TESTIMONY OF BOB FU
APRIL 19, 2005
before the
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
of the
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Also see National Review Online "The Torturers’ Friends in Geneva--The U.N. Commission on Human Rights doesn’t want to hear about China’s abuses."
Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I would first
like to request that my two speeches delivered at the parallel meeting
and the plenary session during 61st UNCHR in Geneva be entered into
the congressional record as part of my testimony. I also want to include
an affidavit signed by Mrs. Deborah Fikes, Executive Director of Midland
Ministerial Alliance, Midland, Texas be entered into the congressional
record as important supporting evidence for my testimony.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am honored to testify to the
personal account of what happened to me during my participation of the
61st UNCHR meeting. Invited by A Woman's Voice International, a UN recognized,
US based nonpartisan international human rights organization, I led
a group of human right activists, Christian ministers and Chinese victims
of religious persecution from Midland, Texas to participate the 61st
UNCHR meeting in Geneva. I spoke at a parallel meeting on March 30 and
the plenary session on April 5 on religious repression, torture, sexual
abuse and arbitrary detention in China. Ms Liu Xianzhi, a 33 year-old
member of a house church, who escaped from China to the US after serving
six years in a labor camp, recounted her own personal experience of
torture, sexual abuse and arbitrary imprisonment in China. Video footage
regarding extra-judicial killing was shown. Evidence of torture, forced
labor, and religious repression was produced. A secret official document
regarding the current crackdown on unregistered religious groups was
also exposed.
Mr. Chairman, the reason my presentation at the plenary
session became an international incident was primarily because of my
demonstration of the torture device used by the Chinese interrogators
against hundreds of religious victims for false confessions and the
subsequent retaliation protest and maneuverings by the Chinese government
delegation at UN. The Secretariat of the UN Human Rights Commission
came under immediate and intense pressure from the Chinese delegation
to expel me and to expel all of the delegates representing A Woman's
Voice International. Although the Secretariat refused to expel all delegates
of AWVI, I was unfairly expelled. The Chinese delegation then virtually
ground the Commission proceedings to a halt for nearly an hour by making
excessive demands upon the Secretariat time and immobilizing the regular
proceedings of the Commission. During this incident, I believed that
my personal safety and that of my family has become endangered.
On Tuesday, April 5, 2005 approximately at 12:16 PM I gave my oral intervention
regarding Chinese religious persecution and torture tactics on behalf
of a Woman's Voice International under Item 11 on "Religious Intolerance".
After I talked about our recent finding that one of the three arrested
house church pastors I mentioned in my presentation, pastor Cai Zhuohua
from Beijing was tortured repeatedly by electric shock batons by his
interrogators in exchange for false confessions against him, I demonstrated
to the Chairman the use of an electrical shock baton for six seconds
between about 12:17pm to 12:17pm.
That six seconds demonstration of that torture device in the air was
regarded by the Chinese Delegation as a direct threat to their security.
The electric shock baton was brought out of Chinese prison recently.
Immediately following my intervention UN Security escorted me and Mr.
Mina Bahgat, an attorney and a representative of A Woman's Voice International
outside and my UN badge was ripped off abruptedly from my neck by a
UN security guard without giving me any explanation. I explained that
I had permission from UN security prior to giving my oral intervention.
I produced the business card of that security officer who confiscated
both the electric shock baton and my badge and told him both Ms. Deborah
Fikes and I had spoken to him and two other colleagues on Friday, March
1, 2005. I then also contacted Mrs. Deborah Fikes immediately by phone
and asked the chief of security to speak with her in order to corroborate
my story. He declined to speak to her over the phone. The Chief of Security
grabbed away both Ms. Deborah Fikes and his own business cards from
my hand. His business card given to Ms. Fikes and me on April 1 contains
his handwritten extra contact information. I also told the security
that along with my assistant Ms. Melissa Rasmussen on my side, I talked
with Ms. Yoko Adachi, the assistant to the secretary of UNCHR at about
12:30pm on April 1 over the phone on getting the permission for me to
demonstrate the torture device at the plenary session, and after she
talked with her supervisor, she told me the secretary office has no
problem for that (I have my phone record as evidence). The security
refused to hear my further explanation. At this point a member of the
Chinese Delegation made a complaint orally in front of us to the Chief
of Security. The young woman explained that the Chinese Delegation was
concerned for their safety because I brought a weapon into the assembly.
After a 20 minute wait the Chief of Security, the security guard of
UN had me escorted outside the UN building and I was put in a security
car and dropped off the premises. I ask the Chief when I can get the
electric shock baton which is my private property, I was told “you
are done today” and I was asked by the security chief to write
down my home address in the US and he told me he might send that device
back to me after he files a report by Friday April 8, 2005.
Along with
Mr. Thomas Jacobson, the UN representative of Focus on the Family, I
came back to the UN about an hour later after I was expelled, I demanded
my badge back.
After calling his supervisor, the security at the gate told me that
I can’t get my badge back because “the badge is the UN property.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Jacobson contacted US Mission in Geneva expressing his
concern over my unfair treatment; he was told the representative from
the US mission will talk with the UN security at 3pm that afternoon
to demand my UN badge back.
According to those attending the second
session on Tuesday April 5, 2004 (3:00pm); the Chinese Delegation engaged
the Chairman in a 40 minute debate regarding my intervention and its
so-called insulting nature. It was within this 40 minute debate that
the Chinese Delegation addressed the device I brought is as a police
weapon on the record. The Chairman forwarded the Chinese Delegation’s
complaint to the NGO office as they had proper jurisdiction to deal
with NGO complaints.
Up until today, neither myself, my office nor anyone
from the Woman’s Voice International was approached or contacted
for interviews and verification of the facts of what happened and the
relevant procedures upon which my badge and the electric baton confiscated
on the supposedly UN report being drafted to address the Chinese delegate’s
complaint and protest though on April 6, 2005 A Woman’s Voice
International (AWVI) did issue an apology letter to the Chinese Delegation
on misunderstandings between AWVI and the UN over the demonstration
of the torture device. AWVI also reiterated that we believe we have
had the prior permission to bring and demonstrate that torture device
as part of our testimony.
Mr. Chairman, from what happened over this
incident; I personally have two major concerns:
1. The way the UN NGO
office handled this matter was very arbitrary and inconsistent. I was
never given a copy of the procedures it followed when responding to
the Chinese Delegation’s protest. The office never spoke to anyone
from my delegation in Texas regarding the conversations with security
and UNCHR secretary officials prior to the use of the electric device.
The security was unwilling to corroborate my explanation of the misunderstanding.
The security and NGO reports which were given to China will be definitely
one-sided, incomplete and inaccurate. It is clear the due process has
not been availed to me and A Woman’s Voice International.
2. Mr.
Chairman, as a former Chinese Christian prisoner, I have held great
respect and high expectations upon the UNCHR which is supposedly the
highest authority and institution on this earth with the stated mission
"to protect and promote human rights for all". However, given what I
have experienced and testified, I think that certain countries with
the poorest of human rights records and worst violators have managed
to seize control of and cripple the functionality of the UN Commission
on Human Rights and its Secretariat. The issue of reform of various
UN bodies is being discussed in the U.S. and internationally. The time
is ripe to consider fundamental reforms to restore the focus of this
Commission to its original purpose and to remove control of the Commission
from the worst violators.
Mr. Chairman, about nine years ago, I was
forced into a police car from my home to prison by Chinese Public Security
Bureau in Beijing for my allegedly “illegal religious activities”;
ironically this is my second time put into a police car and it was sadly
done by UN security guard. The only reason I was treated like that was
because of a complaint filed by the representative of the torturers
when the very torture device is being widely used even today at this
moment against hundreds of thousands of victims of conscience as described
in its specifications as “an ideal tool for the Chinese law enforcement
officials”. The human rights violations including the torture
against those prisoners of conscience and religious beliefs in China
should be stopped immediately and before we can accomplish that, we
should start first to reform the very institution designed to protect
the human rights for all but now is even intolerant of demonstrating
the torturers’ cruel device.
Thank you,
Mr. Chairman
Entered into the Congressional Record on April 19, 2005.
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