Chen Guangcheng Alive As Of July 28th

Valiant Lawyer Tortured In Front of His Family For Contacting the Outside World

On October 10th we passed on to you unconfirmed reports that Chen Guangcheng may have been killed by Chinese authorities. We now know that as of July 28th Chen was still alive. Unfortunately, as the article below details, on July 28th he was brutally beaten in front of his wife and four year old son by local Chinese officials.

Chen first drew the ire of the Communist government of China by exposing government abuse and brutality in the course of over 100,000 forced abortions in a single Chinese county in a single year. Since then Chen has become a living example of the inhuman brutality of the Communist regime enduring beatings, denial of medical treatment and even deprivation of food. To learn more please watch the Free Chen Guangcheng! video made by our friends at Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.

We ask that you continue to pray for Chen and his family. We will keep you informed as more information continues to escape the media blackout imposed by the Communist government. If you have not yet done so, please add your names to the petition asking for Chen’s release. As always, we thank you, on Chen’s behalf, for all your prayers and support.

Details of Brutal Beating & Torture of Blind Legal Activist Chen Guangcheng Emerge

China Aid Association

(Linyi, Shandong – Oct. 27, 2011) ChinaAid has learned the details of a brutal four-hour beating by local authorities of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife, about whom there has been no reliable news for months.

The July beating, which was witnessed by the couple’s elementary school-age son, is but one episode in a pattern of horrific persecution against Chen because he had exposed the violent and deadly measures used by Chinese authorities to enforce the nation’s one-child policy.  The couple endured a similarly brutal beating in February after they had smuggled out a videotape documenting the shocking conditions of their illegal house arrest following Chen’s release from prison.  (See the ChinaAid report)

A reliable source told ChinaAid that the July beating occurred after a storm knocked out equipment that authorities had installed in Chen’s house to cut off all their telecommunications contact with the outside world.  With the equipment disabled, Chen was able to make phone calls on July 25, but the calls were intercepted by authorities.  On July 28, Shuanghou town mayor Zhang Jian led a group of people to Chen’s home and beat and tortured the couple for four hours.

This is the sequence of events:
2 p.m. – authorities clear out everyone from Chen’s village
3 p.m. – authorities conduct an exhaustive search of Chen’s home and find a phone card in a pile of ashes
4 p.m.-authorities start the beating. Chen’s screams of pain were heard first, while his wife Yuan Weijing was heard shouting angrily along with their daughter Kesi’s cries. After a while, Weijing’s screams of pain could also be heard. From then until 8 p.m., the only sounds were screams of pain.

Some time later, a village doctor was permitted to give Chen some cursory medical treatment.

During the four-hour beating, Chen’s elderly mother, who lives with them, was prevented from entering their home.  When she was finally allowed to go in, neighbors heard her burst into tears, and her anguished cries -described as “gut-wrenching to hear” – continued for a long time.

According to the source, Zhang tortured Chen to try to get him to tell how he got the phone card to make the calls on July 25 and to reveal where he had hidden it.  When Chen and his wife refused to give any details, their house was ransacked until the phone card was found in a pile of ashes.

Then the mayor’s men viciously beat up Chen and his wife in the presence of their son Kesi.  “As family men themselves with parents and children, how could they inflict such inhuman pain on a little boy?” the source asked.

ChinaAid’s founder and president Bob Fu said, “We condemn the Shandong authorities for their extreme brutality against innocent blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife.”

“The Chinese government’s brutality against  brave individuals like Mr. Chen who promote the rule of law should certainly make the world seriously doubt the sincerity of the Chinese government’s commitment to international  human rights,” Fu said.

Chen was imprisoned for four years and three months for exposing the violent measures used to enforce China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations that in his county alone in 2005 numbered 130,000.

Since his release from prison in Sept. 2010, Chen has been kept under illegal house arrest, denied medical treatment for serious intestinal problems and deprived of all contact with the outside world.  Reporters and activists who have tried to visit him have been roughed up and turned away.

As a result, there has been no reliable information about Chen and his family for months, although there have been unconfirmed reports this fall that Chen might have been killed by Chinese authorities.

On July 21, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed an amendment to the State Department 2012 appropriation bill supporting Chen and his wife. (See ChinaAid’s report)

Please support the cause for which Chen and his wife have paid such a high price and sign this petition to stop forced abortion in China.

ChinaAid Contacts
Bob Fu, President;  Mark Shan, Spokesperson
Tel: 1+ (888) 889-7757    Cell:  (267) 205-5210
Email: Bob@ChinaAid.org Mark@ChinaAid.org
Website: http://www.ChinaAid.org http://www.MonitorChina.org

Help Save Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani

We want to thank those of you who responded to our earlier, brief email regarding the death sentence received by Pastor Yousef. We wanted to take the time to send out a more extensive email detailing the history of Pastor Yousef’s case, along with our Press Release and materials for use in your churches. While this atrocious miscarriage of justice has drawn condemnation from Speaker John Boehner, the State Department, the White House and dozens of members of Congress, Pastor Yousef remains in prison with a death sentence hanging over his head. That is why we are sending you materials to help you spread the word. We want you to talk about this with your friends and pray for Pastor Yousef in your churches. The Iranian government may be trying to wait for the furor in the western media to die down so that they can execute Pastor Yousef quietly. We must continue crying out until he is released.

The History: Service to God

Pastor Yousef grew up in a Muslim household but like many in Iran, the bloody rule of the Ayatollahs pushed him away from religion. He served no God and lived a life of darkness until the light of Christ reached him at 19 years old. Having found satisfaction in the Gospel, Yousef immediately began to share it with those around him, and he became the pastor of a church in his hometown in northern Iran. God blessed him with a wife and children and despite the danger of a government crackdown, Pastor Yousef continued to share the Gospel and his church grew to around four hundred members.

The Crime: Apostasy

The local authorities hated and feared the growing Christian community in their midst. They were just waiting for an opportunity to strike. Opportunity came in the form of a new law, requiring the religious indoctrination of all Iranian children into Islam the specific version of Islam favored by the elite Islamic clergy that rules the country. Pastor Yousef protested the indoctrination of his children and was promptly arrested in his hometown of Rasht on October 13, 2009. However, soon after his arrest, the charges were changed from unlawful protesting to apostasy. Apostasy, defined as leaving Islam, cannot be found in Iran’s penal code and the investigation necessary to prove apostasy openly violates Article 23 of the Iranian Constitution, which forbids the investigation or punishment of anyone solely on the basis of their religious belief. The local authorities did not let these technicalities stop them and soon the sentence came down.

The Sentence: Death

After the initial death sentence Yousef was imprisoned awaiting his appeal at the Supreme Court. Iranian authorities used every means at their disposal to try to force Pastor Yousef to deny his faith. In addition to the ever-present threat of death, they held him incommunicado, tortured him, imprisoned his wife and threatened his children. Even his lawyer, Mohammad Dadkah, a valiant Muslim advocate for human rights, was suspended from practicing law and sentenced to 9 years in prison for supporting the cause of freedom in Iran. After years in prison, the Iranian Supreme Court remanded his case back to the local court that initially sentenced Pastor Yousef to death. Despite multiple violations of international law and Iran’s own Constitution, the Iranian court held a series of hearings calling on him to recant his Christian convictions. When he refused they once again sentenced Pastor Yousef to death on September 25, 2011.

The Response: Outrage

By the time the second death sentence was handed down the case had drawn considerable international attention. First prominent pastors, journalists, and musicians tweeted about #Nadarkhani. Then news agencies such as the Washington Times and Fox News pushed the issue into the mainstream. A wave of private and public diplomatic efforts reached to Tehran telling them that this lone Christian pastor was not alone, and that executing him would draw the ire of the entire free world. Faced with a decision above their pay-grade, the courts passed the buck all the way to the top. Now only the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei can spare Yousef’s life.

Our Request: Keep Up the Pressure.

We want to emphasize, the government of Iran wants Pastor Yousef dead. The massive grassroots response and high-level advocacy carried out to date has only given Yousef a stay of execution. If our attention flags, that stay could prove only too temporary.

Click Here to download the poster which you can put up at your churches or other public bulletin boards.
Click Here to download a background pamphlet explaining the history of the case.
Feel free to print out our Press Release on Pastor Yousef, which is below.

Most of all, please continue praying for Pastor Yousef and for the all of the Christian suffering in Iran.

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Press Release

Jubilee Campaign Calls For the Immediate Release of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani

The Government of Iran recently condemned Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani to death for ‘leaving Islam’, in blatant violation of their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Jubilee Campaign calls on the United States and the international community to forcefully address this public violation of Iran’s obligations under international covenant and press for the immediate and unconditional release of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani.

Today Jubilee Campaign, an advocate for international religious freedom, adds their voice to the chorus of cries from the human rights community calling for the release of Iranian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani. While the government of Iran habitually harasses and persecutes Christians and other religious minorities, last month they shocked the world by publicly condemning a man to death for apostasy, the crime of leaving Islam. Though reports of torture and extrajudicial killings of religious minorities abound, Iran has not formally executed anyone for apostasy since Pastor Hossein Soosmand in 1990.

Jubilee Campaign calls attention to the fact that the charge of apostasy, which cannot be found anywhere in Iran’s penal code, attacks the human right to leave one’s religion for another religion or no religion at all. This right is enshrined in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which Iran ratified without reservation. Jubilee Campaign calls on the United States to address this blatant and public violation of Iran’s international obligations. In addition to the manner in which the charges violate Iran’s international obligations, the formal investigation or punishment of a person on the basis of their religious beliefs violates Article 23 of Iran’s own Constitution.

Leaving aside the illegal charges and the unconstitutional investigation, Pastor Yousef claims that he does not meet the definition of genuine apostasy because he was never a Muslim. Until he became a Christian at 19 years old he did not believe in any God at all. Pastor Yousef’s story is not uncommon in Iran. The association of Islam with the Ayatollah’s reign of blood and terror has created a great deal of disillusionment with religion, particularly among younger generations of Iranians. Unfortunately for this growing segment of Iranian society, the death sentence against Pastor Youcef redefines apostasy as leaving the religion of one’s ancestors, a precedent with grave implications for any Iranian with a Muslim background.

“Clearly,” says Ann Buwalda, Executive Director of Jubilee Campaign, “the international community must hold the Iranian government accountable and prevent this unjust execution. Media and governments around the world must speak out and break the silence that condemns this innocent men to death.”