China’s Freedom Fighters Meet At International Summit
For Immediate Release
November 17, 1999
Contact Scott Weinberg
(540) 622-5240
WASHINGTON, DC – Population Research Institute (PRI) will hold a press conference on 19 November 1999, at 11:45 a.m. in the Federal Room of the Capital Hilton in Washington, DC. The press conference will take place on the first day of PRI’s international summit, Human Rights in China: 50 Years Later.
Assembled for the first time since the Tiananmen Square massacre, China’s leading pro-democracy freedom fighters, together with US China policy experts, will discuss the full spectrum of human rights issues and the future of democracy in China. The press conference will provide the media with an opportunity to address questions to the conference speakers. Conference speakers include: Wei Jingsheng, former political prisoner, Columbia University (who will speak on “China’s Prisoners of Conscience”); Wang Juntao, former political prisoner, Columbia University (“China’s Democratization”); Shengde Lian, former political prisoner, Party for Freedom and Democracy (“Democracy Under Communism”); Shen Tong, former political prisoner, Foundation for the Chinese Academy (“The Meaning of June 4”).
Also speaking will be: Amnesty International Representative, T. Kumar, (“Minorities in the Laogai System”); Zhengyuan Fu, University of California, Irvine (“China’s Historical Burden of Autocracy and Lack of Rights”); Chinese worker’s movement leader, Liu Nianchun, (“Organizing China’s Workers”); Richard Long, Chinese VIP Reference (“Freedom of Information on the Internet”); Perry Link, Princeton University (“Chinese Culture and Human Rights”); Bill Saunders, Human Rights Council and Senior Fellow, Family Research Council (“The Sudan/China Link”); Nina Shea, Freedom House (“Violations of Religious Liberty and US Policy”); Natalie Liu (“Journalism in Communist China”); Kate Saunders, Tibet Information Network (“The Situation in Tibet”); Steven W. Mosher, PRI President (“Is the One-Child Policy Coming to an End?”); Bob Xiqiu Fu, Protestant Evangelist (“The Home Church Movement in China”); Jim Jacobsen, Christian Freedom International (Freedom of Assembly in China”); plus a representative of the Turkish minority in Western China (“Human Rights of the Uyghur Muslim People of China”), and Joseph Kung, Cardinal Kung Foundation (“The Persecution of the Catholic Church in China”). Members of the US Congress are also expected to attend.
“Contrary to propaganda issued by China’s Communist Party, the human rights situation in China continues to deteriorate,” said Steven W. Mosher, President of conference sponsor PRI. Recent reports indicate that:
- There is not a single well-known Chinese dissident who is not in prison or in exile (many of those in exile will be at the conference);
- Those who would use the Internet or publications to accurately report on events in China are being arrested;
- The persecution of minorities and religious believers, Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims, is intensifying;
- The often brutal one-child policy continues.
“Americans need to become more aware of the human rights situation in China,” said Mosher. “By assembling China’s leading dissidents in one place we hope to build support for their efforts to promote democracy and human rights in China.”
