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Speech by U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas at July-19 Washington DC Rally
(Hostess: Senator Brownback is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee where he is the ranking member of the Near Eastern and South Asian
Affairs Committee. He served in the Senate since 1996 and has been a heroic
champion of religious freedom for all faiths around the world. Please join me in
welcoming Senator Sam Brownback.)
I am delighted to follow my colleague, Senator Durbin from Illinois and be
able to express my support for the resolution he put forward last year and to
state that I will be joining him with that. We will be working that resolution
out to recognize the horrible situation that is taking place today and condemn
those actions. I believe that religious freedom is in deed is the greatest of
personal freedoms. So I am pleased to join with you today and I thank Freedom
House and the Association of Falun Gong practitioners for hosting this important
event
In some parts of the world your religious identity can be your death warrant.
This should not be so. It shouldn't have happened in the past, it should not
happen today. We should not allow it to continue to occur. I know that many of
your friends and family suffer in China simply because of their religious
identity, because they practice Falun Gong or other peaceful faiths. I am here
today to take a stand for the peaceful practitioners who experience severe
persecution throughout China.
Today we urge international support and recognition for peaceful people such
as these who humbly seek religious liberty. The dignity of each person demands
that no one should be coerced for his religious beliefs. This right is insured
universal and applies to all people. It's our duty to continue to advance the
simple notion that it is an inalienable right, which no one can dictate, not
even government. It is a higher principle protected, divine, precious,
fundamental, universal and vastly personal. Yet according to the shocking
accounts of deaths while in detention, illegal arrest and imprisonment and
torture among other forms of persecution, simple people of faith are paying
dearly for their religious convictions in China.
We gather here today to reaffirm our strong commitment to all people of faith
who seek to express their religious convictions without crushing governmental
interference. We call today for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China
as well as other persecuted religious groups. We ask today for the Chinese
government to end its campaign against the Falun Gong. Stay with it, stay at it.
Posting date: 8/27/2001 |