[my street]
[my City State Zip]
August 22, 2000
The Honorable Senator (his or her full name]
[office building address]
Washington DC 20xxx
Dear Senator [name],
I am deeply concerned over the unrelenting and escalating violent persecution
of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The Chinese government's suppression began
more than a year ago, and the numbers tell a grim story. According to the world
media and human rights groups, at least 50,000 have been arrested and detained,
more than 10,000 have been sentenced to labor camps without trial, 600 have been
sent to psychiatric facilities, and over 500 have received prison sentences at
cursory show trials. Detainees are often tortured and at least 53 practitioners
have died as a result.
Consider the case of Chen Zixiu, a retired autoworker from Weifang, China, who
was tortured to death at the hands of local officers after not being able to pay
the fine for her jail time. As described in Ian Johnson's harrowing April 20 account
in The Wall Street Journal:
"The day
before Chen Zixiu died," the Journal's story begins, "her captors
again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after
repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58- year-old stubbornly shook her head.
Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two
days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with
pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident.
She crawled outside, vomited, and collapsed. She never regained consciousness."
Practitioners like Ms.
Zixiu suffer extreme mistreatment simply for peacefully exercising their beliefs,
a right guaranteed in China's own Constitution and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. The unanimous support for the House and Senate concurrent Falun
Gong resolutions in November 1999 is greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, the
situation in China has significantly deteriorated since those non-binding resolutions
were passed. As someone who cherishes the freedom of belief, a cornerstone in
the founding of our nation, I urge you to support the following measures to
let the government of China clearly know that such behavior is absolutely unacceptable
- Please bring up China's
mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners in floor debate on any bill concerning
relations with China.
- Please initiate, or
support initiatives by your colleagues, a hearing on the Falun Gong matter
leading to a binding resolution. The resolution should, with binding conditions
attached, call China to honor its commitment to the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights by releasing all detained and imprisoned Falun
Gong practitioners, and call China to lift the ban on Falun Gong and immediately
cease its persecution.
- Please convey our citizens'
deep concern over this critical situation by asking the President, the Vice
President, the Secretary of State, and other key members in the Administration
to directly voice our distress to their counterparts in China.
Thank you for your concern and action on this issue. It touches the hearts of
all those who value freedom of belief and human rights.
Sincerely,
[Name]