United Nations NGO Committee in New York
to suspend A Woman´s Voice International
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This past week we received the frustrating news that China countered
our demonstration of a torture device used by its interrogators
upon Christian prisoners by filing a complaint at the United Nations
NGO Committee in New York to suspend A Woman´s Voice International,
an organization with whom Jubilee Campaign has partnered the past
three years on activities at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
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Given less then five days to respond, we were unable to overcome the
complaint despite the submission of four sworn affidavits to counter
China´s charges. Some of the worst violators of human rights including
China, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Zimbabwe outvoted the United States. A
Woman´s Voice International is suspended for one year for having
spoken the truth about China´s use of torture. A picture of Rev.
Bob Fu demonstrating the device on April 5 at the U.N. Human Rights
Commission plenary session in Geneva, Switzerland is attached.
A Woman´s Voice International (AWVI) is committed to defending
the dignity of women worldwide, particularly to counter culturally permitted
acts of violence and inhumanity. Women and children are most often the
forgotten victims in wars and famine and are subject to trafficking
and exploitation as refugees. Consequently, the past three years, AWVI
took the lead amongst non-governmental organizations at the U. N. Human
Rights Commission to raise the plight of North Korean refugees who flee
the tyranny and starvation of Kim Jong Il to China where over 90% of
North Korean women find themselves trafficked before help can be found.
During each of the past three years, AWVI has sponsored parallel meetings
during which defectors and survivors of labor camps shared the horrors
of living in North Korea, especially if found to be a Christian. During
this year´s parallel meeting, AWVI also showed a video in which
a defector returned by China to North Korea can be seen pronounced "guilty"
by a North Korean judge and executed by firing squad for his "illegal
border crossing."
These past two years, members of AWVI also took the lead in organizing
a parallel meeting to highlight the plight of the suffering church in
China. Both years AWVI invited Rev. Bob Fu, President of China Aid Association
and members of the Midland Ministerial Alliance of Midland, Texas, to
provide graphic testimony of house church leaders arrested and tortured.
Last year, AWVI showed video testimony of three women parishioners belonging
to one of the branches of the South China Church who suffered arrest
and torture, including sexual abuse, at the hands of authorities until
they gave false testimony against Pastor Gong. Following this coerced
testimony, Pastor Gong was sentenced to life in prison on October 10,
2002, and has subsequently become paralyzed due to the torture afflicted
upon him while in prison.
This year, one of these women who managed to escape China following
her release from prison and received refuge in the United States testified
to the parallel meeting at the U.N. sponsored by AWVI. She described
the use by Chinese secret police of a torture device the size of a flashlight
and emitting electrical shocks on her body. Rev. Fu held up and set-off
the device during the parallel meeting. Members of China-sponsored NGOs
also attended that parallel meeting as did United Nations security.
However, when several days later at a plenary session Rev. Fu again
demonstrated the torture device during his turn to speak, the Chinese
delegation began its relentless efforts to punish AWVI for daring to
show the world a Chinese torture instrument. After finishing his speech,
Rev. Fu was promptly ushered out of the assembly room, guards confiscated
his credential badge, and he was ultimately escorted off of the U.N.
grounds.
Of this incident, Rev. Fu remarked, "I was forced into a police
car from my home in Beijing to prison by the Chinese Public Security
Bureau for my allegedly 'illegal religious activities.´ Ironically,
this is my second time put into a police car and it was sadly done by
U.N. security guards. 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.´"
Rev. Fu made these comments on April 19, 2005, to the Committee on International
Relations, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International
Operations of the U.S. House of Representatives as Chaired by Congressman
Chris Smith. His full testimony can be found at:
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/fu041905.pdf
In recent years, the worst violators of human rights have positioned
themselves to be the gatekeepers of information at the United Nations
and annually seek to suspend or sanction those organizations most vocal
in their criticism. A few years ago, Sudan prompted the permanent ouster
of Christian Solidarity International for its work on behalf of the
Christian and animists in the South of that country. Vietnam has for
two years sought to oust the Transnational Radical Party for raising
the plight of the Montagnards and Christian churches persecuted in Vietnam.
Cuba was unsuccessful in its efforts to suspend Freedom House.
Ann Buwalda, USA Director of Jubilee Campaign, stated, "China silences
all opposition at home with brutal measures and has sought to crush
the unregistered house church movement by eliminating its leaders. By
its action against A Woman´s Voice International, it has expanded its
reach to silence an international organization deeply committed to justice
for the oppressed poor. Yet, truth will triumph, and A Woman´s Voice
International will continue to speak truth with or without the United
Nations stamp of approval."
The NGO Committee´s vote recommending a one year suspension of
AWVI will be reviewed by the full meeting of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) in July. There is some hope that with a Swiss lawyer
assisting us, we could overcome China´s complaint that the presence
of the device at the U.N. in Geneva violated Swiss law and reverse the
NGO Committee vote. To do this, we need a Swiss or French lawyer with
access to Swiss law to help us.
The alternative is that, sadly, next year A Woman´s Voice International
will be a silenced voice -- silenced by China.
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