February 15, 2002
George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We are deeply concerned about continuing reports of Falun Gong practitioners in China suffering restrictions on freedom of belief and expression, arbitrary detentions, torture and death in custody. We are writing to request that, during your visit to Beijing later this month, you express our nation's distress about the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
In particular, we ask that you raise the case of Teng Chunyan, a permanent U.S. resident from New York, who was sentenced on December 12, 2000 to three years in prison for "prying into and illegally providing state information to foreigners," after she successfully videotaped activities inside Chinese psychiatric institutions. We hope you will urge her immediate and unconditional release.
In addition, we urge you to bring to President Jiang Zemin's attention our concerns about the activities of the government agency, the "610 Office," created to coordinate the crackdown on Falun Gong. According to human rights groups, since July, 1999, when Falun Gong was officially banned, tens of thousands of practitioners have been temporarily detained, thousands have been sentenced to "reeducation-through-labor," and some have been put in psychiatric institutions. At least 350 members have been prosecuted in Chinese courts, according to government officials, and given prison sentences of from three to 18 years. It is critical that United Nations rights experts be given confidential access to Chinese prisons, labor camps and other detention facilities to investigate serious and credible charges of torture and ill-treatment.
Mr. President, we hope you will reiterate to President Jiang Zemin your statement of May, 2001: the persecution of Falun Gong in China is "unworthy of all that China has been and unworthy of all that China should become." We urge you to call for the full respect of the rights of free belief and expression of all Chinese citizens.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
Sincerely,
Paul D. Wellstone
United States Senator