Our efforts were worth it!

Posted on 2016-12-22 by wrchina

Article: WRIC Jing Zhang Translator: Cai Shiwen All images from WRIC

Last Sunday (December 18, 2016) we went to see little Annie Zhang’s piano performance in Carnegie Hall. She only has started playing piano in 2013, and now is competing against peers with 10 years of practicing. She is an intelligent, artistic student with a kind heart. At Carnegie Hall we also met Annie’s elder sister Ruli Zhang. She is an independent, confident and beautiful young woman. Seeing the sisters made us recall what happened three years ago.

Those protests day and night in China 2013.

In 2013,Our Women’s Rights in China organized the protests in Hefei City, Anhui Province of China. Hundreds of our supporters gathered for two weeks, in support of the daughter of Lin Zhang, Little Annie Zhang, to have the right to go to school. Later, many of us were detained and questioned by Hefei Police. Yao Cheng , Zhou Weilin and Zhang Lin were sentenced to prison because of their participation. In New York I worked closely with Ann Noonan of CUSIB Executive Director and Reggie Little John of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers founder. With help in and outside of China, little Annie and her sister Ru Li finally escaped the Communist regime. Reggie adopted Annie and has been providing her with only love and care. Ann and me helped Ru Li when her came to NY. We rescued a teenage genius who was deprived of the basic right to receive education. Zhang Lin, a leading pro-democracy activist who had been tortured by CCP for many years, is now relieved from his greatest concern. We are so proud of little Annie and her growth in the past three years. All our efforts were worth it!

Please click the link below to see the scene of our solidarity gatherings in Hefei. Many familiar faces are among the group pictures. At least ten people after helped Anne who suffered severe political persecution, included the founder Xu Zhiyong of New Citizens Movement, and are now still in prison in China.

Jing Zhang picked up Ruli from JFK airport Sep 11,2013./ Ann Noonan and Ruli Zhang were with WRIC’s members and got together for dinner Sep 13, 2013.

Reggie Littlejohn and her husband with adopted daughters, Ruli and Annie./ Jing Zhang hugged Annie befor watched Annie’s piano performance in Carnegie Hall New York.

A Meteor Across the Night Sky—Harry Wu and the Laogai Museum

Posted on 2016-12-06 by wrchina

August 23, 2016 by Jing Zhang

I received a call from a former prisoner of conscious still living in China. The caller gave his condolences and asked for information on Mr. Wu. He also asked whether the Laogai Research Foundation would continue to sponsor jailed dissidents or their families. I replied that all of the application forms are still on Laogai’s website with no changes, so I believe the Foundation would continue as it had when Mr. Wu was still living.

About Harry Wu’s sudden death, I do not know the real reason. Then I remembered it had been three months since Wu’s passing. Suddenly, I had mixed feelings. I stood outside, looking at the stars, feeling a little weary, when I saw a meteor streak across the sky. A fighter. Comrades in arms tend to go quietly. Some of us wear our emotions on our sleeves, but all people are vulnerable and life is ephemeral. We are born with empty hands and die with empty hands, but what happens in between? A question we all struggle with remained persistent in my mind: What is the meaning of life? What does our spiritual conscience mean to history?

I remember first seeing Harry Wu in Hong Kong in 1995. He was collecting information about labor reform, specifically organ trafficking of death row inmates. At the time he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years with “stealing state secrets.” After the expulsion, he had a short stay in Hong Kong. National correspondents were blocked from interviewing him. I was the editor of a newspaper; with local media work permits allowed to enter the hotel he was staying. At the door, I said, “I have not come for an interview. There are other newspaper reporters doing interviews. I came to tell you that 10 years ago I had counter-revolutionary propaganda against me. I was imprisoned in the labor camps for five years. The labor camp where I was exported tea, sold at high prices in the West, including the United States. Spring and autumn was picking season, in the winter we trimmed tealeaves working 15 to 18 hours a day. I’d start before dawn and return to the laogai barracks after dark. There were no wages, no rest, unless the harvest did not sprout on time, then it might be half a day’s work.” We talked for about an hour. Before leaving, we encouraged each other with mutual words of support.

I saw Wu again in December of 1999. He scrimped and saved overcoming the challenges of opening a non-profit organization. In 1992, the Laogai Research Foundation (LRF) was established. It was time the world understand the real status of human rights in China. Wu repeatedly accompanied Western reporters into the far off provinces of China to collect data on death row organ transplantation.

The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 saw a mass exodus. I along with a group of political exiles fled to the United States. I remained a journalist in New York City.

I learned Wu was giving a press conference to illustrate criminal intent and behavior having recordings and other evidence of perpetrators trying to buy and sell organs. I arrived at the office of Beijing Spring magazine in Flushing, New York, to ascertain the whole story. As it turned out, someone had taken out an ad in a Chinese-language newspaper in New York claiming to provide human organs for purchase.

A man simply known as “Wang,” claimed to have as many as 50 individual kidneys. Wu enlisted the help of intermediaries that could meet with Wang to discuss the kidney trading business. During the meeting with Wang, several severe offenses were revealed and the police intervened, but in the end, a key witness refused to testify and the court dismissed the case.

At that the same time the CCP enlisted a large group of newspaper reporters to cooperate with each other and the defendant to personally attack Wu. Neither haughty nor humble, Wu stood alone. I really admired him for his pursuit of righteousness without fear. In response, someone on the Internet relentlessly released a statement, “No one should help Wu; otherwise ‘the white knife would become red.’” (A popular idiom used during the Cultural Revolution suggesting extreme and deadly force). Motivated by Wu’s courage, I wrote an article for the independent democratic forumon the death penalty in China.

After years of efforts, Falun Gong practitioners strongly followed Wu promoting investigation of CCP organ harvesting procedures. China finally announced on January 1, 2015, the cessation of organs from capital punishment criminals. It can be said that without Wu and unremitting efforts, the Chinese Communists would not easily give up the big business. However, in the Chinese Communist dictatorship remains a hotbed for bribery and corruption as officials cooperate with criminals trying to smuggle and traffic human organs only to be sold to Chinese dignitaries, Taiwan, Southeast Asian countries, and even to Westerners. In March of this year in Putian, Fujian severalchildren were found in a room, their bodies lined with sewn incisions from removed organs.

Years later I was reacquainted with Wu at a commemoration for the victims on June fourth. It was then that I really understood Wu’s concept for the creation of his foundation. In 2003, I was invited to participate in a laogai fundraising seminar primarily for Chinese political prisoners and dissidents. It was beneficial to meet so many people who, like me, had labored for many years, but it eventually became devastating hearing so many similar stories. I couldn’t imagine the laogai continues to exist.

The Department of CPC Central Committee issued a directive on August 25, 1955 “to completely eliminate counterrevolutionaries,” one way, which is reeducation through labor. This legislation is the source that has stripped people like Wu of his youth. It wasn’t until 2001 that this evil system was officially rescinded publically. However, because of the nature of authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, the government can keep a person in prison; send them to work sites, just like the Cultural Revolution did to those counter-revolutionary rightists. For more than 60 years, the Chinese Communist regime has used the same old tricks. Even having one person put international pressure on China is better than nobody at all.

Which is why today laogai is found in the dictionary, synonymous with the Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags. And in 2008, his museum became the first in the world to specifically target Chinese human rights. It can be said, if not for Wu, the history of China’s persecution, the stories of those who have suffered may not see the light of day. We all eagerly await the day when Wu’s wish to have a Laogai Museum on the streets of Beijing is realized.

The Laogai Research Foundation touches on many human rights issues: slave labor and sweat shops, religious rights, supporting Tibetan issues and the Dalai Lama including rights for all minorities, supporting political prisoners past and present like Wei Jingsheng, Wang Dan, the 2010 Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, and the lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Wu used the law of the United States to prosecute large companies colluding with the CCP violating human rights such as Yahoo. It’s almost been a decade that the Laogai Museum has joined the numerous wealth of museums in the District of Columbia. The Foundation has published a variety of books including The Black Series in which chief editor of Beijing Spring Mr. Ping Huping praises, “LRF is doing boundless good.”

During Wu’s lifetime, he worked with the US Customs agency, checking Chinese exports for prison slave labor products. It is said by the CCP, that the export of slave labor products is good for prison inmates. The prison inmates can make money that will improve their life, but who benefits the most? Go to the jails and you’ll find a large number have been arrested arbitrarily and forced to produce products [improperly equipped that risks their health]. The world wonders how China has so quickly accumulated vast wealth. It hurts the Chinese people. Factory jobs have eroded. Of which the survival of the ordinary Chinese workers has become unfair. It’s also unfair to American workers as the import and export of goods is in violation of US trade regulations. More importantly, universal human rights are violated.

Long before China’s 2007 woman’s rights were established, Wu had been in the United States petitioning Congress and other organizations condemning China’s One-Child Policy. In 1998, with the aid of Wu, the US Congress passed legislation identifying the Chinese regime’s forced abortion and sterilization practices. This enabled many women to escape China and seek asylum in the US. In 2009, I gave testimony to the US Congress on behalf of women afflicted by inhuman national policies of family planning.

(From left ) Zhang Jing and Harry Wu, testifies in front of a Congressional hearing. (Photo by WRIC)

Veteran pro-democracy activist Chen Liqun has selflessly volunteered to assist LRF and Laogai Museum by providing copious amounts of information from prisoner biographies to screening eligible dissidents for aid. Not once has Chen asked for compensation in return. It’s not always cheap both monetarily and emotionally contacting mainland China, which Chen has done countless times at her own expense. Since Wu’s passing, Chen still continues to work for his cause. She has never participated to denounce Wu. Her work is to help her suffering comrades.

I may not agree totally with Wu, but I have very much the same outlook. It is better to help out those who have or are suffering than to wallow in unsubstantiated speculation. I have provided samples of tea to the Museum forced labor products display. I’ve never asked for praise, for thanks, or tried to collect payment. I have no complaints. I do it in honor of Harry Wu. Those of us who do this know that it is for those who fought on the front lines. We are free of our conscience. We do it for no one else, but we act positively against the oppressive regime that has begun to manifest itself here in the US. That is our enemy. Are actions are not for the spineless that spew slanderous sludge. Perhaps the “love-hate” relationship is the norm nowadays, [but I’m not one to follow].

In recent years, there have been negative articles about Wu some who have remained anonymous authors. They result to personal attacks. These authors seem to have two distinct characteristics: 1.) They have worked closely with Wu or for LRF, 2.) They have received aid from Wu. In particular is one such attacker who has received generous aid from Wu and seeks to bleed him for her own personal selfish gain. (Click here for the Chinese article.)

In regards to the tumorous articles about Wu’s sexual harassment, I believe those libellants have forgotten they live in a judicious country. They must not be familiar with the weapons of law. These offenders are unforgiveable. Let there be a trial, let the evidence speak, at which there is little. Only the court has the right to make a conclusion. Yet, these foes with no credentials continue to publish complaints as if they were still in China. They make a mockery of themselves, the community, and the true victims.

Wu’s life was full of ups and downs. Interned in the camps for 19 years, he lost all his youth. Human nature can be twisted. He rose from the depths of darkness to give light to consciousness. But people are not gods and Wu was neither immortal nor infallible. He was at times arrogant and stubborn which caused him to lose friends or collaborators. It was also these qualities that enabled him to reveal earthshattering knowledge of the laogai. Overall, his entire lifetime was dedicated to the laogai. It might have been enough for the man to accomplish as least two things: the introduction of the word laogai into the Oxford English Dictionary and the permanent establishment of the Laogai Museum. After half a century since the Cultural Revolution, the ghosts in China have nowhere to rest. Not one museum has been built dedicated to this time. Wu’s museum is a monument to Chinese history. It’s one of the stars that burn brightest in the sky. When I look up at heaven’s expanse, I do not see Harry Wu, because he’s still here on earth, in a sturdy house in DC called the Laogai Museum.

Can the Two-Child Policy Improve the Human Rights Situation in China?

Posted on 2016-12-01 by wrchina

Author: Jing Zhang Translator: Jennifer Yuan 10/02/2016

Women’s Rights in China Director Jing Zhang was invited to give a speech at the conference “The Prospects for Democratization in China” organized by The China Democracy Forum, New York University (NYU) and Beijing Spring magazine. The theme of the conference was “The Match between Righteousness and Evil, The Responsibility and Choice of International Society”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s earliest population policy began in April, 1950. There was a lack of military personnel after the long war and the workforce in society had shrunk. The Central Government and the Military Committee joined hands in formulating the “Methods of Limiting Abortion Among Female Military Cadres,” imposing strict requirements on women who required abortions: it had to be approved by the husband, doctor, and the Head of their unit. Those who secretly underwent abortion were harshly punished.

A few years later, the CCP leaders, who had no foresight at all, again adjusted the population policy, making opposite regulations. In 1979, they implemented a nation-wide One-Child Policy, and this was the beginning of the tragic fate of women in China. Afterwards, the CCP obtained comprehensive control over the uteruses of China’s women, setting rules about when they needed to get an Intrauterine Device (IUD) and when they needed to be sterilized. The Party gained control over the private lives of couples, regulating when they can get pregnant, when they can give birth…everything is decided by the Party. This is unprecedented in history, the one and only in the world, a true Chinese specialty. The CCP’s propaganda machine always claims that China is about to explode, so it cannot further develop unless it enforces population control. Yet, China’s neighbor India, which is also in Asia, has a huge population, but has not implemented coercive birth planning, and has not exploded. Instead, it seems to be developing steadily, with an economic growth rate even surpassing China in the 2nd quarter of 2015/16 （source: CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/30/india-economic-growth-outpaces-china-rbi-seen-holding-rates.html / India economic growth outpaces China, RBI seen holding rates）.

From the following points, we can see that whatever changes are made to the population policy the CCP formulates, it will be irrelevant to human rights, and the policy of planned murders are still being executed. No matter how big of a giant China’s economy becomes, it is still a dwarf in the aspect of universal values.

Permission and Authorization to Give Birth are both Violations of Human Rights

After coercively enforcing a One-Child Policy and continuously harming women and children in China for 36 years, CCP leaders proclaimed a new directive in the 18th Central Committee: a Two-Child Policy would be launched throughout the nation, whereby residents are allowed to have two children.

Of course, if someone dares to go against the policy and have a third child, the consequences are the same as the old policy: forced abortion or fines, because these coercive policies are still being implemented and have not been cancelled. That means, the Party still has control over women’s uterus and still restricts the natural rights of couples to have children. Heavy fines which leave civilians penniless and their families in ruins are still collected. This birth planning policy is like a sword hanging over people’s heads, ready to slash down at anytime. This Party has kept its clutches over the uterus of Chinese women like in the 50s in ring the previous century. When the Party tells you to have babies, you have to produce some; when it tells you not to, you must stop. It gives you the number of children you should have, and you must follow. Having fewer children would have resulted in harsh punishment, and now having too many will lead to forced abortion or fines! The power of determining the life and death of new lives has been held by a few men in the leadership level of the CCP.

During the CCP’s 36-year era of implementing a One-Child Policy, forced abortion and fines were guidelines for the Birth Planning cadres. It was not uncommon for civilians to be subject to economic sanctions, violation of rights through physical force, unlawful detention, assault and even destruction of property and loss of family. Some couples with “over-quota” births were persecuted and were forced to hide in different places, even escaping to other countries to seek political asylum. Women’s Rights in China (WRIC) volunteers Su Changlan, Yao Cheng, Chen Qitang etc. spoke out for farmer Zhang Ronghua, who was killed with her baby in a forced abortion in Lijin County, Shandong Province.

See below: Zhang Ronghua was with her husband, daughter. Photo by WRIC

WRIC volunteers also saved Cao Ruyi and the life of her little baby, who were almost forced to undergo abortion in an obstetric bed in Changsha, Hunan. These volunteers who demonstrated such humanitarian spirit have all been arbitrarily detained by the Chinese government. Among them, Su Changlan and Chen Qitang have already been imprisoned for 2 years without being sentenced, and are prohibited from medical parole.

The Chinese government always claims that the Family Planning Policy led to a great decline in the death rates of pregnant women and infants, but this is just a lie that becomes more pronounced as they try to cover it up. In fact, the government’s statistics only include licensed hospitals. Its lack of truthfulness lies in the fact that a significant number of women with over-quota births have to avoid the fine and don’t have birth permits, so can only deliver in unlicensed hospitals or at home, especially villagers and pregnant girls that are under age. There are a large number of cases in which both mother and infant die due to miscarriage or infection through unhygienic abortion equipment, leading to massive hemorrhage etc., and they are not included in government statistics. Also excluded are pregnant women living in remote mountainous areas or ethnic minorities who die because they couldn’t get hospitalized in time during emergency situations due to underdeveloped transportation and medical systems. Once women and their families have more children than permitted by the government, they have to pay fines consisting of heavy Social Childcare Fees, or they put themselves in jeopardy and deliver under the risk of having no medical facilities, which is a match with the grim reaper. Two years ago in Liupanshui area in Guizhou, a migrant worker secretly returned to her hometown to deliver her second child, but had a massive hemorrhage. The midwife couldn’t stop it and both mother and child died.

On September 27, 2016, the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission published a shocking statistic: half a year after the national launch of the Two-Child Policy, the death rate of pregnant women has risen: in the first half of 2016, the death rate of pregnant women in the nation has increased by 30.6% when compared to the same time period last year. The Commission has to admit that “there are serious issues in protecting the safety of mothers and newborn babies.” Yet the Deputy Head of the Commission blames it on other factors: increase in births, higher proportion of older mothers, high costs and risks in Obstetrics & Gynecology and pediatrics, medical personnel consisting of more young women who have their own reproductive needs, and a lack of human resources. They are taking the branch for the root! We must ask: didn’t the government think about these practical problems that must be dealt with and solved before they decided to launch the Two-Child Policy? Did the government allocate funding for vocational training programs? Are relevant units and staff held accountable for cases of death? Why is there a higher proportion of older mothers? What responsibilities should the government take for implementing a coercive One-Child policy for the past decades? One conclusion we can make is that, as long as the government enforces a coercive birth planning policy, no matter one child or two are permitted, Chinese women still have no freedom in guarding their own uterus, death and harm is forever their nightmare, and the government will keep shifting their responsibility.

Coercive Fines are a Cash Cow for Rulers

Since the 1980s, medical information and data related to Birth Planning have been labeled as state secret, and even became one of the top national secrets in the end of the 80s. Birth Planning fines have remained a mystery for the past 40 years.

The government has never publicized where these fines ended up, and no auditing agency has the right to publish this financial report. According to incomplete statistics (consisting only of 22 provinces), the total amount of fines in 2012 was 16.8 billion, but strangely, this huge amount has been kept safe and hasn’t become a concern to the media. Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaigns these few years have not resulted in any “tigers” or “flies” being caught for mishandling or embezzling birth planning fines.

In 2013, the National Health Bureau was combined with the Family Planning Committee and became the National Health and Family Planning Commission. The Head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission directly oversees the new commission, which is a merge of the two major systems in China. The other agency directly headed by the government and funded by it, i.e. the Family Planning Association, with 94 million full-time and part-time workers (statistics from its official website), has taken over a majority of the functions of the original Family Planning Committee. The Family Planning Association’s largest funding from the government in 2015, is used for the 94 million staff from the previous Family Planning Committee to directly manage the birth planning of the 250 million farmers in all large cities in the nation, i.e. monitoring and coercing migrant workers to carry out the CCP’s harsh birth planning policy. The government’s policy for fines has not changed. That means that when the nation needed youths, peasants produced children even during hard times, and raised them up to become society’s strong labor force, but they received no rewards and social welfare from the government, and instead now have to pay fines to the government for over-quota births. If the timing between their first and second pregnancies doesn’t follow the government’s regulations, if they have children out of wedlock, or get pregnant before getting married, they all have to be fined.

The CCP’s policy of fines has never been lenient, and continues to lead to tragedies and deaths, destruction of families, and continues to trample over the freedom and rights of Chinese women and children to live and give life.

Coercive Birth Planning Brings Endless Troubles to China

China’s Coercive Birth Planning Policy has brought obvious disasters. Besides the infamous human rights disaster, there are also a series of social problems like serious gender imbalance and a rapidly aging population.

Serious Imbalance in Population Structure

During the era when birth planning was implemented harshly, some families killed or abandoned female infants to keep the quota of having a boy to meet the nation’s regulations. Chinese scholars state that the current gender ratio of newborn infants is 118:100. In 2000, the ratio in Hainan Province reached 135.64:100. WRIC launched activities in Erlang Town, Susong County, Anhui Province, and an elementary school teacher told us that there were 57 students in her class, but only 16 were girls. We conducted a study on the gender ratio in two villages in 2010 and 2011, and the average ratio was 145:100 and 135:100. Scholars warn that there will be 40 million single men. When 2050 arrives, there will be 100 million men that don’t have wives to marry. The gender ratio has been continuously high for many years. This not only destroys the population structure, it also leads to many social problems such as an increase in crime rate. According to scholars, the Chinese government will greatly increase conscription to solve the problem of single men, but this will be a potential security threat to countries nearby.

Aging problems hinder economic development

In his book Empty Nest of the Great Nation, population studies expert Fuxian Yi criticizes the Chinese government’s birth planning policy. This book was banned in China. Yi determined that “the nature of China’s economic crisis is its population crisis.” Currently, the elderly population over 60 years old in China has surpassed 212 million, comprising 15.5% of the total population. According to forecasts, around 2040, China’s elderly population will reach its peak and will exceed 400 million, that means there 1 out of 3 people will be an elderly. In an aging society, there is a serious inadequacy of robust labor, hindering economic development. The Empty Nest phenomenon and aging population will intensify a series of social problems and become a heavier burden.

After a decade of an extremely low birth rate, it is a proven fact that even if a Two-Child Policy is launched, the situation cannot be saved: unlike experts’ expectations, youths in China lack the intention of having a second child. Eight government departments in Yichang City, Hubei, released a document calling for all Communist Party and Youth League members in government agencies and corporate units to take the lead in producing a second child, proclaiming that “one child poses risks, two children are great.” We don’t know whether to cry or laugh at such type of propaganda. Nevertheless, they highlight three points: (1) the Birth Planning Policy implemented for decades by the CCP has been proven to be a short-sighted wrong decision; (2) the local officials enforcing the policy are extremely ignorant; and (3) rulers without values of human rights, democracy and freedom can forever shift their attitudes like clouds and rain, and civilians are always the ones that suffer from the calamity.

In conclusion, in the eyes of the CCP’s dictatorship, civilians are only a birth machine. The so-called Two-Child Policy is just the Party’s adjustment of the productivity of this machine. The people’s human rights have not been protected under the Birth Planning Policy, so naturally they won’t get any benefits in terms of freedom even if they are allowed one more child. Only when China completely abolishes this forceful birth planning policy and its coercive fines, publicizes all birth planning data and the amount of fines in the past decades, holds corrupt officials accountable, punishes those that illegally take away people’s lives, provides nation-wide compensation to women and families persecuted because of the birth planning policy and became disabled or even died, can China begin its first step towards living with dignity.