Breaking News – Mainland lawyers banned from meeting U.S. delegation
The U.S. Congress and a human rights group said on July 1 that Chinese police banned two Chinese dissident lawyers from meeting the visiting U.S. congressmen.
Virginian, senior Republican Congressman Frank Wolf from The American diplomacy Association, and New Jersey Republican member Chris Smith scheduled to have dinner with the Chinese dissident lawyers on the evening of June 28. But according to sources, the police authorities had taken the lawyers away or placed the lawyers under house arrest prior to the start of the dinner.
The two Members said that the action proves what a number of human rights groups have described as the deteriorated human rights situation before the Olympic Game next month is true, although the officials proclaimed that the Olympic Games would improve China’s human rights record. “The reality is very disappointing.” Smith stressed that the situation for Chinese dissidents, rights activists and those who call for religious freedom is very grim. He called on President George W. Bush to refuse to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, unless some conditions can be improved.
Wolf and Smith said they have sumbitted a namelist of 734 people who are incarcerated due to political reasons, to the President of China’s Diplomacy Association and the former Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, urging Li Zhaoxing to make efforts in releasing these people. Mainland lawyer Li Guang-Bai who was supposed to participate in the meeting was detained for three days somewhere in the outskirts of Beijing, Lawyer Jiang Tian-Yong was put under house arrest until the end of dinner; Teachers at The Politics and Law University and Lawyer Teng Biao were also locked up at home by the authorities.
The above news is brought to you by Fang Jing and hosted by Chris Thomas for Breaking News on SOH Radio Network.
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