My friend David loves to tell me how his family enjoys the Christmas season and how it is his wife’s most wonderful time of the year – their children come home and their house is filled with joyful laughter. David’s home represents how millions of ordinary American families celebrate and enjoy Christmas in the United States. Thanks to God, I can celebrate Christmas in this beautiful country where “God shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.”
Freedom has never been free. Back in my home country of China, those heroes fighting for human rights are put on trial and imprisoned precisely during the Christmas season. According to a report by Benjamin Hass from The Guardian (December 24, 2016), the Chinese government deliberately sentences prominent human rights activists during the Christmas period, because “the government doesn’t want international attention and they don’t want foreign observers, so they go to extreme lengths to avoid international scrutiny of these show trials.”
Dec. 21: Xie Yang – an attorney, tried on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “disrupting court order”
Four days before Christmas, Xie Yang, a 44-year-old lawyer, had his case transferred to the prosecutor’s office in preparation for him to be tried on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “disrupting court order.” Attorney Xie had been arrested since July 2015, as part of a nationwide sweep that saw more than 300 lawyers and activist detained in what some have called a “war on law.” Although the Chinese President – the head of the Chinese Communist Party – had made strengthening the “rule of law” a hallmark of his regime, law is just used as a tool to smear and jail human rights lawyers and activists.
The price Attorney Xie paid for representing politically sensitive cases was torture and prison. It’s been reported that the police hanged him from the ceiling and repeatedly beat him. In detention, he was held with inmates charged with crimes eligible for the death penalty, who beat him with shackles. His wife, a professor of chemical engineering at Hunan University, was banned to travel abroad by the Chinese government. The authorities claimed that it would “endanger national security” if she left the country. As a defense attorney, Mr. Xie represented many political dissidents who were imprisoned by the Chinese government. Before being sent to jail, his clients had been actively involved in human rights activities, such as supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests and advocating a democratic China through non-violent approach in the New Citizens’ Movement.
Dec. 23: Jiang Tianyong – a Christian rights lawyer, forced disappearance before Christmas
Christmas was round the corner, but Mrs. Jiang, who lives in the United States, could not reach her husband in China. Mr. Jiang had been missing since before Thanksgiving (November 21, 2016). He is a 45-year-old Christian lawyer known for defending Tibetans, petitioners, Falun Gong adherents, HIV/AIDS victims, and other vulnerable groups. On December 23, 2016, the Chinese authorities suddenly announced that they were investigating this prominent Christian rights lawyer on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.”
Jiang’s wife moved to the United States three years ago. She and her husband had not been able to celebrate Christmas since 2012, because of harassment from the police. This is the first Christmas she had not been able to speak to her husband. Mrs Jiang, choking back tears, told the reporter “He used to call and send photos every year and tell me how much he missed me, he didn’t want me to feel alone on Christmas, but this year we don’t even know where he is, and we fear he may spend Christmas being tortured.”
Dec. 25: Liu Xiaobo – Nobel peace prize winner, sentenced to 11 years in prison on Christmas Day 2009
The most infamous case during the Christmas season probably is the trial of Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Christmas Day 2009. Mr. Liu was born on December 28, 1955. When he was young, he studied literature and philosophy, and worked as a literary critic and university lecturer in Beijing. He obtained a doctorate degree in 1988, after which he was a guest lecturer at universities in Europe and the USA. He took part in the student protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989. For that, he was sentenced to two years in prison. Later, he served three years in a labor camp for criticizing China’s one-party system.
For over two decades, Mr. Liu has fought for a more open and democratic China. He demands that the Chinese authorities comply with Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution, which states that the country’s citizens enjoy “freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” In reality, the Chinese government never respects this law. Mr. Liu won the Nobel Prize for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China, but this Christmas marked his eighth year in prison and he will be behind bars for another three years.
Dec. 26: Chen Yunfei – an artist and human rights advocate, sentenced on Boxing Day
On Boxing Day, Mr. Chen Yunfei, a 48-year-old artist who uses the performing arts to criticize the Communist Party, was sentenced to prison. As an outspoken human rights activist, Mr. Chen organized a memorial for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre during the holiday (April 5) in which Chinese traditionally pay respects to the dead. For his brave deed he was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Before the trial, he had been imprisoned for 21 months, almost two years.
The charge “picking quarrels” was a creation of the Chinese dictators. In 2013, the so-called top legal bodies in China expanded the definition of this charge to include online writing. Mr. Chen was accused of taking advantage of having tens of thousands of followers on Twitter to “start rumors about and libel against our country’s political system on the internet many times.” Ironically, Twitter is banned and blocked in China. Needless to say, the Chinese Communist Party has wielded the charge of “picking quarrels” as a legal weapon against liberal voices on the internet and as a crafty way to silence people who protest against the evil regime.
Photo By Tom Philips from The Telegraph – Chen Yunfei, left, with Song Xiuling and Wu Dingfu, the mother and father of Tianamnen victim Wu Guofeng
Prayer request
There is an increasing disclosure of human rights activists put on trial during the Christmas season in China. Last year, free speech champion Pu Zhiqiang was given a three-year suspended sentence on December 22, and Yang Maodong and Sun Desheng were both convicted during an all-night trial at the time of the American Thanksgiving holiday in November 2015.
While in the U.S. we enjoy certain unalienable human rights endowed by God, we should not forget those brothers and sisters who are fighting for freedom in China.
I encourage you to join me in prayer for those political dissidents persecuted by the Chinese government, and for the many families that have lost their beloved who have been tirelessly fighting for our fundamental human rights.