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VOA News Report

 

August 11, 2012, Voice of America (VOA) * published an article discussing congressional support for Wu.

 

 " A number of US congressmen pointed out that detention, harassment, leading to peace, and promotion of respect for human rights dissidents is missing.These acts harm China's international prestige as well as undermining the relations between the United States and China.

 

Many US congressmen have been paying attention to China's issue of religious freedom. One of them was Democratic Representative Michal Capuano of Massachusetts. This week he and 15 other Congressman joint letter to Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui concerning the Buddhist leader Wu Zeheng, who lives in Guangdong Province. Despite being imprisoned for 11years, Wu was still no freedom of action.

 

Rep Michael Capuano replied to VOA as why he signed his name. " I advocate religious freedom, and the record of religious freedom in China is very bad. Although this letter is involved in the case of the individual, Wu, nevertheless for me it conveys more extensive information. As far as I know, China does not recognize, nor do they allow people to freely express any international recognition of religious belief.

 

Yong Ming, one of followers, said that they are very grateful for this operation ( signatures) was supported by many Honorable Members to support this name: 'Is it really very touching that, in just less than a week, there were 16 members who signed; there were a number of Members who later expressed regret that he had still not signed. They were made aware of Mr. Wu Zeheng encounters and are very eager to try to help. Although we have nationalities and cultures, but our hearts are one.'

 

Wu Zeheng proposed reform of the Government in 1998, including increased transparency, setting up non-party agencies to supervise government cadres, putting an end to corruption and so on. He therefore was found a threat against the security of the State and has spent 11 years in the prison. Wu Zeheng was released on February, 2010,  but continue to be harassed, intimidated, assaulted and kept under surveillance.

 

Sixteen Members in his letter to the Chinese ambassador that seriously suppressing human rights activists in China damaged China's international reputation, as well as US-China relations.

 

Capuano said that human rights violations should be subject to punishment under the current circumstances, but it is unlikely that the United States imposed sanctions against China, and he therefore hoped that China will be able to exercise self-restraint: "China has done good works to create a business environment, and should be commended, but economic development is not the only thing that the next step should be imporved, and the next step is improvement of human rights.

 

They said in the letter, the Chinese leaders have repeatedly expressed their commitment to improve human rights, but similar to the cases like Wu Zeheng continue to occur, affecting the US-China relations. Members and officials of the Chinese Government hopes to continue to carry out human rights exchange discussion."

 

( news link: http://www.voachinese.com/content/article-20110811-congressman-letter-127531793/785989.html )

 

 

* Voice of America (VOA)

 

Voice of America (VOA) is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

 

VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio and TV and the Internet outside of the U.S. in 43 languages. VOA produces about 1,500 hours of news and feature programming each week for an estimated global audience of 123 million people, "to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective, and balanced news, information and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas."

 

Its day-to-day operations are supported by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).