese Government to fully enforce and implement its own
laws. A country with China's global leadership aspirations
should not engage in horrific practices so thoroughly condemned
by the international community.
As our witnesses will describe today in great detail, the
use of torture is pervasive in China's detention centers and
criminal justice system. Torture is used to extract confessions
for prosecution and the coerced televised public confessions we
have seen so often in the past year.
Torture is also used to punish those political prisoners
the Chinese security forces view as destabilizing forces. Under
President Xi Jinping, there has been an expansion in the number
of individuals and groups viewed as threats to national
security.
The victims of torture are very often human rights
advocates and lawyers, union activists, members of non-state
controlled Christian churches, Falun Gong practitioners,
members of the ethnic minority groups like Tibetans as well as
Uyghurs.
Chinese officials repeatedly tell me I should focus more on
the positive aspects of China's human rights and not on the
negative. This is a difficult task when you read Gao Zhisheng's
story or read the testimony of our witnesses, Golog Jigme and
Yin Liping, who will present in just a moment.
Nevertheless, I want to recognize that there have been
changes made recently to China's Criminal Procedure Law that
purport to prohibit the use of confessions obtained through
torture and the requirement to videotape interrogations in
major cases. According to Human Rights Watch, however, judges'
videotaped interrogations are routinely manipulated, and police
torture the suspects first and then tape the confession.
As professor Margaret Lewis will testify today,
``Preliminary indications are, however, that recording
interrogations is not significantly changing the culture of
extreme reliance on confessions as the primary form of evidence
in criminal cases. When I viewed an interrogation room in a
Beijing police station last October, the staff was keen to
point out the video technology. What I could not help but
notice was the slogan `Truthfully confess and your whole body
will feel at ease.' They were looking down at this while they
were sitting in the `tiger chair.' '' She says, ``Faced with
this slogan during prolonged questioning makes crystal clear to
the suspect that there is no right to silence in Chinese law.''
Perhaps there may be Chinese officials who want to end the
use of torture in detention facilities and curtail the force
and influence of the public security bureau. Their efforts
should be encouraged and, of course, supported. But as with
many other things in China, particularly in the realm of human
rights, with each step forward, or seemingly forward, there is
often a step back and sometimes two.
China's laws are too often either selectively implemented
or completely ignored by security forces and the courts.
Security forces, faced with the end of labor camps, created new
forms of extralegal detention, such as ``black jails'' or
residential surveillance in undisclosed locations where torture
can continue without oversight or interruption.
Until suspects have lawyers at interrogations, until all
extralegal detention centers are abolished and police and
public security forces are held accountable for abuse, China's
existing laws will continue to be undermined by existing
practice. The U.S. Government must find effective ways to
address this issue urgently at the highest levels because
hundreds of thousands of Chinese people are victims of
shockingly cruel, illegal, and inhumane activities.
Last week, the White House said that President Obama
``reiterated America's unwavering support for upholding human
rights and fundamental freedoms in China.'' President Obama has
only a couple more meetings with Xi Jinping before his
administration ends. He should make ending torture a priority.
This issue touches on so many other human rights issues
that are also critical ones for U.S. economic and security
interests in China, like protecting the rights of political
prisoners, the right of due process in the arrest of human
rights lawyers, curtailing police powers, and the expansion of
national security laws that target peaceful reform advocates,
encouraging an independent judiciary, protections for the
freedom of expression and freedom of religion, and encouraging
the establishment of the rule of law in China.
Torture will not end until the price of bad domestic policy
is too high for Chinese leaders to ignore, or Chinese leaders
understand that the use of torture harms their global
interests. It already absolutely harms their standing in the
world, and both the UN and the Special Rapporteur's Report,
which, like the previous one, is a scathing indictment of the
China's systematic use of torture.
President Obama should not only hesitate to name names and
shine a light on horrific practices that the Chinese Government
says it wants to end. If nothing else, doing so would bolster
the spirits of those prisoners of conscience who are rotting in
Chinese jails.
I will never forget when I first met Wei Jingsheng in
Beijing in the early 1990s, when he was briefly let out of
prison in order to get the 2000 Olympics, which they did not
get, and they rearrested him and tortured him some more. He
said, ``You Americans and the world do not understand that when
you kowtow to the Chinese leadership, when you are afraid to
look them in the eye and speak boldly about human rights, they
beat us more in the prisons. But when you are predictable and
strong, and you have a resolve that they know is real, they
beat us less.'' It gets right down to the level of the jails.
As a Washington Post editorial concluded last week, private
discussions about human rights are important, but so is public
messaging. Autocrats and dictators need to know unequivocally
that the United States sees the freedom of expression,
religion, rule of law, transparency, and an end to torture as
critical interests necessary for better bilateral relations and
to lengthen the expansion of mutual prosperity and integrated
security.
I would now like to call on our witnesses, and we will be
joined shortly by members of the House and Senate. Two of our
members are in an intelligence briefing, Marco Rubio, for
example; but he is making his way over here and will leave that
shortly. Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being
here and, without objection, your full statements and any
information and additional materials you would like to add to
the record is made in order, and we will include them in the
record of this proceeding.
I would like to begin with Professor Margaret Lewis,
professor of law at Seton Hall University, from my state.
Welcome.
Professor Lewis will discuss the Chinese Government's track
record in implementing criminal procedure reforms to prevent
torture and the continuing use of extralegal forms of detention
despite the abolition of reeducation through labor in 2014.
She will also talk about the unprecedented crackdown on
human rights lawyers in July 2015 that led to the interrogation
and harassment of hundreds of lawyers and their families, as
well as the recent arrest of at least 11 of them on state
subversion and inciting state subversion charges--nebulous
charges at that.
Additionally, she will share observations regarding forces
or coerced confessions extracted through mistreatment of
criminal suspects, including recent high-profile cases
involving activists, lawyers, booksellers, and others.
We will then hear from Golog Jigme, a Tibetan Buddhist
monk, a human rights advocate, and a survivor of torture in
Chinese detention centers, now living in exile in Switzerland.
Mr. Jigme will discuss his personal experiences of torture at
the hands of Chinese authorities during three periods of
detention, 2008 to 2009 and 2012, as well as broader issues
regarding the treatment of Tibetans in detention.
We will then hear from Yin Liping, a Falun Gong
practitioner and survivor of torture in reeducation through
labor camps, now living in the United States after being
accorded refugee status in December of 2015. Ms. Yin Liping
will discuss her personal experiences of torture at the hands
of Chinese authorities during three periods: 1999, 2002, and
2004.
Then, finally, no stranger to this Commission or to another
committee I chair, the Human Rights subcommittee of the Foreign
Affairs Committee, is Sophie Richardson--and we welcome her
back--who is the China Director of Human Rights Watch. Dr.
Richardson will address documented cases in pretrial detention
and problems with access to lawyers and medical treatment that
were featured in Human Rights' May 2015 report and others, and
on the devices known as tiger chairs and many other aspects
relating to that.
She will also comment on the UN Committee against Torture,
including her concluding observations, and the Chinese
Government's participation in international human rights
mechanisms. Dr. Richardson will provide policy recommendations
to the Commission. All the others, of course, also are welcome
to do so, as well as recommendations to the U.S. Government.
Without objection, we are including written testimony by
Geng He, wife of human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng--as I
mentioned earlier--as someone who this Commission and I and
many of my colleagues have followed and who has spoken out
repeatedly on his behalf. We will put her testimony into the
record.
So, Professor Lewis, the floor is yours.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Geng He appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF MARGARET K. LEWIS, PROFESSOR OF LAW, SETON HALL
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Ms. Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am privileged to be
invited to participate in this hearing. I also need to say,
having worked closely with your staff on the 2015 Annual
Report, that I saw firsthand what an exceptional group of
people you have supporting this Commission.
In addition to these brief opening remarks, I have
submitted a more detailed statement that is available outside.
I want to begin by recognizing that China is undertaking a
sizeable basket of reforms having to do with criminal justice.
It is understandable that these reforms will take time to
implement, both because of resource constraints and because of
the entrenched practices of the police, the prosecutors, and
the courts.
These transitional challenges are fundamentally different,
however, from the government's decision to selectively ignore
legal protections embodied both in Chinese law and
international legal norms. Here lies the key problem: The
Chinese Government places perpetuating one-party rule above a
robust commitment to the rule of law and human rights.
For example, it is extremely rare for a court to use
procedures in the Criminal Procedure Law for excluding
illegally obtained evidence. Admittedly, courts should rarely
have to exclude evidence if police and prosecutors are doing
their jobs and not relying on illegally obtained evidence.
That said, ongoing concerns about the courts' unwillingness
and even inability to stand up to police, coupled with personal
accounts of coerced confessions, stretch the bounds of
credulity that the careful work of police and prosecutors is
what is responsible for the rare invocation of these rules.
The PRC Criminal Procedure Law also provides that no person
shall be found guilty without being judged as such by a court.
But the nearly 100-percent conviction rate in China underscores
that the determination of guilt in practice occurs before a
defendant enters a courtroom.
Any movement toward establishing a presumption of innocence
has been further undermined by the disturbing practice of
televised confessions, effectively replacing formal court
proceedings with public shaming.
One of the more encouraging recent developments in criminal
procedure reform has been the use of audio and video recordings
of interrogation in serious cases. It is not yet of all cases.
Preliminary indications are, however, that the recording of
interrogations is not significantly changing this culture of
relying on confessions as the primary, if not sole, form of
evidence in criminal cases. As the Chairman noted, when I was
fortunate to visit a police station in Beijing, I was excited
to see that there was videotaping technology. The staff was
very quick to point this out.
What they did not point out--but what I could not help but
notice was literally written in the floor right in front of the
constraining metal interrogation chair--was the saying, ``If
you confess, your whole body will feel at ease.'' This is what
a suspect faces while they are undergoing prolonged
interrogation by the police. There is no right to silence,
currently, under Chinese law.
The value of interrogation recordings is further limited if
the defense has a difficult time accessing those recordings, or
if there simply is no defense lawyer, which is the case in most
cases today in China. Suspects need lawyers both to understand
their rights and then to have someone actually advocate for
those rights. Yet, the Chinese Government is taking an
increasingly hostile stance toward defense lawyers. Defense
lawyers risk reprisals by the government, rather than praise
for their contributions to the rule of law.
Turning to forms of detention outside of the formal
criminal justice system, a variety of measures persist despite
the end of reeducation through labor. While forms of so-called
detention like compulsory drug treatment centers and custody
and education centers have at least some basis in Chinese law,
they do not satisfy international requirements for the legal
review that must precede long-term deprivation of a person's
liberty.
The Chinese Government also takes actions without any legal
basis to silence voices perceived as threatening to the
existing political structure. The fact that extralegal measures
like ``black jails'' are not officially recognized complicates
efforts to estimate their prevalence.
The Committee against Torture has stated that it ``remains
seriously concerned at consistent reports from various sources
about a continuing practice of illegal detention in
unrecognized and unofficial detention places. . . .''
This concerning state of affairs leads to the question,
What are the implications for U.S. policy? I encourage U.S.
policymakers to think of efforts to improve human rights in
China on three levels: multilateral, bilateral, and unilateral.
Multilaterally engaging China through international bodies
like the UN Committee against Torture emphasizes that China is
being judged by the yardstick of international human rights
norms to which China has voluntarily subscribed, not by
standards imposed on China by the United States or any other
country.
Bilaterally, the official U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue
and the slightly less official Legal Experts Dialogue are
important forums, though I think we must keep our expectations
very modest for the ability of these forums to actually spur
legal reform right now in China.
Non-governmental organizations and American universities
further serve an important role in organizing meetings between
Chinese and American experts. Conversations with Chinese
participants at these meetings restore my faith that there are
many reform-minded people both inside the government and
outside the government who are working to further criminal
justice reforms.
Building interpersonal ties at these meetings is not an
immediate deliverable, but instead this effort is going to lay
the groundwork for long-term cooperation after the current
political winds shift, whenever that may be.
Finally, the increasing resistance by the Chinese
Government to engage meaningfully in discussions of human
rights sometimes requires taking a unilateral stance. I was in
Beijing when the government announced the trial date for the
renowned civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang on charges of inciting
ethnic hatred and picking quarrels and provoking trouble
through comments on his microblogs.
The U.S. Embassy's request that a representative be able to
attend the trial was, not surprisingly, denied. Undeterred, a
senior diplomat stood outside the courthouse and read a
statement expressing concerns about Mr. Pu's treatment.
Literally taking a stand on the courthouse steps reaffirms to
ourselves that, despite our own country's transgressions
sometimes of human rights norms, we remain committed to the
fundamental dignity and rights of all human beings.
When President Obama addressed the treatment of detainees
in the aftermath of 9/11 at a 2014 press conference, he
recognized that ``we tortured some folks.'' He continued that a
detailed government report addressing instances of torture,
``reminds us once again that the character of our country has
to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy,
but what we do when things are hard.''
While in China last December, several Chinese scholars and
practitioners suggested that we stop focusing so much on what
they term the exceptional cases when there have been marked
reforms to the criminal justice system as a whole. I responded
that the character of China's criminal justice system has to be
measured not just by the handling of relatively easy, run-of-
the-mill cases like petty thefts or assaults but also by the
blatantly politically motivated prosecutions, even if such
cases represent a relatively small percentage of all criminal
cases.
The Chinese Government's failure to live up to the legal
standards that it sets for itself in these hard cases
undermines the legitimacy of the entire system.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide a statement and I
look forward to our discussion with the Commission.
Chairman Smith. Professor Lewis, thank you very much for
your statement and thank you for complimenting the staff of
this Commission, which are among the most knowledgeable and
effective people.
Our report, as you know, that comes out is so heavily
footnoted--almost half of our footnotes are because the
research is so in-depth. I compare that to what the Chinese
Government just did in their release on alleged human rights
abuse in the United States, which we welcome.
As you point out, and I did a VOA talk show this morning.
It was broadcast into China. Some of the call-ins were critical
of the U.S. policies, and I said, criticize away. Criticism
helps when it is benign; especially when it is well-meaning and
constructive, it helps us to reform.
Just to come back to the Human Rights Report issued by the
U.S. Department of State, which was, again, a near-scathing
indictment of many of the practices that China's government
engages in. People are going to break laws, and you have got to
have due process rights, defense attorneys.
So I thank you for your input to our work on that important
report.
Now I would like to recognize Golog Jigme, and thank you
for being here today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lewis appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF JIGME GYATSO, TIBETAN BUDDHIST MONK; HUMAN RIGHTS
ADVOCATE; AND FILMMAKER
Mr. Jigme. First of all, I would like to offer my
heartfelt gratitude to Congressman Smith, and to Members of the
CECC, and those gathered here. My name is Golog Jigme. I
consider myself a freedom fighter. I consider myself a social
worker and filmmaker. As a result of our making the film
``Leaving Fear Behind,'' we had some issues.
My written statement has already been submitted to you.
What I would like to describe now is a little more about the
torture that I experienced during the three different
detentions that I had to undergo.
The real reason why we made the film ``Leaving Fear
Behind'' is because overall Tibetans do not have human rights;
Tibetans do not have democracy, including religious freedom,
freedom of expression. Around 2007, the Chinese started
propagandizing about how good the situation in Tibet was, how
progress was being made in Tibet. That was all in connection
with the upcoming Olympic Games. So we made that film to show
the reality of Tibet to the world.
That film conveys the true feelings of the Tibetan people
about their situation. In 2008, as you know, there were
widespread demonstrations all over Tibet. In my hometown--I was
then in Labrang--there were demonstrations on March 14 and 15.
I participated in those demonstrations.
On March 23, I was detained for the first time. The nature
of my detention then--I am just a simple monk--when they came
to detain me, they came with 300 soldiers, 60 PSB [Public
Security Bureau] personnel, and they had machine guns in front
of me and behind me. They also brought electric cattle prods
and other instruments of coercion.
I had seen the machine guns as I was lifting my head up
when I was taken away. I looked up and there was one up there
in the front, and there was one behind down there. There were
people with guns pointed at me. So from the very nature of my
detention, it is clear how counterfactual the Chinese
propaganda is about Tibetans being given equality, Tibetans
having rights, or Tibetans having progress.
I was taken to a room nearby where a security person was
waiting. Then I was stripped naked and searched, and then my
beatings began the whole night. Today, I want to give just a
shortened version of the nature of the suffering that I
underwent because if I explain in detail, it will take a long
time.
I was then taken to a place called Kachu (Chinese: Lingxia)
in that same region. There I was kept for 1 month and 22 days
during which I continued to experience torture.
During this period, the main tool for torture that they
used was what is called a ``tiger chair.'' I was shackled on a
chair like this: Both my feet and my hands were shackled. I was
kept hanging on that chair nine times.
They had a strong light that was shone on me. As a result
of all of this, my sensations failed, and although I knew that
I was being beaten on my back with different instruments, I
could not feel, except I could see the blood coming out of my
body.
During that period--in terms of food--if you got one small
roll of bread a week, that was very good. In one week, if you
got a little bit of water, that was also good. So if you think
in terms of that, rather than feeling hungry, the feeling of
thirst was worse for me.
Among the many reasons why they tortured me was--first,
that they wanted to know who the people that we interviewed
were--for the film that we made. They wanted us to reveal their
names.
Second, they wanted me to reveal the names of those who
participated in the demonstrations that I participated in on
March 14 and 15, 2008, in Labrang Monastery.
Today as I have this opportunity to address you here in the
United States and as I have had the opportunity to address
people in Europe, one thing that I am proud of is that despite
all the torture that the Chinese inflicted upon me, I have not
given up one name to them, whether it is those people involved
with the film or with the demonstrations. So I can hold onto
that as my principled stance even until my death.
When I did not reveal any names to the authorities, they
said, ``You do not seem to be giving us anything at all, so
your mouth is useless. Therefore, we need to do something about
your mouth.'' So they burned my mouth twice. That was very
painful.
In addition to the physical torture that I briefly
described, they also inflicted mental torture on me. That
included asking me to speak ill of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
asking me to criticize the Central Tibetan Administration,
asking me to say that I am a member of the Tibetan Youth
Congress, and asking me to reveal the names of the members of
the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Then they taunted me further, saying, ``There is no one who
will save you. The United States will not save you.'' At that
time, President Bush was the President of the United States.
They taunted me by showing me a phone, and saying, ``Just call
President Bush and see if he saves you. Just try calling the
Dalai Lama to see if he saves you.''
So it was like that. They said, ``You will die like a dog
and nobody will care about you.''
Physical torture, although it was bad, was something that I
could endure. But the mental torture that was inflicted upon me
was something that I could not endure. I was physically
tortured during my first two detentions in 2008 and 2009. At
one time, during my third detention in 2012, they even wanted
to kill me. Upon learning that, I had to escape.
So on September 30, 2012, I escaped, and for a year and
several months I hid. Eventually, I was able to escape to
India. In January 2015, I arrived in Switzerland, where I was
given asylum. I want to end by saying that in 2007, on October
17, when the U.S. Congress decided to bestow the Congressional
Gold Medal on His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we the people in
Tibet felt it. I was in Tibet then. We saw it. So it was very
gratifying.
Therefore, as I sit here today to talk to you about it, I
also note that the United States cares about access to Tibet
for people within Tibet, domestically, as well as for
foreigners wanting to visit Tibet. Therefore in your 2015
Annual Report, you mentioned the issue about domestic travel
for Tibetans as well as access for journalists, diplomats, and
others. I wholeheartedly support that.
There are other recommendations that I have made that are
in the written statement, so I will not talk about them now.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Jigme, thank you very much for your
testimony and for such difficult insights as to what you have
suffered. I deeply appreciate--the Commission does--your
testifying today.
Yin Liping, you are recognized for such time as you may
consume.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jigme appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF YIN LIPING, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER
Ms. Yin. I really appreciate the CECC Chairman, Mr. Smith,
inviting me here. My name is Yin Liping, Falun Gong
Practitioner from Liaoning province, China.
I would also like to thank the Members of the U.S. Congress
and the Members of the European Parliament for rescuing me and
admitting me into the United States. I arrived in this free
land on December 10, 2015.
I was arrested seven times in China, tortured to the verge
of death six times, and detained in labor camps three times,
where I was made to do slave labor for nine months. I was
sexually attacked and humiliated, and videotaped by a group of
male prisoners while in police custody, all because I refused
to give up my faith in Falun Gong. [Photo Display.]
This is Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, notorious for
persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
I was kept in Masanjia three times. In Mid-September 2000,
Masanjia Director Su Jing addressed an assembly of hundreds of
jailed Falun Gong practitioners: ``This is a war without guns.
Our government has spent more money persecuting Falun Gong than
fighting an international war.''
They also mentioned that the ``transformation'' rate must
be 100 percent. ``Transformation'' is a word they use for
forcing Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief. When
I heard this word, I was so scared.
On the fourth floor of that Masanjia building is a solitary
confinement, a small area. I was jailed there. They kept
broadcasting loud voices for so long that even now when I turn
on a TV set, I am scared to turn it on.
Also on the first floor of another building in Masanjia, in
2004, I was kept in one of the rooms and I met an old lady, Ms.
Qing from Fushun city. We talked to each other and promised
each one that whoever survived this torture would come out and
tell the world what we suffered. Unfortunately, I heard that
the old lady, Ms. Qing, was already persecuted to death.
I was sent to the clinic of Masanjia due to my hunger
strike. I was cuffed to a bed and injected with unknown drugs
for over two months. This caused me to temporarily lose my
vision. I was also put through involuntary ultrasound,
electrocardiogram, and blood tests at a nearby hospital.
As a result, I developed endocrine disorders, incontinence,
and had blood in my urine. In addition, their frequent violent
force-feeding almost suffocated me.
Since I had never been ``transformed'' by them, one day I
was transported to a very special location--I did not know at
the time what that place was.
I will never forget the date, April 19, 2001. That morning,
eight other female Falun Gong practitioners and I were
handcuffed by male guards and taken to a police van. The van
stopped at a men's labor camp. Later we learned it was Zhangshi
Male Forced Labor Camp.
Then we were lined up in the courtyard. A policeman read an
official announcement to us: ``If a Falun Gong practitioner is
beaten to death, the death will be counted as a suicide.'' We
were told many times by policeman that this was a direct order
from Jiang Zemin, then head of the Chinese Communist Party.
We were taken to nine different rooms--because there were
nine of us. I was sent to the first room. There was a large
double bed and a floor hanger in the room. Four men were
already in the room waiting. When I went to the public
restroom, I saw there was a big room with more than 30 men
sleeping there.
I was so frightened and wondered what kind of place this
was. Who were those men? Why were there so many men sleeping
there?
And then I got the answer that evening. Those men all got
up, made a lot of noises, banged on doors, and kept on shouting
dirty words. They kicked open my room door and held a
camcorder, videotaping me.
Then I heard my best friend, Ms. Zou Guirong's voice from
the hallway shouting around 10 p.m. She kept calling my name,
``Liping! Liping! We were sent from a wolf's den to a tiger's
den. This government is a bunch of gangsters.''
Hearing her miserable cries, I rushed into the hallway and
met Ms. Zou there. We held each other tightly no matter how
much the men beat us. One man used the wooden floor hanger in
the room and hit my head. However, I desperately still wanted
to protect her since she was shorter and thinner than me. The
corner of my right eye was swollen from the beating.
Then my clothes, at the time, were torn off. I was almost
naked. Ms. Zou and I were dragged back to our individual rooms.
Four or five male inmates threw me onto the bed. Some held
my arms, some held my legs. One young man, around 30 years old,
sat on me and beat me. I became dizzy and passed out. My memory
stops there.
When I became conscious, three men were lying beside me;
one on my left, two on my right. There was one sitting on the
floor above my head. There were two others standing between my
legs; one videotaping, one was watching. There were a few
others standing below me.
I realized that I had been videotaped when I was sexually
attacked and humiliated by gangs of inmates. I swore to myself,
``If I ever get out of here alive, I will disclose their crimes
and bring them to justice. If I die, my soul will never let
them off the hook.''
Chairman Smith. Ms. Yin, if we could just take one brief
moment. There is a--it will give you time to collect yourself
as well. I thank you for your willingness to tell us, the
Commission, and by extension other Members of Congress what you
have been through.
We do have five votes on the floor. We are almost out of
time on the first. We will take a short recess. Other Members,
I know, will be coming back. Again, I thank you for your
courage in coming forward, but we will take a very brief
recess. I thank you for your forbearance.
[Whereupon at 3:23 p.m. the hearing was recessed.]
AFTER RECESS [3:31 p.m.]
Chairman Smith. We will reconvene. We are in the middle of
votes, but we have a short--we are joined by Commissioner Trent
Franks who is also Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution and also Chairman of the Religious Freedom
Caucus in the House. It is a delight and a privilege to
recognize my good friend and colleague, Commissioner Trent
Franks.
STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT FRANKS, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ARIZONA
Representative Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
think probably most people in this room know that Chairman
Smith is one of the great human rights advocates in the Unites
States Congress for the past 30 years. He has the deepest
respect on my part and I know many of yours.
I guess the primary thing that I would say to all of you is
that your efforts are not wasted here. Only God knows what
fruits will come from your talk here, but you are being
responsible and you are letting your compassion, your
commitment to humanity prevails here in this forum.
Torture is something that those who are perpetrators and
those who are observers are completely shamed by it and the
more that you are able to express it in open terms, the more
that there are people out there that you will never see that
will be spared that tragedy.
I just want to express the deepest gratitude on my part to
all of you and just the honor that I afford to all of you
because of your commitment. I am convinced that one day if time
turns every star in heaven to ashes, that the eternal moment of
deliverance will come to every last one of God's little
children. Until then, he has given us the responsibility to do
the best we can to prevent hurt and tragedy in their lives, and
I thank you for exhibiting that commitment today.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much, Commissioner Franks.
I would like to now recognize Ms. Yin to continue your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF YIN LIPING, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER (Continued)
Ms. Yin. The following paragraphs are related to how I was
force labored.
In 2000, January through September, I was transferred to
Liaoyang Forced Labor Camp for nine months. For those nine
months, I had so much forced labor.
In the daytime I had to load eight tons of steel bars onto
trucks in a team of only four people. On those iron steel bars,
there are a lot of thorns, sharp edges. I have always been cut
on both of my arms, bloody and cannot recover--even though the
old one has not recovered, the new cuts are coming up.
Also, we need to bind flowers in the evenings until 2 a.m.
Those flowers are used for exports. My hands were so badly
injured because of what they needed to finish the quota--the
flowers also are so very thorny, that my fingerprints
disappeared and are also bloody.
Because I still do not want to be ``transformed'', they
don't allow me to sleep. My menstrual period stopped within
three months over there. I also threw up blood. My hair turned
gray. They do not allow us to meet our family members. Almost
all of the products we made were exported to overseas.
I have been suffering so much persecution, and I have
written that down online. However, I want to spend a bit more
time about this book. [Photo Display.]
This book was authored by Mr. Du Bin. He was a former New
York Times reporter. There is a sentence from him I just want
to recite. ``To all of those who have suffered in China, the
forced labor system, those who have been persecuted, punished,
humiliated women--Chinese men like me, the only thing I can do
is to send my very minor respect and sorrow.''
Mr. Du Bin collected those survivors' testimonies of
Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, all of their tortures, what they
suffered from, those different torture methods, and
particularly sexual abuses and crimes. Also, most of those are
Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.
[Photo Display.]
This is my hometown's Falun Gong practitioner. Her name is
Wang Ling. You may see she has no teeth in her mouth. Before I
escaped from China, I met her. I asked her what happened to
your teeth? She said while she was in Masanjia Labor Camp, the
policeman put an inspection device for female parts into her
mouth and expanded it to the extreme. While doing that, they
pulled her teeth out one by one.
In the meantime, the police put female sanitary napkins,
dirty clothes, and even spit in her mouth. She also said, she
was put into a place where she was stretched to the extreme and
put into a cage. Then the policeman used three toothbrushes
tied together and inserted into and stirred up her private
part. That is what she told me.
There are so many other torture methods that have not been
exposed. The persecution is still going on, even while we are
speaking now.
Because of the time limit, I would like to talk a little
bit about those lawyers who help Falun Gong practitioners in
China.
We all talk about Mr. Gao Zhisheng, lawyer, and he helped a
lot of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Because Mr. Gao's
story has been exposed to the world, and other lawyers in China
have learned from Gao Zhisheng's stories, they want to come out
to help more Falun Gong prisoners such as those who I just
talked about: lawyer Wang Yu, lawyer Wang Quanzhang, lawyer
Tang Jitian, and many other lawyers in China.
Because of those lawyers, other human rights lawyers are
willing to come out and help Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Now a lot of Falun Gong practitioners need their help and they
formed like a news information group. They communicate with
each other.
Because of those lawyers' help, the pressure from the
Chinese Government on the Falun Gong practitioners is a little
bit not so much. It's been helpful.
Unfortunately, on July 9, 2015--I will never forget about
this day--I learned that lawyer Wang Yu was arrested that
morning. Then we quickly had this internet group set up to
rescue him. Luckily, I was in that group.
So a lot of other lawyers are trying to think about how to
rescue lawyer Wang Yu. Unfortunately, in the evening, news from
around all of China, in each city, large-scale arrests of
lawyers happened.
That evening I could not sleep. I was paying very close
attention to what was going on. Actually on July 6, I already
submitted my suing paper, document, to the legal system in
China to sue Jiang Zemin.
I thought because during that period a lot of Falun Gong
practitioners are suing Jiang Zemin legally in China--then
within a couple of days they have a large-scale arrests of
those lawyers. So I didn't sleep for two nights. I really worry
about Falun Gong practitioners, but not only Falun Gong
practitioners, but also other persecuted groups in China.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Yin, I have got two minutes to get to
the floor for a recorded vote. It is an important vote. I will
be back right after that, but Senator Cotton and some other
Senators, we believe, are on their way as well. So please hold
that thought.
We stand in brief recess.
[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the Commission was recessed.]
AFTER RECESS [4:15 p.m.]
Chairman Smith. We will reconvene. There are no further
votes on the House side, so there will be no interruptions.
We are joined by Randy Hultgren, Commissioner. Also you
probably have seen him presiding as Chair before 10 o'clock. He
will do it again tomorrow. He did an excellent job of managing
the House.
I would like to, again, go to Ms. Yin to conclude.
Ms. Yin. Because of the time limit, I will go back and
focus more on myself a little. [Photo Display.]
This is a photo of Wang Jie, also a Falun Gong
practitioner. She was arrested on October 8, 2002. The reason
she was arrested is because she was at the time collecting
evidence of the persecution of Falun Gong, and she was
sentenced to seven years in jail.
After seven years and just when she was released, she was
arrested again in September 2010. When she was released this
time, within a year she passed away because of her bladder
cancer due to the torture she suffered. I was just sitting next
to her bed the last 10 days while she was in the hospital.
On April 21, 2012, the day of her daughter's birthday, she
was actually dying. Her sister kept calling her and saying,
``Wang Jie! Wang Jie! Please don't die. Please don't die this
day, it is your daughter's birthday. How can she live on if you
die now? '' I do not know if it was Heaven's will or her will--
she died around 9 a.m. the next morning in my arms. The other
lady, Ms. Zou Guirong, the three of us went through all those
persecutions. We promised each other if any one of us can
survive this persecution, we have to come out and tell the
whole world our stories, expose those persecutions. Today, I
bring both of them with me here to tell the people about what
happened. [Photo Display.]
This is another practitioner from Shenyang city [sobbing].
Her name is Gao Rongrong [sobbing]. She was killed because she
was also a Falun Gong practitioner. She cannot tell her story
anymore.
I really appreciate the opportunity to be here to tell
these stories. I took them all with me today.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Yin, thank you very much again for
sharing this with the Commission.
We are joined by Tim Walz. Thank you, Tim, for being here.
We will go to Dr. Richardson for as much time as you would
like to use.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Yin appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF SOPHIE RICHARDSON, CHINA DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
Ms. Richardson. Thanks. I think in the interest of
welcoming your questions which I think everybody would like to
answer, I am going to give you the Readers Digest condensed
version.
I do want to say, Chairman Smith, Members of the
Commission, thank you so much for your devoted leadership on
these issues over the years. We are also extremely grateful for
your world-class staff who are excellent colleagues.
I would like very much to associate HRW with Professor
Lewis' remarks and to thank Golog Jigme and Yin Liping for
their courage and for sharing their stories. I think the facts
of the matter are established.
There is only one aspect of this issue, of the issue of
torture that we covered in our May 2015 report that we have not
talked about this afternoon. I want to take a moment to
underscore that to give you a little bit of math or metrics.
In researching this report, we looked at a four-month slice
of cases that were available through the Supreme People's
Courts' database. We looked at 158,000 court verdicts looking
for indications that suspects in criminal detention had alleged
torture or ill-treatment in detention.
We found from that universe only about 432 cases which we
think is very much a function of the difficulty the criminal
suspect face in detention centers, getting claims of ill-
treatment lodged with the authorities. Of those 432 cases, only
23 resulted in the court throwing out evidence, but not a
single one resulted in an acquittal.
And we only found one prosecution involving three police
officers responsible for torture. None of them served jail
time, not a one.
Quite simply, police torture and ill-treatment of suspects
in pretrial detention remains a serious problem, largely
because the measure is taken that were described by Professor
Lewis are ignored in practice. They are great on paper. They
are not serving suspects in reality.
We had hoped in doing this research that many of the
recommendations that we had made could be seized upon by the
Chinese Government in advance of its November 2015 review under
the Convention Against Torture, which is taking place about six
months after this report came out.
They could have worked to hold police accountable. They
could have significantly reduced the amount of time a suspect
can be held in police custody before seeing a judge. They could
have moved to see that lawyers are present during police
interrogations. They could have adopted legislation
guaranteeing suspects rights to remain silent. They did none of
those things.
In our view, the United Nations Convention Against Torture
Review of China was critically important, especially at a time
when torture survivors, lawyers, and other activists took so
much difficulty accessing any forms of redress inside the
country.
The list of issues which sketched out the Committee's
concerns was unbelievably detailed and diverse. The actual
interactive dialogue was quite extraordinary in that the
Members of the Committee did not shy away from asking any of
the difficult questions, not a one.
Unfortunately, they were not given the benefit of proper
replies. Requests for data went unanswered. Direct questions
were responded to with misleading or patently untrue replies.
Arguably, the rock bottom moment was when the Chinese
delegation leader suggested that tiger chairs, which people
have spoken about and is depicted in the photograph on the
cover of this report, were in fact used for suspects'
``comfort'' and ``safety''. We find that a little bit hard to
believe.
You could not ask for a better roadmap to mitigating or
hopefully irradiating torture in China, than this document. The
Committee is concluding observations.
This is what China needs to do to fix the problem, whether
you are talking about Tiananmen survivors or their family
members, whether you are talking about North Koreans, Falun
Gong practitioners, whether you are talking about criminal
procedure reform, it is all there. It raises issues that are
foundational.
The very definition of torture--China signed onto this in
1988. Its legal definition of torture still does not match what
the Convention requires. It challenges procedural issues that
they still have not replied to queries from their last review
in 2008.
It addressed a number of the very significant needs for
reforms in areas that we have talked about this afternoon.
Whether China takes those, of course, remains to be seen.
Most of our recommendations were, of course, geared toward
the Chinese Government because we always think that there are
steps that the U.S. Government and Congress can take.
I think the first area of focus ought to be whether the
United States is using all, and I mean all interactions to
press Chinese counterparts on mitigation of torture. By that I
mean everything from the Minister of Public Security, Guo
Shengkun's, meetings with National Security Advisor, Susan
Rice. I mean working level interactions about China's hunt for
fugitives or securing nuclear materials. I mean in training
programs for Chinese police here in the United States, in the
sensitive issue session of the--or in the run-up to the G-20 in
Hangzhou in September.
I think U.S. officials have to make clear and set
benchmarks that significant progress towards mitigating torture
is an essential precursor to more substantial bilateral law
enforcement and other kinds of cooperation.
Chairman Smith. Would you yield on that? When you talk
about law, has the President, has Susan Rice, and has the
Secret Service, for example, leading up to the G-20 done that?
Ms. Richardson. Fine question.
Chairman Smith. Oh, okay. We do not know.
Ms. Richardson. It is a fine question. That and several
other aspects of this debate are unclear to me. One of the
recommendations I want to make is that it is harder, I think,
than it ought to be to get clarity about the precise nature,
particularly of law enforcement and any other kind of security
force cooperation between the two.
It is amazing how infrequently you hear the term, ``Leahy
Vetting Invoked with China.'' I think there should be a review
of what exactly this cooperation entails and what opportunities
might be missed. So that is one area I think is important to
look at.
The other is really in supporting UN mechanisms. And again,
I want to stress--we have talked a little bit about the ways in
which Chinese activists or activists from the mainland have
been restricted in accessing these kinds of reviews in Geneva.
They have been harassed. They have been prevented from
traveling.
We all know the case of Cao Shunli who died for efforts
trying to participate in the UPR. These mechanisms matter
enormously for China. It is all people have these days.
Obviously they cannot take their cases to court.
So in this sense what I would like to ask you to do is to
push China to issue invitations to the Special Rapporteurs on
all of these issues: torture, lawyers, and forced
disappearances.
Speaking out as you have and we know you will continue to
do, when accessed to mechanisms for independent activists the
mainland has denied or restricted, we would ask that whenever
you are speaking with the Chinese Ambassador to the United
States or other officials, you ask why their government is
unwilling to provide credible answers in these review
processes. The more you reiterate those questions, the harder
it is for them to avoid them.
The third area there is a lot of room, I think, for
improvement in is in providing support to survivors of torture
in the mainland. One aspect we had not been aware of was just
how few services there are available to people, whether it is
physical rehabilitation or psychological counseling.
The ironies of one of the best known cases, somebody who
has been repeatedly tortured and essentially prosecuted for
trying to get some redress for having been tortured was stopped
on his way to Hong Kong which was the only place in the region
where he could find a counselor who could work with him on
PTSD. There are almost no services available to people.
I think this ranges from adding the names of torture
survivors like people who share their stories with us today, or
people like Nian Bin whose case we have written about to your
list of cases of concern. You can engage groups like the
American Medical Association or the American Psychiatric
Association or any USG-funded medical or psychiatric exchanges
to see if there is room in their work to actually provide
support to survivors.
I am glad Mr. Walz is here because some of the U.S.'s best
experts in this realm on assistance to torture survivors are in
Minneapolis. They are in L.A. They are in New York. I think
those are resources that we should tap. The United States could
underwrite training specifically for people to provide these
services.
Then last, but not least, I think there is merit in easing
the way to the United States or other countries for torture
survivors so that they can at least get out and have their
stories heard.
I will just close by noting that I swapped emails last
night with someone in the mainland who helped us with our
research. She closed her message with the hope that someday
such discussions would not only take place in Washington and
Geneva, but also in Beijing.
In the meantime, she, we, and I am sure many others thank
you for having this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richardson appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Smith. Dr. Richardson, thank you so very much.
On the torture victims, I actually authored the Torture
Victims Relief Act four times. Then we have a pending bill that
would reauthorize it.
We need to ensure that people, the walking wounded if you
will--one estimate puts it at a half a million people who are
in America, usually people have been granted asylum--carry PTSD
or some form of it. I would like to coordinate with you to see
how we could further ensure that the suffering Chinese diaspora
avail themselves of those services because again, a good
psychiatrist, psychologist, a good program may not eliminate
the nightmares and the pain, but it could mitigate it. That has
been the story of the Torture Victims Center. So I thank you
for brining that up.
Let me ask--I will only ask one question then yield to my
colleagues. Then I will have a few if time does permit.
The first would be on the--maybe Professor you might want
to take this or others. The whole idea of providing video and
audio recording of interrogations and ``interviews'' is often
gamed, is often a fraud as it unfolds.
I will never forget--I have been in camps, prison camps in
Russia, Indonesia, China, Northern Ireland and many other
places. I will never forget being in Long Kesh in Northern
Ireland when the British were showing me how--Long Kesh had a
terrible reputation for beating people and coercing the
coughing up of names and information and confessions.
So they put in these cameras. While I was there on the
Potemkin Village tour, talking to the police at the time, they
said oh, here in the next room is the monitor and it is all
being surveilled and watched.
I said what is this button here? Oh, that's the off button.
I said, well what happens in terms of the video if that is hit
while someone is being beaten? Nothing.
The person who actually does the auditing is his fellow
officer. So there is no kind of--there is a potential conflict
of interest that is huge. I am wondering in China where they
get kudos in the international community for at least stalling
some of this, when it comes to actual application, it seems to
me it just invites fraud. I saw it myself at a Northern Ireland
prison.
Ms. Lewis. So at least some of the video recording
equipment is the kind now where if someone enters the room, it
turns on. That is what was emphasized to me by legal experts.
Of course, there is the problem of who is auditing the
process. You can say the machinery is such that you enter the
room, it turns on, but if the whole process is in the hands of
the Procuratorate--the prosecutors--and the police, then how do
we know that? This was raised in the report by the Committee
Against Torture.
Of course, too, it only works if you are in a location
where the videotape is recording. So if you are at one of these
residential surveillance at a designated place, not necessarily
the person's home, if you are at a black jail, if you are at an
extrajudicial site, wherever that might be, you are just not
going to have any recording.
So it is only as good as feeling confident that this is a
true recording. Beyond that, if you do get a recording, you
need to have a defense lawyer who could use this in court.
Then the final link that is lacking is a judge who is
willing to stand up to the prosecutor and the police and say,
did you actually do this--what happened in this room? You do
not see judges in a position right now that they will question
the police.
Police do not show up as witnesses. So that crucial final
link to actually implement an exclusionary rule is lacking.
Ms. Richardson. If I could just add one quick point to
that--in a way, it is actually worst. We had interviewees tell
us that they were being held in formal detention centers with
all of the proper proceedings and they were simply taken out of
the detention centers and beaten up, and then brought back.
You can equip the facilities until the cows come home, but
if there is no accountability for the police for behaving that
way, it is not going to matter much.
Representative Walz. Thank you, Chairman Smith. First of
all, thank you all for being here and sharing painful stories.
It is important. The one thing we always ask--and I
returned in November from Tibet--is to ask people as they
courageously approached us, does it hurt when we talk about
these things? Does it hurt your cause? Does it make it worse?
And they universally say no, continue to bring it to light. So
I appreciate that.
Dr. Richardson, I appreciate you pointing out the Center
for Victims of Torture and their rehabilitation programs.
I would just say--and it seems absurd to me that we would
have to state this, but in today's world, we may. This nation
rejects torture in all forms, no matter what any private
individual may express. We have got to stand as strong as we
ever have because listening to the stories here and this
Commission and those Commissioners that sat on it I know share
that, and make that case as strongly as we can because the
moral authority we hold matters. The actions we take matters.
I say that because I think it is important for people to
know and probably more so for me to say that because I never
would have imagined in my life I as a United States Congressman
would be defending the United States' position that torture is
unacceptable in all forms in any situation. So to clear that
out.
Maybe, Dr. Richardson or Professor Lewis, you could help me
with this. I had an opportunity to have supper with the Chinese
Ambassador here. What was interesting to me is it was the first
time I ever witnessed this.
We had a frank and candid conversation about Tibet in a way
that was very ``un-Chinese'' if you will, not evasive, not let
us change the subject, let us have that conversation. Is that
misplaced optimism on my part to think that perhaps this
conversation at higher levels is actually being taken seriously
to understand that long-term rule of law is going to be
dependent on getting this right? I know it is a subjective
question, but your expertise would be appreciated.
Ms. Richardson. Maybe I can take a stab at that and then
there are plenty of other people on the panel who are
qualified.
I will get optimistic when we see that there are no more
political prisoners in Tibet. I will be optimistic when people
have the freedom of movement. I will be optimistic when people
can challenge in court the way they have had their religious
practices restricted.
I am sure Ambassador Cui is plenty good at saying the right
thing in the right moment.
Representative Walz. Which you believe he knows? How much
do you believe he knows of what is happening?
Ms. Richardson. Well, I think he probably knows a fair
amount. I think he is equally knowledgeable.
Representative Walz. So the old fallback that it is a few
bad apples----
Ms. Richardson. What to say in the right moment.
Representative Walz. Right. That does not work. You do not
buy that at all. It is a few bad officials at lower levels, and
that happens everywhere type of attitude?
Ms. Richardson. I think it logically follows that if you
think you have got bad apples, you fire them, or you prosecute
them, or you hold them accountable. You do not then turn----
Representative Walz. And there is no mechanism that really
works to do that?
Ms. Richardson. I am waiting to see it.
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. And look, the mechanisms exist; right? I
mean China has a legal system. It is just not used.
Representative Walz. Because candidly to you nearly 30
years of visiting and certainly subjective from my position, it
felt worse to me than it ever has. It felt worse to me in the
oppression both from Christians in Hong Kong to Uyghurs to
Tibet. So that troubles me that it is heading in the wrong
direction.
Ms. Lewis. It is a really tough time. I am an optimist,
but a long-term optimist. I think that under the current
leadership we are going to see very little good news when it
comes to human rights. That is really unfortunate.
But, I do not want that to be a reason for disengagement.
As you said, it matters that our voice is out there. I really
sincerely believe there are wonderful people inside the
government whose heart is in the right place and outside the
government, too.
When I go over--not the official dialogues, but during the
tea breaks, or over lunch--I see that they are concerned too
about the future of their country and they believe in the rule
of law. Right now they are concerned not just about themselves,
but their families.
This is not just about if I stick my neck out, I might lose
my job, I might end up in prison. I have kids and I need to
make sure that they are going to be okay.
I understand why people are hesitant to speak out
sometimes, but we need to cultivate those relationships and
hope that not tomorrow, but longer-term, this will turn in the
right direction.
Representative Walz. You know something that was
interesting in this dialogue with high-level officials of the
Premier Li was when I would speak about this a little bit on
this trip with them in Beijing in November, they would always
mention, they would say, oh, Congressman, I see you used to
live on Pine Ridge. How did that work for you?
I thought it was so interesting they were trying to make
it, you have done it too. You have no moral authority.
That is why I brought this up earlier and I think we have
to guard against that because it was an argument I had never
seen them make before, that you have done it and we are on the
equal status, and yes, we have, too.
Ms. Lewis. I just want to add that when I go to China and
they say, what about Guantanamo, or what about other
transgressions? Then I point out that at Seton Hall we have a
center at the law school that published the Guantanamo reports,
a highly critical report of the U.S. Government using the
Freedom of Information Act to get information.
Everyone who worked on that report went home to their
families. No one lost a job. No one went to prison, in fact,
they were celebrated as bringing to light problems that our
government needed to face. That is the fundamental difference
between our two governments.
Representative Walz. Yes, absolutely. That is when we are
our best. Anyone else on just general feelings of direction?
Ms. Yin. I would like to add something. Through the
interpreter, I heard something that reminded me.
From my point of view, those who claim this is a war
without guns, against Falun Gong in China. I believe those who
made me suffer so much pain should be punished.
At the time, I asked those policemen who persecuted me,
``Why are you doing this to me so cruelly? '' Some policemen
said, ``I do not even want to do this, but this is from the
very top of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, his order that--he wants to
defame all of you and make all of your property disappear and
also kill you--treat you as if you committed suicide, even
though you were beaten to death.''
Jiang Zemin was the top one in CCP who initiated this
persecution. So there are so many people like myself, lost my
home and happy family. A lot of students are expelled from
schools, many arbitrarily detained and disappeared, and many,
many other bad things happened.
So I really wish that those who are responsible for this
war without guns be punished. They have to take the
responsibility of their wrongdoings and its outcome.
Now I am holding a brief report listing the 42 perpetrators
against me, which I want to submit to the CECC and Congress. I
can still remember those who persecuted me, including Jiang
Zemin, Bo Xilai, and Wang Lijun. Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun at the
time were CCP leaders in Liaoning province in charge of the
persecution.
Another major perpetrator is Wen Shizheng [No. 2
perpetrator in the report submitted]. He, at the time, was the
Liaoning Provincial Communist Party Secretary. One time he
assembled all the Falun Gong practitioners out in the field. A
``transformed'' person said there was no ``torture'' at all in
Masanjia. Ms. Zou Guirong immediately stood out of line and
said that was a lie. Then right away several police ran over
and started beating Zou Guirong. Wen Shizheng saw it right over
there.
Then on the same day, he changed the title of Masanjia
Labor Camp to the Masanjia Mind Reeducation center. That label,
that plaque at the gate has his own calligraphic signature.
Those who persecuted us at the time in Masanjia are still
working in Masanjia doing the same bad thing, persecuting Falun
Gong practitioners now and all other people.
Also in my testimony I talked about Ms. Su Jin [No. 29
perpetrator in the report submitted]. She said in front of us
that ``This war is a war without guns; the money spent on this
persecution of Falun Gong is like an international war.''
I would like to officially submit this listing report of 42
perpetrators against me to the U.S. Congress. Hopefully, the
U.S. Congress can help disclose and punish those people who are
responsible for this persecution.
Chairman Smith. I thank you.
Commissioner Hultgren?
Representative Hultgren. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for telling your story. It is so important and I
appreciate your courage and coming before us so that we can
find ways that we can help. We are just very grateful for you
doing it.
I do have a couple of questions if I could. Ms. Yin, if I
could address a question to you. We have heard stories and
claims that China has abolished the reeducation through the RTL
system back in 2014.
I wonder, to your knowledge, is the facility at Masanjia
still in operation today? Is it still used to detain Falun Gong
practitioners and do you know if Falun Gong practitioners
currently detained there suffer the same kind of torture and
abuse that you did?
Ms. Yin. Yes, my husband's sister, or my sister-in-law--on
April 10, 2014, she was sentenced to three years to Masanjia.
About 15 days ago, March 28, 2016, Mr. Li--also a Falun Gong
practitioner--at the time he was, as I mentioned earlier, also
suing Jiang Zemin in China. Then he was arrested and sentenced
to seven years in prison.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I know many other practitioners
are still being persecuted in mainland China. For their safety,
I should not disclose their names.
Representative Hultgren. Dr. Richardson, if I could ask
you a couple of questions.
The UN panel of experts, noted in their concluding
observations, that there were seven human rights defenders who
were prevented from participating in the Convention Against
Torture Review. I wonder if you would be able to provide an
update on the status of those seven individuals and are they
still unable to leave the country? Have they faced any further
consequences of the CAT review?
Ms. Richardson. That is a little bit of a difficult
question to answer because not all of those people chose to
identify themselves publically. I think it is a reasonable
assumption that they have not been allowed to leave the
country, especially if you sort of look at the general trends
Ms. Lewis was alluding to earlier.
This has been a terrible period for civil society and we
have seen either people prevented from leaving or grabbed back
from other places. We know that the two who did publically
identify themselves have been harassed, partly in response to
their interest in participating in the review. The other five,
I think we can only make reasonable assumptions about for now.
Representative Hultgren. Dr. Richardson, also, the
concluding observation noted that China told the Committee,
``Government acts of intimidation and reprisals against
citizens do not exist in China.'' Of course from your work at
Human Rights Watch and just from our involvement, reading the
paper, and other things, we just know that is absolutely false.
Statements like this from the Chinese Government suggest
that they are not participating in international human rights
mechanisms in good faith. Would you agree with this, first of
all? If so, why is China participating in this review process
at all? What can be done--I think you talked about some of
this, but just to reiterate, what can we do either the United
States unilaterally or through our involvement in international
institutions to make these mechanisms more meaningful and
productive and hold their feet to the fire?
Ms. Richardson. It is a huge question. I will try to answer
it in 60 seconds or less.
I mean, look, that statement on the delegation's part was
just ludicrous. It did not pass the laugh test, not even close.
We can document lots of cases to show that.
Why do they participate at all? Because they can
participate in bad faith and there are no really lousy
consequences.
This is the nature of the way the covenants are written and
implemented. It is not that the UN is failing. I do not have
enough positive things to say about how the Committee itself
approached and carried out the review. It was exemplary. It is
that there are not consequences for participating badly which
is where other governments that care about human rights issues
in China come in.
It is to say to the Minister of Public Security, I am
sorry, but we are not going to be able to host you for X and
such meeting unless you have answered some of these key
questions, or release some of these people from prison. There
has to be a consequence attached to it.
Representative Hultgren. Has that happened at all, or no?
Ms. Richardson. I think there is a tiny little bit of it. I
think to the extent it happens, it is--look, if it is hard for
me to see, and if it is hard for you to see, it is invisible to
most of the people who desperately need to see it and who need
to be seen to be treated that way; right? It has to be visible
that there is some negative consequence for standing at the top
of the torture apparatus and failing to follow your own laws.
That is where I think a scrub of issues like law
enforcement cooperation come in to be able to more precisely
identify the people who should be responsible without ruling
out precisely the kinds of people Professor Lewis has spoken
about who are essential long-term to solving the problem. I
think people behave differently when they know there is a
rotten consequence coming at them for not changing their ways.
Energy has to go into creating those disincentives.
Representative Hultgren. We, obviously, need to do a
better job as a government here of being strong there. What
other international allies or institutions do you think would
maybe join with us because I think there is some power in
numbers and maybe different avenues of attack there? Where
would you recommend that we would have our best chance or best
groups internationally to be working with, governments or
institutions?
Ms. Richardson. I'm going to answer that in two different
ways. First of all, the United States gets a lot of credit for
spearheading an unprecedented joint statement at the Human
Rights Council in March. That had not happened since 2004,
during the previous convention. Eleven other governments joined
on. That is a practice that should be continued. It matters. It
really registered in Beijing.
There were also a couple of joint letters. So it is our
view that more of these efforts that can be done jointly with
other likeminded governments and with some unusual suspects are
effective. It really gets Beijing's attention.
The other way to think about it is to think about the kinds
of engagements that Beijing cares about the most, the high
profile, the glossy, the glitzy. Let us look at--there is
supposed to be a real vigorous independent civil society
component to the G-20.
I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that that ain't
going to be happening in China this summer in advance of
September. I think what we will probably see is a very
government-run, NGO-driven process to sort of check the box.
But it is not going to be the kind of discussion that involves
independent activists.
I think there is real merit in dialing down the pomp and
the glitz. I have to say the five hours I spent at the State
dinner in September were trying. I have respect for people
whose job it is to try to talk all day to Politburo members who
really do not want to talk back, but that was an occasion that
the Chinese cared enormously about.
You know what? I do not think a whole lot of very important
U.S.-China business necessarily got transacting that night. It
could have been handled very differently in a way that would
have hurt for the right reasons.
Ms. Lewis. I would just add that I think when we raise
these issues with China we need to come with specifics, with
the facts. If we just speak in terms of rule of law is
important, human rights are important, that not only is easy
for China to come back with platitudes, but it also makes them
think that we do not know what we are talking about.
One point, when I was at the Legal Expert's Dialogue in
October, I really commend the State Department for showing up
with facts. They said, well, what about this person and what
about this instance. Then it forces the Chinese to be more
specific and also to recognize that we are doing our homework.
If we are going to raise these issues, we need to raise
them not just as abstract concepts, but bringing in the
specific cases and the specific steps that need to happen in
order to show progress.
Representative Hultgren. That is good. That is helpful.
Thank you all so much.
I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. Let me just conclude with a few
final questions.
Thank you again for your expertise and for coming forward
and helping this Commission do a better job.
Let me first begin with the idea of consequences. I have
been a critic of this Administration, and I will continue to be
so. I would love to praise it instead, but there have been
numerous times where a strong rhetorical expression on the part
of the President on down could have and would have made a
difference.
Certainly when Hu Jintao was here and was asked a pointed
question about human rights in the press conference and the
President defended the status quo by saying, well, they have a
different culture and a different political system. The
Washington Post very properly wrote a scathing editorial that
said--the headline was President Obama Defends Hu, President Hu
Jintao on Rights, because it gave him a pass. That is all they
are looking for in my opinion. If they can get out unscathed or
relatively unscathed, no harm done. They live to abuse and
abuse another day.
State dinners and the like ought to be predicated on real
progress. Liu Xiaobo ought to be released immediately. It is
unconscionable that a Noble Peace Prize winner remains
incarcerated and--his wife all but incarcerated under house
arrest and not doing very well--continues to serve out a jail
sentence for asking for reform and doing it in a totally
nonviolent way.
Consequences--I have asked the Administration repeatedly to
enforce the visa ban that I wrote in the year 2000 on the
horrific forced-abortion and involuntary sterilization program
that has led to disproportionality, males to females, the likes
of which we have never seen. Girls targeted, the girl child,
simply because she is a girl and is killed through sex-selected
abortion has now exacerbated the trafficking issue. It is a
gender crime with no parallels.
Yet, there are no visas being denied, which is the law.
Just enforce the law. I will ask again that the Administration
do this.
We had to ask Congressional Research Service to give us an
accounting. You can count on two hands how many people have
been denied visas, even though women have been so horrifically
mistreated.
On trafficking, I just chaired a hearing. I wrote the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, so I follow that issue
every single day. China was one among 14 countries that got a
passing grade, in other words, not Tier 3, egregious violator.
It allows them to not be sanctioned for sex and labor
trafficking which is exponentially increasing because of the
missing girls and because of a great deal of buying and
selling, turning women into commodities in China.
They should have been Tier 3 and sanctioned. That would
have sent a clear unmistakable message.
On religious freedom, we have a tool sitting right there
for all of these years. Frank Wolf wrote the International
Religious Freedom Act in 1998. China has been a CPC country
ever since.
They torture religious believers. They torture Falun Gong
practitioners. They are CPC. Where are the sanctions?
His bill prescribed 18 specific mutually reinforcing
sanctions that could be imposed on China. Some of them have
real heavy serious consequences, economically as well as other
ways.
Where is the sanction regime? For half of President Obama's
term in office he did not even designate CPCs and had no
Ambassador-at-Large. Now we have a very fine Rabi who runs it,
but there was no enforcement of religious freedom--another big
issue.
Xi Jinping--from my trip there with these two gentlemen in
Shanghai, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that Xi Jinping
is on a tear to do what he calls ``sinificcation'' of the
churches, the practitioners, and everyone else who have a faith
or who have any kind of religious expression to further tighten
the screws on the free exercise of anything that even comes
close.
Next week the Foreign Affairs Committee will mark up the
Magnitsky Act, make it global. It will probably pass the House
with flying colors, be signed into law. We will have another
tool that I fear will go unutilized vis-a-vis China to hold all
of these people, the ones that Ms. Yin just described.
The more in the weeds that we get in terms of people who
commit torture, we can deny them visas now. Now we will have
even a more moral imperative to do so and legislative
sanctioning of that with the Magnitsky Act which has been
applied, as we all know, to Russia. It will apply to the world.
That is coming.
We have not had the rhetoric in my opinion. Yes, we have
had some good State Department lawyers who know their business,
who raise these issues with their interlocutors, but when it
gets to the higher levels, there is a great big void. It is
time.
At the UN, we do raise these issues. Again, as you pointed
out Dr. Richardson, there is very little by way of enforcement.
Before yielding to--Golog Jigme, when you talked about,
earlier, the issue of cattle prods--on April 3, 1995, I
convened a hearing of my Human Rights Subcommittee. We had six
survisors of the Laogai: Catherine Ho, who had been abused
while she was held by the Chinese; but we also had Paul
D'Angiotso who when he came he literally brought the cattle
prod that was used--one that he bought since--to demonstrate
how it is used against prisoners, in this case Tibetan nuns and
monks.
He held it to different parts of his body and explained
what the pain is like when this cattle prod is being applied to
the genitals, under the arms, and in other sensitive areas.
When he came into the Rayburn House Office Building, our
police stopped him from coming in because he was carrying
something that looked very nefarious, which it is. I had to go
down and escort him in.
You could have heard a pin drop as he talked about the
torture that he had experienced personally, like you. I know
that you wanted to elaborate on a question that was raised by
Mr. Walz.
This issue of torture is so heinous. Doesn't Xi Jinping
realize the dishonor it brings to his government because these
torturers are government employees and obviously owe their
employment to his regime. It brings a loss of face and dishonor
to the regime. You cannot tell me he does not know.
Remember when that was used during the Third Reich, when
people said, ``If only the Fuhrer knew.'' Well Xi Jinping, if
he does not know, should know now, but I do believe he knows.
He should take corrective action as should his government
against these people who commit acts of perversion, sexual
abuse, and rape against innocent people.
So please, if you could respond and also perhaps answer one
of the earlier questions that I believe you wanted to answer.
Mr. Jigme. Congressman, I agree with you that since China
is an authoritarian state there is nothing that Xi Jinping does
not really know, except maybe one or two things.
In 2008, when I underwent these experiences, Hu Jintao was
the leader and Zhou Yongkang was there among the nine members
of the Politburo. Zhou Yongkang, who was holding the security
position there, mentioned that too. All issues had to be
completed in one month, which meant many things. Officers were
given facilities like cars--free cars to undertake those
actions.
So at that time the official who was torturing me was a
Chinese official named You Dengzhou. He was the head of a
seven-member unit. He has now been promoted to being the head
of a county.
Therefore, with situations like this, there is nothing that
all officials in China would not know. Therefore, it looks like
people who commit such torture and who commit these crimes seem
to get promoted from one level to another, from the prefecture
level to the provincial, from provincial to--like this. So that
indicates that officials at all levels know of these things.
Just to give you a case in point, in 2008, among those who
came to investigate me were some people sent directly from
Beijing by the central government.
Now there is discussion about whether we should trust the
Chinese or have some hope in the Chinese. From what I have
experienced, I do not have any basis for hope.
For example, at the United Nations Committee against
Torture session in November, which I attended, there was a 39-
member delegation from China and in their talk they mentioned
that the ``tiger chair'' that Sophie mentioned earlier and I
had mentioned earlier was not a torture instrument, but was
meant for the safety and protection of the detainees.
Protection because it will help prevent wounds on their
backside.
They also said there are no political prisoners in China.
They said no lawyers are being detained. So all this was said
in the face of the fact that I, who underwent torture was
there; I was very much present in that room, and they were
telling these lies. So that does not give me any hope.
Even in the case if you are talking about political
prisoners--the CECC itself has a list of around 640 names of
Tibetan political prisoners. The Tibetan Center for Human
Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala has more than 2,000 names.
So all these names are of political prisoners and yet the
Chinese have the audacity to say that there are no political
prisoners.
I am glad that Congressman Walz is here, and you mentioned
about your trip to Tibet. In our interaction with people in
Tibet, we knew that they knew about your trip to Tibet, and
they were very much pleased that you were able to go with Nancy
Pelosi. They said that if I got the opportunity, to please
thank you all on their behalf.
The Chinese will continue to hold onto their positions
about development in Tibet and progress in Tibet, and so forth.
I believe that it is important that we continue to engage with
them and to try to understand the real situation in Tibet,
whether it is going to Tibet or meeting people who will really
be able to provide the real information about things relating
to Tibet.
I want to say this: While I was in Tibet, I was aware of
this issue, and now that I am out, I am more aware of it. This
is the issue about opening a U.S. Consulate in Lhasa. The
Tibetan people have great expectation, great hope that
something like this would happen because they know that if any
country can do something about the Tibet issue, it's the United
States.
These are the words that I hear from the Tibetan
intellectuals. These are words that I hear even from Tibetan
nomads who may not know many things, but they will know that
there are some American leaders who care about Tibet.
The United States is a country that bestowed the
Congressional Gold Medal on His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Its
leaders have always cared about Tibet. Although I respect
President Obama as an individual, when he went to China for the
first time in 2009, I had expected that he would raise certain
specific issues about Tibet, particularly about the Tibetan
prisoner--by the name of Loyak; but unfortunately, nothing like
that happened. That is sort of a disappointment that I continue
to have about the President's trip.
Very soon there will be a new President. I hope that
whenever the new President goes on his or her maiden trip to
China, there would be some benchmarks, some conditions that
lead to such a visit. Otherwise, it might lead to
disappointment for some people.
I listened to the discussion about providing relief to
survivors of torture. I also think that former political
prisoners and current political prisoners also need such
assistance. I would appreciate it if that could be considered,
too. For example, I have a relative, Chokyi, who is in Tibet
and who was detained on June 19. Although his physical
condition is not good, he has not received any medical
treatment in the hands of the Chinese.
I want to reiterate one of the recommendations that is in
my written statement. I care deeply about my colleague, Dhondup
Wangchen; we made the film together. He is still in Tibet. His
family--wife and children--are in the United States. His
parents are in India. I would appreciate any steps that you can
take to enable the family's reunification.
I also want to raise the case of another Tibetan prisoner,
Shokjang, who is a blogger and writer. He has been sentenced to
three years, but he has denied all of the charges that
authorities have leveled against him. He has, in fact, written
a strong denial about all the charges. I would appreciate
anything that you can do about his case.
I would like to conclude by requesting Members of this
Commission, as well as journalists and other independent
individuals to consider visiting Tibet to understand the real
situation of the people there. Thank you.
Ms. Richardson. I am going to add a quick lever, a possible
realm to your list. There is an organization called the Rhodium
Group that put out a great report earlier this week about FDI
[foreign direct investment] from the mainland and the United
States.
I want to be clear, investments are good, jobs are good.
This is not an objection, but I think there are a lot of
questions to be asked about--especially if that investment is
coming from state-owned enterprises--who those enterprises are.
If there are opportunities to press for improvements through
those enterprises back onto the Chinese Government as a
condition of their having access here in the United States.
So I am just going to toss that out to you.
Ms. Yin. Through this meeting, I would like to also
express my concern about another 160 Falun Gong practitioner
refugees now in Thailand. As far as I know, their condition in
Thailand is not very good--actually, in a lot of danger.
Those practitioners in Thailand have already been told by
the people who confine them that their cases cannot be moved
forward because of pressure from the Chinese Government. Their
interviews with the United Nations for refugee status cannot go
through directly, but has to wait for at least three years in
Thailand.
Another problem is that the Thailand Government does not
allow them to work in Thailand. So for the three-year waiting
period, how are they going to survive?
And then I heard recently that there were nine people,
including some Falun Gong practitioners that could not stay in
such poor conditions, so they tried to escape. They found a
boat. Unfortunately, the boat was wrecked, and now they all
have been arrested by the police in Thailand.
As a matter of fact, just yesterday I called the wife of
one of the persons who tried to escape. She told me that her
husband is already now in the custody of Thailand police, but
the Chinese Government has already sent somebody to get this
gentlemen's passport.
So during that time, the wife just sent me this statement
about her husband's case in Thailand. She would also like to
submit it to the CECC for help.
On March 16, 2001, for unknown reasons, Masanjia bought a
lot of sports goods that were hung on the wall. The entire
building was cleaned and sanitized. All manual work products
were moved to the storeroom downstairs. All persecution was
stopped. A little after 8 a.m., Zhang Xiurong, a policewoman,
took out a list of names. Those called out were divided into
groups to be transported to watch a movie in turns. The movie's
title was ``The Choice.'' Sixteen of the 32 people in our room,
including me, were called up and taken to a large bus. This
action was campwide; the same took place in other groups. Those
on the bus were Falun Gong practitioners who were not
``transformed.'' They were flanked by the Labor Camp personnel.
There were three large buses taking these practitioners from
Masanjia to a Youth Detention Center where we were herded into
the canteen. It wasn't a movie theater. We were brought back to
Masanjia in the evening. We learned later that we were taken
away because a delegation of foreign media reporters was
visiting the Camp that day.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. I would like to thank all of
our distinguished witnesses. I would like to thank our staff:
Jen Salen, Andy Wong, Scott Flipse, Elyse Anderson, Judy
Wright, Deidre Jackson, and Paul Protic who is the Chief of
Staff for their work, not just for this hearing and our series
of hearings that we have been holding, but for the work that
they do every day on this vital information, trying to convey
both to China, to other parts of our government, including the
Executive Branch and, of course, for working so diligently on
the Human Rights Report, the annual report that lays bare the
record, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and sadly so much of
it has been ugly of late. I want to thank them for that as
well. [Applause.]
Let me also just conclude by again reminding everybody that
the Chinese Government told the Committee, the Convention
against Torture as Randy Hultgren said so well, ``Government
acts of intimidation and reprisals do not exist in China.''
That is a big lie and it needs to be so denounced as that.
Then to say, as it was pointed out in our testimony, that
tiger chairs are utilized for the safety and comfort of women
and men who are being interrogated and tortured is absolutely
absurd.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon the hearing was concluded at 5:29 p.m.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Venerable Golog Jigme
april 14,2016
I would like to first thank the CECC, particularly Chainnan Smith
and Co-Chainnan Rubio, for holding this important hearing today, and
for inviting me to participate. As a survivor of torture inflicted by
Chinese public security officers, and now as a human rights advocate
living in exile in Switzerland, I believe that it is essential for the
U.S. and other governments, as well as the UN and other entities, to
understand what actually happens inside Chinese detention facilities
from someone who has experienced it, and to understand the human rights
situation in Tibet today. Not only behind bars, but beyond the prison
walls, my Tibetan brothers and sisters are suffering. I urge the CECC
and the U.S. Congress to continue to pay attention to the situation
inside Tibet. For the future of Tibet, it is very important to break
the ``lockdown'' that the Chinese government has imposed around the
Tibetan people. As human beings, we Tibetans have the right to
peacefully express our views without fear of being arrested or
tortured. We have the right to freedom of movement and to freedom of
religion, and China should be held accountable for denying us these
basic freedoms, and subjecting us to arbitrary detention and torture
when we try to exercise these basic human rights. It is my profound
hope that the CECC and Congress will continue to pay attention to the
suffering of Tibetans.
* * *
my story (in brief)
My name is Golog Jigme, and I am also known as Jigme Gyatso. I was
born into a Tibetan nomadic family in eastern Tibet, and when I was a
teenager joined the Labrang Monastery in Kanlho, Amdo (Gansu province).
I was involved in various social causes while at Labrang, including
teaching children about Tibetan culture and promoting the Tibetan
language, and [ was engaged in social welfare work, such as relief
efforts following the Yushu earthquake in 2010.
In 2008, I worked with the filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen to interview
a wide range of Tibetans--including nomads, elders, monks and people in
remote areas--about their thoughts and feelings before the Beijing
Olympics, which became the documentary film ``Leaving Fear Behind.'' We
wanted the world outside Tibet to understand the reality of what was
happening in Tibet; and for people to hear the voices of Tibetans
themselves, discussing their feelings and experiences.
As a result of this work, Dhondup Wangchen was imprisoned for six
years. I was detained three times during the period from 2008 to 2012.
While in Chinese custody for seven months in 2008, I was severely
tortured. Chinese officials accused me of shooting the film ``Leaving
Fear Behind'' and of being a member of the Tibetan Youth Congress, and
they also accused me of not denouncing His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
In April 2009, I was detained again, and accused of disclosing
State secrets. I was held for several months, and was subjected to
severe beatings, but not tortured brutally like during my first
detention in 2008.
In September 2012, I was detained yet again but managed to escape
from the detention facility. Chinese security officers had accused me
of being the main instigator of the self-immolations protest across
Tibet, among other baseless allegations. After my escape from
detention, I went into hiding for more than a year and a half before I
escaped to India, in May 2014. I arrived in Switzerland in January
2015, where I have been granted political asylum.
I was never formally arrested. I was given two separate detention
warrants (juliuzheng), but only after I had been released. During my
three detentions, I was never given any document setting forth formal
charges against me. I was never given a trial. Neither my monastery nor
my family was informed of my whereabouts; I was held incommunicado. I
had no access to a lawyer. I never received any medical treatment.
* * *
Here I will describe in brief the torture I suffered at the hands
of Chinese security officers. If I were to describe everything, it
would take a very long time, so I will summarize. At the outset, I
would like to emphasize that I am walking proof of Chinese government
torture. Today, I still have severe back pain, scars on my wrists and
ankles, and other injuries from the torture that still cause pain in my
knees, ribs, and eyes. The first incarceration, in 2008, was the most
difficult for me because I was brutally tortured. For one month and 22
days I was tortured continuously. I was forced to sit in the ``tiger
chair'' (also known as the ``iron chair'') day and night. This was the
worst fonn of torture I experienced during my three detentions. My arms
were handcuffed in front of me on a small metal table, and my legs were
bent beneath the seat and strapped to the chair with iron cuffs. My
joints suffered horribly and at one point my feet became so swollen
that all my toenails fell off. I still have scars on my wrists and
ankles from when I was turned backwards in the chair and suspended from
the ceiling, for hours at a time. I was deprived of sleep and given
very little to eat. The pain of thirst was the second worst torture; I
was given only a very small amount of water, and felt unbearably
thirsty because of blood loss from my body. During the first and second
detentions, I was subjected to severe beatings and kicking; some of my
ribs were broken and my knee joints were dislocated.
During the third detention in 2012, Chinese security officers told
me I would be transferred to Lanzhou City Military Hospital for a
medical exam to see if I had any diseases, and that if they I was
fortunate that I was able to escape before they moved me to the
hospital. While I was in hiding, I learned that the Chinese government
had issued a warrant for my arrest accusing me of murder, and offered a
large sum of money to anyone who could provide information about my
whereabouts. I am deeply grateful to the people who risked so much in
order to arrange things and help me get out of the country. My safe
escape was a collective effort, and the people who gave so much are an
ongoing source of inspiration for me.
un committee against torture's review of china's compliance with the
convention against torture (november 2015)
As a survivor of torture at the hands of Chinese security
officials, I was grateful to have been able to attend the UN Committee
against Torture's review of China in Geneva this past November. But I
was shocked that the Chinese government told such lies at the UN. I was
glad to be able to tell the Committee my story--the true story of
China's torture record. I was very happy to see the Committee ask tough
questions of the Chinese delegation. Moreover, I felt the strength and
commitment of the Committee to stand by the truth. It was heartening to
watch the Committee hold the Chinese government accountable for
torture, arbitrary detention and otherhuman rights abuses in Tibet and
China.
It is absurd for Chinese officials to say that torture doesn't
exist in China. I was detained three times and tortured numerous times
by Chinese authorities. I was beaten with wooden batons and electronic
devices and had my face, eyes and lips burned when I was tied to a hot
stove. I was shackled with my hands behind my back and hung from a pipe
on the ceiling and I was also physically assaulted by a group of five
Chinese officials who trampled all over my body.
Unbelievably, when asked by the Committee about the "tiger chair"
used during police interrogations, a Chinese government official said
the chair was for the protection and safety of the detainees. I spent
days and nights in such a chair; it was horrific torture.
The Chinese delegation also claimed that there were no political
prisoners in China. This is absurd. The CECC Political Prisoner
Database has over 640 records of Tibetan political prisoners; some NGOs
have a much higher number. Regardless, it is laughable for the Chinese
government to say that political prisoners do not exist in Tibet and
China. Not only were Dhondup Wangchen and I political prisoners, but
Shokjang, a popular blogger and my good friend, was recently sentenced
to three years in prison for ``inciting splittism''--based on nothing
other than the peaceful expression of his own views on ethnic policy
and other issues of concern to Tibetans. We are just a few examples of
many other political prisoners who have come before us, and of those
who are currently serving time in prison or detention facilities, or
who have been disappeared, for simply exercising their basic human
rights of freedom of expression, religion, movement, among other
rights.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the U.S. and the international
community for the attention given to my case during my detentions in
Tibet. The support and pressure of governments, outside media, the UN
and human rights groups do make a difference to those imprisoned or
otherwise detained in Tibet.
recommendations
I urge the U.S. Congress and the Administration to
challenge China's oppressive policies in Tibet and to continue to pay
attention to the suffering of the Tibetan people.
The U.S. government should press China to invite the UN
Special Rapporteur on Torture for a follow-up visit to the last one
conducted by the Special Rapporteur on Torture, which was over 10 years
ago. Unimpeded access to prisons and prisoners in Tibet should be part
of the terms of the visit.
I urge the U.S. government to continue raising the case of
Dhondup Wangchen with Chinese officials, and ask that he be allowed to
travel internationally in order to be able to reunite with his wife and
three children, who now live in the U.S.
Urge China to release all Tibetans who have been detained
or imprisoned for peaceful, nonviolent views and opinions such as
Shokjang, the young Tibetan blogger sentenced to three years in prison
in February 2016.
I fully support the CECC's recommendation to Congress and
the Administration to press China to respect the right of freedom of
movement of Tibetans domestically, and to allow greater access to
foreign diplomats, journalists, NGOs and others to the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR) and Tibetan autonomous areas, as well as the other
recommendations on Tibet contained in the CECC's 2015 Annual Report.
______
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a U.S. Representative
From New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
Ending Torture in China: Why It Matters
april 14, 2016
Gao Zhisheng's account of the torture he experienced is shocking,
offensive, and inhumane. From the time he was first arrested in 2006
until his provisional release in 2014, Gao was regularly hooded and
beaten, shocked with electric batons, had toothpicks inserted in his
genitals, was sleep deprived and malnourished, and his life was
threatened repeatedly by guards and fellow prisoners. Gao was tortured
because he dared to represent persecuted Christians and Falun Gong and
because he was critical of China's legal system.
Gao wanted what was best for China, but he got the worst.
Gao's wife, Geng He, submitted testimony to this hearing and I urge
you to all read it. It is for Gao Zhisheng, and the many other victims
of torture, that we hold this hearing today.
We are here today to shine a light on the brutal, illegal, and
dehumanizing use of torture in China. We shine a light on a
dictatorship because nothing good happens in the dark. And, as we will
learn today, there are some very dark places in China were torture is
used regularly to punish and intimidate political and religious
prisoners and their lawyers.
We are also here to urge the U.S. government to make ending torture
a higher priority in bilateral relations and to urge the Chinese
government to fully enforce and implement its own laws. A country with
China's global leadership aspirations should not engage in horrific
practices so thoroughly condemned by the international community.
As our witnesses will describe today in great detail, the use of
torture is pervasive in China's detention facilities and criminal
justice system.
Torture is used to extract confession for prosecution and to coerce
the televised ``public confessions'' we have seen too often in the past
year.
Torture is also used to punish those political prisoners the
Chinese security forces view as destabilizing forces. Under Xi Jinping,
there has been an expansion in the number of individuals and groups
viewed as threats to national security.
The victims of torture are very often human rights advocates and
lawyers, union activists, members of non-state-controlled Christian
churches, Falun Gong practitioners, and members of ethnic minority
groups, like the Tibetans and Uyghurs.
Chinese officials repeatedly tell me I should focus more on the
positive aspects of China's human rights and not on the negative. That
is a difficult task when you read Gao Zhisheng's story or read the
testimony of our witnesses Golog Jigme and Yin Liping.
Nevertheless, I want to recognize the changes made recently to
China's Criminal Procedure Law that prohibits the use of confessions
obtained through torture and the requirement to videotape
interrogations in major cases.
According to Human Rights Watch, judges' videotaped interrogations
are routinely manipulated--and police torture the suspects first and
then tape the confession.
And as Professor Margaret Lewis will testify today, ``Preliminary
indications are that recording interrogations is not significantly
changing the culture of extreme reliance on confessions as the primary
form of evidence in criminal cases. When I viewed an interrogation room
in a Beijing police station last October, the staff was keen to point
out the videotaping technology. What I could not help but notice was
the slogan ``truthfully confess and your whole body will feel at ease''
that was written in large characters on the floor in front of the
metal, constraining interrogation chair, otherwise known as a ``tiger
chair.'' Faced with this slogan during prolonged questioning makes it
crystal clear to the suspects that there is no right to silence in
Chinese law.
Perhaps there may be Chinese officials who want to end the use of
torture in detention facilities and curtail the force and influence of
the Public Security Bureau, their efforts should be encouraged and
supported, but as with so many other things in China--with each step
forward there is another step or two back.
China's laws are too often either selectively implemented or
completely ignored by security forces and the courts.
Security forces, faced with the end of labor camps, created new
forms of extra-legal detention--such as ``black jails'' or
``residential surveillance in an undisclosed location''--where torture
can continue without oversight or interruption.
Until suspects have lawyers at interrogations, until all extra-
legal detention centers are abolished, and police and public security
forces are held accountable for abuse, China's existing laws will
continued to be undermined by existing practice.
The U.S. government must find effective ways to address this issue
urgently and at the highest levels, because hundreds of thousands of
China's people are victims of shockingly cruel, illegal, and inhumane
activities.
Last week, the White House said that President Obama ``re-iterated
America's unwavering support for upholding human rights and fundamental
freedoms in China.''
President Obama has only a couple more meetings with President Xi
before his Administration ends. He should make ending torture a
priority. This issue touches on so many other human rights issues that
are also critical ones for U.S. economic and security interests in
China such as: Protecting the rights of political prisoners; advancing
the right to due process; addressing the arrests, disbarments, and
disappearances of human rights lawyers; curtailing police powers and
the expansion of national security laws that target peaceful reform
advocates; encouraging an independent judiciary; protecting the freedom
of expression and religious freedom; and encouraging establishment of
the rule of law in China.
Torture will not end until the price of bad domestic publicity is
too high for China's leaders to ignore or when finally China's leaders
understand that the use of torture harms their global interests. On
this last point, only the United States has the ability to deliver such
a blunt message to China.
President Obama should not hesitate to name names and shine a light
on horrific practices that the Chinese government says it wants to end.
If nothing else, doing so would bolster the spirits of those
prisoners of conscience who are rotting in Chinese jails. We know their
jailers tell them repeatedly that the world has forgotten them.
As a Washington Post editorial concluded last week, private
discussions about human rights are important, but so is public
messaging. Autocrats and dictators need to know unequivocally that the
United States sees the freedom of expression, the freedom of religion,
the rule of law, transparency and an end to torture as critical
interests, necessary for better bilateral relations, and linked to the
expansion of mutual prosperity and integrated security.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator From Florida;
Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
april 14, 2016
Despite government pledges to reform, torture remains a systemic
problem in the Chinese criminal justice system. These abuses are well
documented and they demand our attention.
The State Department's 2015 Annual Human Rights Report, released
just yesterday, found that in China, ``Numerous former prisoners and
detainees reported they were beaten, subjected to electric shock,
forced to sit on stools for hours on end, deprived of sleep, and
otherwise subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Although
ordinary prisoners were abused, prison authorities reportedly singled
out political and religious dissidents for particularly harsh
treatment. In some instances close relatives of dissidents also were
singled out for abuse.''
As the Department's Report makes clear, the victims of this
horrific treatment are as diverse as the Chinese government's means of
denying them justice.
In May 2015, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Human Rights
Watch issued a sobering report titled ``Tiger Chairs and Cell Bosses''
which explored police torture of criminal suspects in China. The report
found that interrogation, or ``tiger,'' chairs are routinely used to
restrain detainees. Several of those interviewed indicated that they
were strapped into these metal chairs for hours and in some cases days
at a time. They also reported physical and psychological torture during
police interrogations, including being hung by the wrists, being beaten
with police batons or other objects, and deprived of sleep for
prolonged periods of time. One convicted prisoner awaiting review of
his death sentence had been handcuffed and shackled for eight years.
While the Human Rights Watch report focused on the deplorable
treatment of ordinary criminal suspects, torture is often employed in
cases involving political prisoners as the State Department noted.
Today's hearing Record will include a letter from Geng He, the wife
of noted rights lawyer and political prisoner Gao Zhisheng who has
suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of the Chinese authorities.
Geng He fled China with their two children in 2009 just one month
before Gao was again kidnapped and disappeared. She writes movingly of
the sacrifices her husband has made saying, ``Even though he lost his
own freedom and suffered unspeakable torture, he never lost his belief
in freedom and human rights.''
Unfortunately, disappearances of the sort Gao experienced are all
too commonplace. Extralegal detention facilities such as ``black
jails'' are routinely used as is ``residential surveillance at a
designated location'' whereby people are held for up to six months for
undefined crimes of endangering state security. This was true for
several of the human rights lawyers and activists rounded up last July
during a nationwide sweep, some of whom have been held incommunicado
for nearly nine months making them especially vulnerable to
mistreatment or even torture.
In March, the NGO China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) reported that
a significant number of the detained lawyers and advocates have
apparently ``dismissed'' their lawyers or allegedly ``hired'' other
lawyers to represent them. But when family members and family-
authorized lawyers have requested to meet the detainees to confirm such
``decisions,'' police have rejected the requests outright raising
alarms about coercion. CHRD further reported that ``Most of the
individuals who have allegedly `fired' their lawyers have been arrested
for `subversion,' a political crime for which a conviction carries a
minimum of three years, and up to life imprisonment.'' They also noted
that police-appointed lawyers are not likely to challenge ``evidence''
obtained through torture or coercion.
The phenomenon of televised confessions has also been on the rise
with most legal experts inferring that such ``confessions'' are
obtained through force or coercion of suspects. The Chinese government
has for years acknowledged the problem of wrongful convictions,
including the use of torture to extract confessions, as documented in
the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's (CECC) 2015 Annual
Report.
The overreliance on confessions in the criminal justice system
perpetuates this practice. Notably the airing of confessions on state
television, in violation of Chinese law, has become more common since
President Xi Jinping's ascent to power.
Several such confessions-- including that of Christian rights
lawyer Zhang Kai, Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, veteran dissident
and journalist Gao Yu and Swedish national and NGO worker Peter
Dahlin--have rightly garnered international attention.
As with so many other areas the CECC monitors, there is little
evidence of progress and in many cases continued erosion when it comes
to mistreatment in China's criminal justice system. China will never be
viewed as a responsible global stakeholder as long as it persists in
subjecting its own people to torture and denying them basic human
rights and legal protections.
Submissions for the Record
----------
Written Testimony Submitted by Ms. Geng He, Wife of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng
april 14, 2016
Respected Ladies and Gentlemen:
My husband Gao Zhisheng is one of China's top ten lawyers, but
starting in 2005, he became a target of the Chinese government's
persecution and torture for his legal defense work on behalf of
persecuted Christians and Falun Gong practitioners. In November 2005,
the government revoked his lawyer's license and forcibly closed down
his law firm. On August 15, 2006, the police unexpectedly kidnapped
him, and by holding our children and me hostage, they forced my husband
to admit he was ``guilty.'' After Gao had been ``disappeared'' for four
months, on December 22, 2006, the police found him guilty of ``inciting
subversion of state power,'' and sentenced him to serve three years in
prison, a sentence that was suspended for five years, with deprivation
of his political rights for one year. He came home, but was now reputed
to be a convicted criminal. However, while serving a suspended sentence
at home, the Chinese Communist Party's police kidnapped Gao Zhisheng
more than six times, with one of those disappearances lasting for 21
months. He suffered many forms of torture during each disappearance.
He first experienced torture on September 21, 2007. Gao Zhisheng
had sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress that exposed the Chinese
Communist Party's trampling of human rights, and, in retribution, the
Chinese Communist police placed a black hood over Gao's head and took
him away for 50 days. The day he was kidnapped was September 21, during
which Gao Zhisheng experienced terrifying torture and suffering at the
hands of the police. On that day, six or seven policemen placed a black
hood over his head, brought him into a room, and stripped him naked.
After beating him, four of the policemen each took an electric baton in
hand and struck him all over his body, including his genitals, causing
his entire body to shake convulsively and to roll on the floor in pain
as his sweat rolled off him like rain. The police continued to use
electric shocks to torture him for several hours, during which time he
fell in and out of conscious, almost to the point of death. On the
second morning, the police set alight five cigarettes and let the smoke
go into his nose and eyes, and pricked his genitals with toothpicks.
They continued to use many forms of torture through the afternoon of
the third day. By then, Gao Zhisheng was desperate to break free of
this pain, and calling out the names of his two children, he began to
smash his head against the table in an effort to kill himself. But his
suicide attempt did not succeed, though it left Gao with swollen eyes
and head, and blood running down his face. Gao Zhisheng begged his
captors to put him in jail, but the police responded, ``If you think
you're going to prison, dream on. We can make you disappear
permanently! '' As they said this, they continued to cruelly torture my
husband throughout the day until nighttime. At the end of it, Gao
Zhisheng's eyes were so swollen from the smoke that he could no longer
open his eyes and his skin was darkened all over at the places he had
been touched by the electric batons. And the torture didn't end there
and then.
In an attempt to protect our two children and in a state of
absolute terror, in January 2009, I escaped China with my daughter and
son. On February 9, 2009, Gao Zhisheng again was kidnapped and
disappeared.
On September 25, 2009, Gao Zhisheng was hooded and taken away by
several burly men of Uyghur ethnicity in front of secret police from
Beijing. When Gao was being taken to a secret jail, his captors beat
him severely with their fists. Upon arriving at the secret jail, they
roughly stripped off his clothing and shoes, but leaving the black hood
on, they proceeded to mercilessly beat and torture Gao for the next 48
hours. One of the men punched his chin with his bare fists, and another
grabbed his neck, dragged him backwards and shoved him into the wall.
They began to throttle him, causing his lungs to lack air, blood to
swell his brain, his eyeballs to protrude and almost pop out, and make
him feel as if death were imminent. But unexpectedly, they loosened
their grip, and Gao weakly leaned against the wall as he sank to the
floor. Several of the thugs began to curse him, and started to
shamelessly kick his legs, making Gao scream out in pain. Under the
barrage of both curses and kicks, Gao couldn't move his legs anymore,
and was shaking uncontrollably. When they were tired of hitting him,
they sat down and ate. Following their break, they continued to beat
Gao for a day and a night. They tried to force Gao to beg for mercy,
but Gao refused, and they went crazy with anger and beat him till the
sun rose the next day. But Gao didn't beg for mercy. One of the thugs
cursed him, saying: ``You animal, if you don't kneel today, I'm
definitely going to kill you.'' Sure enough, their beatings became even
more inhuman! Gao's two legs and feet were already swollen and bent,
yet they still harshly kicked him and with each kick, Gao suffered
greatly. But Gao adamantly refused to kneel down. One of the thugs
completely lost his cool and pointed a gun at Gao's forehead. Gao said
to him, ``You are a spiritual pygmy, and don't have the guts to fire a
gun.'' Gao's statement enraged the thug who angrily went into another
room. Gao prepared for more torture and the result was that the thug
returned with the gun wrapped in a pillow and put it against Gao's
head. Gao lost conscious, thus easing his pain.
One year later, in April 2010, Chinese Communist officials arranged
for Gao Zhisheng to be interviewed by the Associated Press. During the
interview, Gao didn't hew to the script prepared by the officials, and
instead revealed to the Associated Press the truth of his being
tortured. Gao again was ``disappeared'' following the interview.
A period of torture in Beijing started, all of it done at night. On
the evening of April 28, 2010, a group unexpectedly barged into Gao's
cell room (this group turned out to be the same who conducted the
torture in 2007). They rushed him from behind and began to throttle
Gao, saying, ``Little boy, you've fallen again into the hands of your
uncles! We'll do a good job of taking care of you! '' As before, they
used a black hood to cover his head and tightly shackled his hands
behind his back. They additionally put two pillow cases over the black
hood and forced his body into a ninety degree angle. Two of them then
forced Gao to kneel and they put him in a car, as if the whole process
was a robbery. While in the car, the torture went on and on, like a
living death. Two of the men were behind him, crushing his body, but
this was a specially designed car that had no support. Gao was
shackled, and from behind, the two were crushing him. What made it even
worse was that he lacked oxygen under the thickly layered hoods. His
labored breathing began to cause him to shake uncontrollably with sweat
pouring off his body and his eyeballs about to pop out of his head. A
little while later, his knees had gone completely numb and he
momentarily felt his body disconnect from the physical pain. But when
trying to get out of the car, Gao found that his legs were numb. He
couldn't stand and fell to the ground whereupon the thugs began to kick
him without mercy. Gao didn't even have the strength to curl up.
Several of them raised him up, only to throw him back to the ground.
One pulled his hood off, and another pulled him up into a half sitting
position. Three of them unexpectedly began to hit him in the face for
several minutes. One brought a lighted cigarette up to Gao's eyes and
asked if he still wanted to write essays? After this, he struck Gao's
chest with his knee. Gao heard himself cry out with an almost non-human
sound, his eyes blurred, and it felt as if his head was spinning and he
was floating in the ocean waves. But the non-human cry turned into a
strong shout of pain because the thug suddenly loosened his hands and
Gao's forehead smashed down on the ground. Gao began to vomit, with
half of his face stuck to the ground. Gao's hands were still shackled
behind his back so there was no way to reposition himself. The thugs
were there smoking and cursing him. Once they finished their
cigarettes, someone called Director Wang began to use an electric baton
to strike Gao. Gao was in so much pain that he screamed in anguish, and
words cannot fully describe that physical pain. They thought that, with
enough time and cruelty, the torture would force Gao to kneel for
mercy, but Gao never kneeled down. This utterly exasperated the thugs
who beat him with greater fury. Finally, Gao was carried to an empty
room where he was locked up for 21 months. In almost two years locked
up there, the world didn't hear any news of Gao Zhisheng.
According to the Communist Party authorities, the verdict of a
``three-year sentence, suspended for five years'' should have ended by
August 15, 2012 and Gao should have been able to go home. But after his
disappearance of more than a year and a half, the words of his
tormentors came true and it was as if he had ``disappeared.''
Not until the end of 2011, following the period of the five-year
suspended sentence, Xinhua issued a brief English news report that on
December 16, Gao Zhisheng had violated the terms of his suspended
sentence and had been sent back to jail to serve the entire three-year
sentence. But within two weeks, there was no news of Gao serving his
sentence at the prison, and his family had not yet seen the official
paperwork or received any kind of notification about visits. The news
also didn't mention what regulation Gao had violated or where he had
been for 21 months or why Gao Zhisheng again had been disappeared. On
January 1, 2012, Gao Zhisheng's older brother , Gao Zhiyi finally
received a ``criminal imprisonment notification'' regarding Gao
Zhisheng from Shahe Prison in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Torture at the Shahe Prison came in disguised form. Gao Zhisheng
was imprisoned in a small cell and for three years, did not feel fresh
air on his face. From the very start of his detention, they played loud
noises on a large speaker to disturb him, and this went on for 96
weeks. All of Gao's teeth fell out from living in this horrific
environment and being given poor quality food, resulting in his being
unable to walk or speak. At the completion of serving his sentence, he
was on the verge of death and had to be lifted out of his cell and
carried home.
Gao Zhisheng has sacrificed greatly on behalf of the Chinese
people's freedom and human rights. Even though he lost his own freedom
and suffered unspeakable torture, he never lost his belief in freedom
and human rights. He adamantly believes that a free and democratic
system will be realized in China in the near future. He sincerely hopes
that the United States will be able to shoulder the moral
responsibility of all humankind, and that the U.S. Government will be
able to make human rights a key priority in U.S.-China relations. An
increasingly powerful China, without human rights, is a threat to the
United States and the whole world that can no longer be ignored.
With thanks to God!
Thank you all.
Geng He
______
China's Pervasive Use of Torture
april 14, 2016
Witness Biographies
Margaret K. Lewis, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School
of Law
Professor Margaret Lewis's research focuses on China's legal system
with an emphasis on criminal justice. She joined Seton Hall Law School
as an Associate Professor in 2009. Professor Lewis is a graduate of the
NYU School of Law and Columbia University, and also studied at the
Hopkins-Nanjing Program. Her recent publications have appeared in the
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, NYU Journal of International Law
and Politics, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Virginia
Journal of International Law. She also co-authored the book Challenge
to China: How Taiwan Abolished its Version of Re-Education Through
Labor with Jerome A. Cohen. Professor Lewis participated in the U.S.-
China Legal Experts Dialogue in October 2015 at the invitation of the
U.S. State Department. She is also a Term Member of the Council on
Foreign Relations, a Public Intellectuals' Program Fellow with the
National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and an Affiliated Scholar
of New York University School of Law's U.S.-Asia Law Institute.
Jigme Gyatso, Tibetan monk, Tibetan language education advocate,
and filmmaker
Jigme Gyatso (a.k.a. Golog Jigme) was born in Serthar county,
Sichuan province, and became a monk when he was 15 years old. He later
joined the Labrang Monastery in Gansu province and has been involved in
Tibetan language education advocacy, environmental protection, and
earthquake relief. In 2007 and 2008, Jigme Gyatso worked with filmmaker
Dhondup Wangchen to interview 108 Tibetans for the documentary
``Leaving Fear Behind,'' which was shown prior to the start of the
Olympics held in Beijing in August 2008. Chinese authorities detained
Jigme Gyatso for two months in 2008, four months in 2009, and three
months in 2012, during which he was severely tortured by Chinese public
security personnel. In 2012, he escaped from detention in fear of his
life, and spent one year and eight months on the run until he arrived
in India in May 2014. He received asylum in Switzerland and has
testified about his own experiences of torture and abuse to the UN
Human Rights Council in Geneva, the European Parliament, and the
International Olympic Committee, among others.
Yin Liping, Falun Gong Practitioner
Yin Liping is a Falun Gong practitioner who survived torture,
forced labor, and sexual violence in Masanjia and other forced labor
camps. Since 1999, she was arrested seven times and given three
separate sentences totaling seven-and-half years. During her detentions
she was often severely tortured and was sexually abused by both police
and male prisoners. Her story is featured in the documentary ``Above
the Ghost's Heads: The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp'' by former New
York Times photographer Du Bin. In August 2013 she escaped from China
to Thailand and, in December 2015, was granted refugee status in the
United States.
Sophie Richardson, China Director, Human Rights Watch
Dr. Sophie Richardson serves as the China director at Human Rights
Watch. A graduate of the University of Virginia, the Hopkins-Nanjing
Program, and Oberlin College, She is the author of numerous articles on
domestic Chinese political reform, democratization, and human rights in
Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
She has testified before the European Parliament and the US Senate and
House of Representatives. She has provided commentary to the BBC, CNN,
the Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy, National Public Radio,
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five
Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec.
2009), an in-depth examination of China's foreign policy since the 1954
Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with policy makers.
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