Issued by China Aid Association (www.chinaaid.org)
September 4, 2008
Beijing Book Store Owner, Shi Weihan, Barely Recognizable to Close Friends due to Extreme Deterioration of Health
Beijing- CAA has learned that Christian bookstore owner and house church leader, Mr. Shi Weihan, was transferred to the Beijing Haidian District Detention Center. Shi’s case has been transferred from the Public Security Bureau to the Beijing Procurator. According to personal acquaintances who have visited Mr. Shi, his health has degenerated to the point that he is hardly recognizable to his closest friends. Shi was first detained on November 28, 2007 then acquitted of charges on January 4, 2008. On March 19, of this year he was detained for the second time and has been incarcerated until now.
CAA President Bob Fu, strongly condemned the Beijing authorities for their cruel and unjust treatment of Shi Weihan. Mr. Fu urged Beijing authorities to release Mr. Shi as soon as possible to avoid adversity amongst the international community.
To express your concern over the unjust treatment of Shi Weihan, contact:
Tang Long, City of Beijing Deputy Secretary General of the Municipal People’s Government.
Phone: 011-86-10-62362008 Liu Jianchao, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of Information Department. Phone: 011-86-10- 65963342

Uyghur Christians Continue to Suffer in Xinjiang
September 4, 2008
Photo: Uyghur Christian Alimujiang Yimiti and Son
Xinjiang- CAA has learned that the case against Uyghur Christian, Alimujiang Yimiti, has been transferred to prosecutors from the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau. The transfer was the first progress in the case since a Xinjiang Court returned the case to the PSB due to insufficient evidence in May of this year.
Mr. Yimiti has remained in detention since his arrest on January 12, 2008. Lawyers for Mr. Yimiti are actively seeking for an early acquittal, citing evidence of unfair persecution due to Mr. Yimiti’s Christian beliefs. In other news, Christian Uyghur Wusiman Yiming continues to serve his sentence of reeducation through labor in a Xinjiang labor camp. In September of 2007, Mr. Yiming was sentenced to criminal detention “for the crime of divulging State secrets” by the State Security Bureau of Southern Xinjiang Hetian City. He was sentenced last November to two years re-education through labor by the Re-education Labor Committee of Hetian City.”
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09-05-2008
Initiatives for China
Contact: Jim Geheran
Tel: 202-290-1423
initiatives4china@gmail.com
www.initiativesforchina.org

Initiatives for China intern, Ti-Anna Wang, also attended the Capitol Hill Prayer Partners’ meeting.  She spoke about her father’s ordeal as a prisoner in China.  Dr. Wang Bingzhang is widely recognized as the founder of the overseas Chinese pro-democracy movement.  In 2002, Dr. Wang, a devout Christian, was kidnapped in Vietnam by Chinese State Police.   He was taken to China and imprisoned for life.  The Capitol Hill Prayer Partners encircled Ti-Anna as they prayed for her father.  As part of her internship, Ti-Anna will be working to gather support for her father’s freedom.  For more information on Dr. Wang Bingzhang click here. (www.wangbingzhang.com)

Pictured directly above is CHPP leader Sara Ballenger presenting Ti-Anna with a “Purple Heart” for her father’s bravery.

09-05-2008
Initiatives for China
Contact: Jim Geheran
Tel: 202-290-1423
initiatives4china@gmail.com
www.initiativesforchina.org
Mr. Jon Pan, A Chinese Christian Pastor, was the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Capitol Hill Prayer Partners on September 2. The CHPP is a volunteer, non-partisan Christian group that prays daily on Capitol Hill with and for our leaders and policy makers in Congress. Pastor Pan spoke about his recent experiences in China where he was apprehended and detained for ten days by Chinese State Security and forced to kneel for hours facing the wall. Much to the chagrin of his captors, he gleefully knelt and spent the time praying. Pastor Pan spoke eloquently about the growth of Christianity in China and how important it is that we remember them and pray for them as well as the leaders in China to end the persecution of Christians there. There are now over 100 million Christians in China. “Chinese Christians pray for America all the time because they know the importance of American support in their struggle for religious freedom,” said Pastor Pan.

Jim Geheran, DC Director for Initiatives for China, also spoke briefly at the meeting. He shared with the audience Initiatives for China’s plan for a World Prayer Day early next year for the leaders of China that they may be granted the wisdom to govern all the people of China with respect for their religious, political and civil rights. Prayer Partner and Capitol Hill veteran, Ruth Mizell, spoke personally of her experiences with the Christian Underground Church movement in China. In particular, she reminisced about her acquaintance with the famous Pastor Lin (also known as Pastor Lamb) and her hope to have the renowned Chinese Christian leader with her at the National Prayer Breakfast in January.

Pictured above is Pastor Jon Pan speaking. Seated in the front row are Ruth Mizell (left) and Sara Ballenger, Leader of Capitol Hill Prayer Partners.

New York Times 09-04-2008
BEIJING — A Chinese government committee said Thursday that a rush to build schools during the country’s recent economic boom might have led to shoddy construction that resulted in the deaths of thousands of students during a devastating earthquake in May.

The statement by Ma Zongjin, the chairman of an official committee of experts assessing damage from the May 12 earthquake, is the first time that a representative of the Chinese government has acknowledged that poor construction may have led to the collapses. Until now, officials in Beijing and in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, which suffered the most damage, had said the sheer force of the 7.9-magnitude quake caused the collapses.

The school collapses have become the most politically sensitive issue to emerge in the aftermath of the earthquake. This summer, grieving parents held street protests to challenge local governments and demand that officials conduct proper investigations into construction quality. Local officials felt so threatened by the parents that they ordered the riot police to break up protests — officers even dragged away crying mothers — and offered the parents compensation money in exchange for their dropping their demands.

Many schools in the earthquake zone crumbled while buildings around them remained standing. According to some estimates, as many as 7,000 classrooms collapsed and up to 10,000 students may have died. In all, nearly 70,000 people died in the quake and 18,000 are considered missing; officials now say those still missing are almost certainly dead. The quake was the deadliest natural disaster in China in more than three decades.

(Shiho Fukada for The New York Times–Relatives and friends of those killed in the collapse of a school in Sichuan Province gathered in June. Some estimates said up to 10,000 students might have died.)
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August 29, 2008 Issued by China Aid Association, Inc.

Pastor Bike Mingxuan and wife released from detention but prohibited from returning to Beijing
Photo: Pastor Bike Mingxuan

Henan- CAA has learned that House Church President Bike Zhang Mingxuan and his wife were released by PSB officials on August 29. In a direct phone call from pastor Bike to CAA President Bob Fu, Pastor Bike described the conditions and treatment since his detainment on August 6 of this year. Zhang and his wife were on forced vacation for the past three weeks, and were forced to stay at four different resort locations throughout their detention. Zhang and his wife were accompanied by 15-16 Government officials, including high ranking PSB and RAB leaders including the head of the RAB of Henan Province.
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August 29, 2008 Issued by Human Rights in China
www.hrichina.org

Human Rights in China has learned that, on August 29, the Beijing Municipal Reeducation-Through-Labor Decision Committee rescinded its decision to sentence two elderly women to a year of Reeducation-Through-Labor (RTL) – less than two weeks after the decision was delivered. Wu Dianyuan (吴殿元), 79, and Wang Xiuying (王秀英), 77, were sentenced after applying for permits to demonstrate in the officially designated “protest zones” during the Beijing Olympics.

“Human Rights in China welcomes this action but strongly believes that the original RTL decision was baseless,” said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China. “In the glare of international attention, it seems that even the government itself has acknowledged that this punishment was harsh and inappropriate,” she said.

China’s RTL system has long been widely criticized, not only because it violates international standards of human rights, but also because it is in direct conflict with the Chinese government’s self-professed “rule by law.”

Human Rights in China urges the Chinese government to immediately take practical measures to abolish the RTL system, which tramples on human rights.

08-29-2008
Initiatives for China
Contact: Jim Geheran
Tel: 202-290-1423
initiatives4china@gmail.com
www.initiativesforchina.org

The Beijing Olympics was an impressive event, but not primarily because of the dazzling but highly politicized opening ceremonies, or the feats of Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt, or the fact that China’s athletes earned the largest number of gold medals ever won by a host country’s Olympic team. No, the Olympic Games in Beijing distinguished themselves most by demonstrating how an autocratic system can marshal resources to market itself and try to convince the world of the validity of its illegitimate rule.

Without the consent of Chinese taxpayers, let alone the benefit of the vast majority of Chinese, an estimated $42 to $44 billion was spent by the Chinese government on the Olympics—a total more than the cost of the previous five Olympic Games combined. In May of this year, Sichuan province was struck by a devastating earthquake which killed nearly 70,000 people and left another 5 million homeless. At that time, China’s government estimated that it would cost $147 billion for reconstruction—including rebuilding 3,400 primary schools and strengthening another 2,600. Today the fund for this endeavor amounts to $10 billion. I wonder how the homeless and the parents of the children who died mainly because their school buildings were poorly built by the government in Wen-chuan Earthquake viewed the pageantry of the $44 billion dollar Olympics?

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