A Joint Statement Upon the Establishment of China Human Rights Accountability Center

A Joint Statement Upon the Establishment of

China Human Rights Accountability Center

January 10, 2017

On December 23, 2016, President Obama signed into law “The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.” The law authorizes the U.S. president to levy sanctions against foreign nationals who engage in the following acts: significant corruption, extrajudicial killings, torture, violation of international human rights covenants, and persecution of those who expose government corruption or seek to defend internationally recognized human rights. 

The mechanisms it provides to the president to carry out such sanctions include prohibiting or revoking U.S. entry visas or other entry documentation; freezing and prohibiting U.S. property transactions of an individual if such property and property interests are in the United States, come within the United States, or are in or come within the control of a U.S. person or entity.

The absence of democratic election and rule of law, and the lack of checks and balances, breed corruption. As a result, power and money work hand in hand to pillage the people and the society.

The Chinese communist regime is unrestrained in violating China’s own law and internationally recognized human rights standards. Its barbaric attack on civil society actors is widely known; forced disappearances, torture in custody, illegal and arbitrary detention, and use of severe prison terms have become routine.

While the regime acts at will to violate its own laws or alter them as it sees fit, it has also established an extralegal apparatus dedicated to human rights persecution, systematically targeting rights defenders.

The Chinese Communist regime uses the promise of profit to turn interest groups in China into violators of human rights — and these human rights violators in turn operate under the shelter of the regime, never punished for their transgressions.

As human rights defenders, we will use this new U.S. law, as well as similar laws that have been and will be passed in other countries, as a tool to bring sanctions against Chinese human rights violators and corrupt officials.

We hereby announce the joint establishment of the China Human Rights Accountability Center (中国人权问责中心).

The Center will conduct the following tasks:

1. Collect cases, data, and evidence on Chinese human rights violators and corrupt officials;
2. Write reports based on such data and evidence;

3.   Push the U.S. government to enforce the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, to ensure that specific and effective sanctions are taken against human rights violators;

4. Promote the establishment of similar human rights accountability legislation in other democratic countries.

       

The work of the office will be conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Washington, D.C.

                                                           

Founders (not in order of importance):

Yaxue Cao (曹雅学), Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁), Yang Jianli (杨建利), Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), Teng Biao (滕彪), Han Lianchao (韩连潮), Bob Fu (傅希秋), Fang Zheng (方政), Hu Jia (胡佳),Tong Mu (童木). 

(The official website is under construction. Inquiries may be sent to renquanwenze@gmail.com)