Since 1999, Freedom House has been one of the most consistent international voices in support of Falun Gong practitioners’ right to practice their faith without fear of persecution. In 2000, Freedom House included Falun Gong practitioners in its delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In March 2001, the organization awarded Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi and the Falun Dafa Association its International Religious Freedom Award.
Freedom House reports have regularly referenced the human rights violations suffered by practitioners in China and senior staff have repeatedly spoken at annual Falun Gong rallies in Washington DC. Former board members such as Ambassador Mark Palmer and Professor Arthur Waldron have been outspoken in their own capacities on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners.
“Freedom House urges President Obama to raise the names of the following […] individuals who have been the subject of intense repression by the Chinese Communist Party and to urge their immediate release from custody:
[…] Xu Na: Xu Na, a poet and a painter, was detained in January 2008 with her husband, Beijing musician Yu Zhou, for possessing Falun Gong-related literature. Yu died in custody 11 days later under mysterious circumstances. Xu was sentenced in November 2008 to three years in prison after an unfair trial because of her identity as a Falun Gong believer. She had reportedly been tortured during a previous detention and is at risk of abuse.”[3]
“Since 1999, Freedom House’s annual and other publications have recorded the ongoing rights abuses suffered by those who practice Falun Gong in China. Several aspects of the persecution stand out from a review of those findings. […]
Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania and former board member of Freedom House, writing in the Foreword for an earlier issue of the Falun Dafa Information Center’s Compassion magazine.
“[Falun Gong’s] continuing existence and growing strength are among the most prickly and difficult problems facing the authorities in Beijing today. This is not because of anything Falun Gong practitioners themselves have done. Rather, it is because of what Beijing has tried to do to them—and failed.
[…] Far from being ‘marginal’ as many commentators seem to imagine, the Falun Gong and other ‘dissident’ groups in China are in fact as central to that country’s future as the Soviet dissidents of the 1970s and 1980s were to the future of Russia.”[5]
Notes:
[1] Freedom House, “China,” Freedom in the World 2010; http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2010&country=7801
[2] Freedom House, “China,” Freedom in the World 2009; http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7586
[3] Freedom House, “Support Chinese Human Rights Activists, Freedom House Tells Obama on Eve of Visit,” November 13, 2009; http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=1096
[4] Sarah Cook, “Congressional-Executive Commission on China Roundtable: China’s Policies Toward Spiritual Movements,” June 18, 2010; http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2010/20100618/cookTestimony.pdf?PHPSESSID=5df33ec8a63bfadd3a54264e7697530a
[5] Author Waldron, “The Falun Gong Factor,” Compassion, June 28, 2007; /article/504/
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