Political Quotes

“Madam President, in 1948, the world came together to adopt the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to declare with one voice that every single person on Earth is ``born free and equal in dignity and rights.'' They declared that ``no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile''; that ``everyone has the right to freedom of thought'' and everyone has a right to ``freedom of opinion and expression.'' This is Yu Wensheng, a human rights lawyer based in Beijing. His rights are being denied to him because he is arbitrarily detained after being arrested for exercising freedom of expression and freedom of opinion. Yu has a history of ruffling feathers in Beijing. He is known for criticizing the Communist Party, for supporting the ``Yellow Umbrella'' movement for rights in Hong Kong, and for taking on politically sensitive cases. Beijing has retaliated by destroying his legal career and making it impossible for him to practice law. Yu Wensheng has been in Chinese custody since January of 2018 because he dared to publish an open letter calling for political reforms, such as holding fair elections. The day after he published that letter calling for fair elections, law enforcement officers, including police and armored vehicles, confronted him while he was walking his son to school and forced him into a police vehicle on suspicion of ``picking quarrels and provoking troubles.'' Police had no regard for his son's safety at that moment.…”