PRESIDENT OF CHINA AID ASSOCIATION

APRIL 19, 2005

before the

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

of the

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I would first like to request that my speeches delivered at the parallel meeting and the plenary session during 61st UNCHR in Geneva be entered into the congressional record as part of my testimony. I also want to include an affidavit signed by Mrs. Deborah Fikes, Executive Director of Midland Ministerial Alliance, Midland, Texas be entered into the congressional record as important supporting evidence for my testimony.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to testify to the personal account of what happened to me during my participation of the 61st UNCHR meeting.
Invited by A Woman’s Voice International, a UN recognized, US based nonpartisan international human rights organization, I led a group of human right activists, Christian ministers and Chinese victims of religious persecution from Midland, Texas to participate the 61st UNCHR meeting in Geneva.I spoke at a parallel meeting on March 30, and the plenary session on April 5, on religious repression, torture, sexual abuse and arbitrary detention in China. Ms Liu Xianzhi, a 33 year-old member of a house church, who escaped from China to the US after serving six years in a labor camp, recounted her own personal experience of torture, sexual abuse and arbitrary imprisonment in China. Video footage regarding an extra-judicial killing was shown. Evidence of torture, forced labor, and religious repression was produced. A secret official document regarding the current crackdown on unregistered religious groups was also exposed.
Mr. Chairman, the reason my presentation at the plenary session became an international incident was primarily because of my demonstration of the torture device used by the Chinese interrogators against hundreds of religious victims for false confessions and the subsequent retaliation protest and maneuverings by the Chinese government delegation at UN. The Secretariat of the UN Human Rights Commission came under immediate and intense pressure from the Chinese delegation to expel me and all of the delegates representing A Woman's Voice International. Although the Secretariat refused to expel all delegates of AWVI, I was unfairly expelled. The Chinese delegation then virtually ground the Commission proceedings to a halt for nearly an hour by making excessive demands upon the Secretariat time and immobilizing the regular proceedings of the Commission. During this incident, I believed that my personal safety and that of my family has become endangered.
On Tuesday, April 5, 2005 at approximately 12:16 PM I gave my oral intervention regarding Chinese religious persecution and torture tactics on behalf of a Woman’s Voice International under Item 11 on “Religious Intolerance.” After I talked about our recent finding that one of the three arrested house church pastors I mentioned in my presentation, pastor Cai Zhuohua from Beijing was tortured repeatedly by electric shock batons by his interrogators in exchange for false confessions against him. I demonstrated (for six seconds) by holding the device above my head, how the electric shock baton recently brought out of a Chinese prison, is used. That six second demonstration was regarded by the Chinese Delegation as a direct threat to their security.
Immediately following my intervention the chief of UN Security escorted me and Mr. Mina Bahgat, an attorney and a representative of A Woman’s Voice International outside and my UN badge was abruptly ripped from my neck without any explanation. I explained that I had permission from HIM prior to giving my oral intervention. I produced HIS business card and told him both Mrs. Deborah Fikes and I had spoken to HIM and two of his colleagues on Friday, March 1, 2005. I immediately contacted Mrs. Deborah Fikes by phone and asked the chief of security to speak with her in order to corroborate my story. He declined to speak to her over the phone. The Chief of Security grabbed both Mrs. Fikes’ and his own business card from my hand. His business card given to Mrs. Fikes and me on April 1 contains his handwritten extra contact information. I also told the security that my assistant Mrs. Melissa Rasmussen and I talked by phone with Ms. Yoko Adachi, the assistant to the secretary of UNCHR at about 12:30 PM, April 1, to get permission to demonstrate the torture device at the plenary session, and after she talked with her supervisor, she told me the secretary’s office has no problem with that (I have my phone record as evidence.) The chief of security refused to hear any further explanation. At this point a member of the Chinese Delegation made an oral complaint in front of us to the Chief of Security. The young woman explained that the Chinese Delegation was concerned for their safety because I brought a weapon into the assembly. After a 20 minute wait the Chief of Security, the security guard of UN had me escorted outside the UN building and I was put in a security car and dropped off the premises. I ask the Chief when they would return the electric shock baton, which is my private property, I was told “you are done today” and I was asked by the security chief to write down my home address in the US and he told me he might send that device back to me after he files a report by Friday, April 8, 2005.
Along with Mr. Thomas Jacobson, the UN representative of Focus on the Family, I returned to the UN about an hour after I was expelled and demanded my badge back. After calling his supervisor, the security at the gate told me that I can’t get my badge back because “the badge is UN property.” Meanwhile, Mr. Jacobson contacted the US Mission in Geneva to express his concern over my unfair treatment; he was told the representative from the US Mission will talk with the UN security at 3 PM that afternoon to demand my UN badge back.
According to those attending the second session on Tuesday, April 5, 2004 (3:00 PM); the Chinese Delegation engaged the Chairman in a 40 minute debate regarding my intervention and its so-called insulting nature. It was within this 40 minute debate that the Chinese Delegation addressed (on the record) the device I brought as “a police weapon.” The Chairman forwarded the Chinese Delegation’s complaint to the NGO office as they had proper jurisdiction to deal with NGO complaints.
Today, neither my office nor anyone from the Woman’s Voice International has been approached or contacted for interviews or verification of the facts of what happened at the UN. The UN report on the relevant procedures upon which my badge and the electric baton confiscated was never sent to us.
April 6, 2005 A Woman’s Voice International (AWVI) did issue an apology letter to the Chinese Delegation on misunderstandings between AWVI and the UN over the demonstration of the torture device. AWVI also reiterated that we believe we have had the prior permission to bring and demonstrate that torture device as part of our testimony.
Mr. Chairman, from what happened over this incident; I personally have two major concerns:
1. The way the UN NGO office handled this matter was very arbitrary and inconsistent. I was never given a copy of the procedures it followed when responding to the Chinese Delegation’s protest. The office never spoke to anyone from my delegation in Texas regarding the conversations with security and UNCHR secretary officials prior to the use of the electric device. The security was unwilling to corroborate my explanation of the misunderstanding. The security and NGO reports which were given to China will be definitely one-sided, incomplete and inaccurate. It is clear the due process has not been availed to me and A Woman’s Voice International.
2. Mr. Chairman, as a former Chinese Christian prisoner, I have held great respect and high expectations upon the UNCHR which is supposedly the highest authority and institution on this earth with the stated mission "to protect and promote human rights for all". However, given what I have experienced and testified, I think that certain countries with the poorest of human rights records and worst violators have managed to seize control of and cripple the functionality of the UN Commission on Human Rights and its Secretariat. The issue of reform of various UN bodies is being discussed in the U.S. and internationally. The time is ripe to consider fundamental reforms to restore the focus of this Commission to its original purpose and to remove control of the Commission from the worst violators.

Mr. Chairman, about nine years ago, I was forced into a police car and taken from my home to prison by the Chinese Public Security Bureau in Beijing for alleged “illegal religious activities.” Sadly, this is the second time I have been put into a police car and it was done by UN security guards. The only reason I was treated like that was because of a complaint filed by representatives of torturers. That very torture device is being widely used even today, at this moment, against hundreds of thousands of victims of conscience. As the device is described in its specifications it is an “an ideal tool for the Chinese law enforcement officials.”

Human rights violations, including torture against those prisoners of conscience and religious beliefs in China, should be stopped immediately. Before we can accomplish that, we must first reform the very institution designed to protect human rights for all. An institution that even now is intolerant of demonstrating the torturers’ cruel device.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.