Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 605, which condemns the Chinese government's targeted, persistent and egregious persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This resolution was introduced last year to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's campaign to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Sadly, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and anyone associated with them, including lawyers who try to defend their human rights, continues today. Since 1999, 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sentenced to prison, over 100,000 were sentenced to re-education through labor camps, and at least 3,000 died while in police custody. They have been sent to special high security psychiatric hospitals for the ``criminally insane'' against their will where torture has been widely reported. Lawyers trying to defend their rights have been harassed, beaten and attacked by police officers in order to intimidate them. One of China's most prominent human rights advocates, Gao Zhiseng, who has defended the rights of many individuals attacked for their religious beliefs, was detained by police in February 2009 and his whereabouts are still unknown. The government continues to deny any involvement in his case. The Government of China censors all media in China and actively opposes any information exposing its brutality and injustice. But the truth is clear to us today.…”