Out of Sight, Out of Mind…
Posted by exodus8one | Filed under Support
The Future of Exodus8one.org and The Gadfly Project
China’s prisoners of conscience:
For a newborn, out-of-sight means out-of-mind. Babies react to objects held in front of their face, but appear to forget about them once they are removed from their field of vision. Oftentimes society is the same way regarding prisoners: out-of-sight-out-of-mind. But now that the Olympic spotlight is off China, it is important that we let the Chinese government know our concern for prisoners of conscience has not diminished but burns on. Please pray for those named below, and consider writing in their support. To read about their stories, click here.
1) Zhang Rongliang, a Protestant pastor, was arrested in December 2004 and sentenced in July 2006 to seven and a half years imprisonment, supposedly for illegal travel abroad. Before all this Rongliang had already spent 12 years in prison during five separate detentions, which reportedly involved torture, including electric shocks.
2) Xu Na spent five years in prison for having lent her apartment to Falun Gong adherents traveling to Beijing to appeal to the authorities for an end to the persecution against them. Na was released in 2006, but while in detention, she was reportedly beaten, deprived of sleep, force-fed, and was tied into uncomfortable positions for hours. When Na was re-arrested at the beginning of this year (Jan 2008), her husband, Yu Zhou, was arrested too but has died in police custody following abuse. Na now faces up to 12 years in prison.
3) Hu Jia: Last Christmas (2007), Jia and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, and their six-week-old daughter (Hu Qianci) were at home with Ms Zeng’s grandmother when 20 policemen burst in, cut their telephone lines and internet connection and arrested Jia. Jia was jailed in April for his blogging, and since then his wife Jinyan and their baby remain under house arrest.
4) Shi Tao is a journalist, arrested November 2004 for using his Yahoo account to send an e-mail to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website. In his email, he summarized a government order directing media organizations in China to downplay the coming anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown 15 years before. In April 2005 Tao was sentenced to a 10-year prison term. His family has been harassed by the authorities. His wife underwent daily questioning by security officials and was persistently pressured to divorce Tao, which she eventually did. Tao’s uncle and brother have been under surveillance and harassed both at work and at home, and his mother is reportedly monitored and harassed as she petitions for her son’s release.
5) Guo Feixiong was arrested September 2006 and sentenced to five years imprisonment on bogus charges of “illegal business activity”. He was also fined 40,000 yuan (over $5,000). Feixiong had provided legal advice in a number of controversial rights defense cases. According to his wife, Zhang Qing, Feixiong has been repeatedly tortured simply because he will not admit to having committed any crime and because he refuses cooperate with the authorities’ interrogations. Methods used by police to extract a confession from Feixiong have included shackling Feixiong’s arms and legs to a bed for weeks at a time, and extended periods of sleep deprivation and worse.
Tags: activism, Activist, Beijing, China, Christianity, communist china, Eddie Romero, exodus 8 one, Exodus8one, exodus8one.org, Gadfly, Gadfly Project, house church, Huigur Muslim, Human Rights, iamgadfly, ICCPR, IOC, Olympic Committee, Olympic Games, Olympics, pastor eddie romero, Persecution, Prisoners, Protest, Ratify, Religion, Summer Olympics, three-self church, Tiananmen Square Protest, Tibetan Buddhists, Underground church
One Response to “Out of Sight, Out of Mind…”
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ezineaerticles » Blog Archive » Out of Sight, Out of Mind… Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 8:44 am[...] Original post by exodus8one [...]
