Continuing human-rights violations in the People’s Republic of China, including the repression of Christians, have drawn increasing attention from Western observers and political leaders. According to a report issued by the Puebla Institute, a lay Catholic, human-rights organization based in Washington, D.C., 77 Christian leaders are known to be in jail or facing house arrest in China.
Among those listed by name are 60 Catholic leaders, including 20 bishops, 6 of whom were reported arrested since July 1990. During the nearly two years since the June 4 massacre of prodemocracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, some 400 Protestant clergy and believers reportedly have been arrested and detained for a short time, and 300 churches have been closed. The Puebla report also documents electric shock and other forms of torture being used against some of the religious prisoners, resulting in four deaths since mid-1989. For example, a Protestant man charged with selling Bibles and organizing illicit religious activities in September 1990 was beaten and tortured with electric shocks by Public Security Bureau officials during a two-month imprisonment.
Congressional Visit
Religious freedom was one of the first issues discussed earlier this year when two U.S. congressmen met with Chinese Premier Li Peng. The four-day visit by Republican Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Frank Wolf of Virginia was only the second congressional mission to investigate human-rights violations in China since the Tiananmen Square incident. The congressmen presented Li with the Puebla report list of “unjustly incarcerated” prisoners and arrestees, along with a letter signed by 110 members of the U.S. House, urging that the cases be reviewed and the prisoners released. The letter stated that the congressmen hoped the report of arrests “does not reflect a new policy of repression against religious believers” and warned that it will be “very difficult” to improve relations between the U.S. and China “as long as such arrests and imprisonments continue.”
Smith and Wolf, both members of the Helsinki Commission, also expressed their “profound sorrow” over the Chinese government’s one-child-per-couple policy. “There is no doubt whatsoever that coercion in China family-planning programs is pervasive and has taken the form of forced abortion, economic penalities, involuntary sterilization, and mandatory IUD insertion,” Smith said at a press conference following his return from Beijing and Shanghai.
In addition, the congressmen reported the Chinese government is using prison labor for much of its textile production, including the manufacture of products exported to the United States. The importation of goods produced by forced labor is a violation of U.S. Customs policy, and Wolf said the Customs Service has begun an investigation.
