Calling on Government of People's Republic of China to Release Certain Prisoners and end Suppression of Uyghur People

Floor Speech

CALLING ON GOVERNMENT OF PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO RELEASE CERTAIN PRISONERS AND END SUPPRESSION OF UYGHUR PEOPLE -- (House of Representatives - September 17, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of this resolution offered by Ms. Ros-Lehtinen that asks the Chinese Government to recognize the rights of the Uyghur people and to free the children of Rebiya Kadeer, an extraordinary human rights activist and Uyghur spokeswoman.

At turning points in history, Mr. Speaker, of oppressed peoples, one honest and courageous man or woman often comes to represent the entire people in the eyes of the world. In the United States, on matters related to civil rights, it was the Reverend Martin Luther King. In Burma, it is Aung San Suu Kyi. In India, it was Gandhi. For Chinese Catholics, it was Cardinal Kung. In Poland, it was Lech Walesa and John Paul II. For Tibetans, it is his Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

For the Uyghur people, deprived of their religious freedom, robbed of their cultural and linguistic rights and marginalized in their own homeland by the government-organized Han Chinese migration, it is Rebiya Kadeer.

For years, Ms. Kadeer was a voice crying in the wilderness, asking the serial human rights abusers in Beijing to recognize the rights of the Uyghur people. In 1999, the Chinese Government imprisoned her. In 2005, it released her into exile into the United States, warning her not to advocate for her people. Her husband and several children were already in exile here. Others remained behind. In 2000, while she was in prison, one of her daughters testified at a human rights hearing that I chaired on the Uyghurs, and she was very powerful in her statement on behalf of her mom.

Even though some of her children still lived in China, this incredibly brave woman established a Uyghur human rights foundation. Now she has become the quintessential symbol of Uyghur aspirations and hopes. She is a recognized leader in the Uyghur exile and human rights communities, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and a friend of President Bush after their meeting in Prague this past summer.

Mr. Speaker, we all want Beijing to act like a responsible stakeholder in the world. I make no secret of my conviction that Beijing has a very long way to go. The list of serious human rights abuses committed by the Chinese Government is long. It includes the persuasive systematic exploitation of women and the murder of their children through forced abortion as part of its coercive one-child-per-couple policy. Against the Uyghurs, it is used as a means of genocide, of trying to destroy an entire race and ethnic group of people because of their ethnicity. The imprisonment of democratic dissidents and religious believers remains a serious and pervasive problem in the PRC, as does the marginalization of the Tibetans in their homeland on the roof of the world.

The extensive use of torture has been documented time and time again. Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations, went to China and came back, and his report is literally an indictment. If you are arrested, if a Han Chinese, a Uyghur or anyone is arrested, the way they get a conviction is they torture you. Eventually you sign on the bottom line and you admit your so-called crimes. They have also forcibly repatriated North Korean refugees. Again, there is abuse after abuse after abuse, and the Uyghurs are at the brunt of it.

The oppression of the Uyghurs in their homeland along the Silk Road must be included, Mr. Speaker, on any list of Chinese Government's most serious abuses. In the United States, Ms. Kadeer has ensured that the world does not forget the oppression of the Uyghur people, and the Chinese Government has retaliated now, as they have in the past, by harassing her children who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by placing them under house arrest, by incarcerating them and by beating them.

Today, Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives, both Republicans and Democrats alike, ask that Beijing end this campaign of retaliation against the Kadeer family. We join the voice of those who care for those kids, an anguished mother who cries, ``let my children go.''

We also ask that Beijing immediately release Hussein Celil, an ethnic Uyghur who is a citizen of Canada, so he can rejoin his family living in that country.

Finally, in the darkness of the political oppression of the Uyghur people, Rebiya Kadeer stands out as a beacon of light and hope. Let us honor her and her family and her work by enthusiastically supporting this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source