The Relay for Human Dignity
As a teenager in Christian Endeavour, I was deeply moved when a former missionary to China, Mr H.A.G.Clark, explained how the Christian missionaries in China had been expelled after the Communist take over in 1948 and what was happening to the persecuted Christians left behind. Especially Pearl Anderson. Pearl was a nurse, who had been adopted by Mr and Mrs Albert Anderson, Churches of Christ missionaries in China, after she was abandoned as a baby.
During the persecution she worked in rice paddies, up to her waist in freezing water on a prison farm for Christians. She was there for years. I helped collect money and we managed to send it through Hong Kong, to trusted Christians who eventually got it to her and enabled her to buy an overcoat. Eventually she was released. We continued to pray for her for over forty years, and the young abandoned baby boy she adopted. A Christian builder in Melbourne, Frank Richards, aided by some great detective work, discovered Pearl in China, and brought Pearl and her son to Australia. Her son graduated from University and Pearl eventually went into a retirement home in Melbourne. To meet her was the fulfilment of a life long prayer.
Concern for Pearl flowed over into prayer for all persecuted Christians in China. I was not able to do much more than that until 1997 and 1998. Then with help from the Bible League, my wife and I with Martin Johnson from Wesley Mission, joined with a group smuggling thousands of Bibles into China for the under-ground Christians. Although border guards caught some of our group, we got through and travelled by train the length and breadth of China delivering the Bibles to persecuted Christians.
I was well known among Christians both in the Three Self Patriotic Movement Church and in the underground churches as over one and a half million copies of my three books printed in Chinese in China, had been purchased by Christians. I believe each one was passed around to many more Christians. University students in the University of Beijing met in illegal evening meetings while I conducted Bible studies. We were followed and chased by the religious police as we sought to elude them in back streets.
Martin Johnson had produced some 46 films with me over the years in a dozen countries but making a film (which was strictly prohibited by the Government) of the persecuted Christians posed some special difficulties. But through clandestine meetings, diversionary taxi trips, and help from underground Christians we attended secret services and filmed the testimony of brave pastors who had been imprisoned for 26 years, denied human rights and tortured for their faith. It was all true. Their bodies bore the scars. The film, “Inside the Great Wall” was a riveting documentary. It was filmed entirely on location in Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Great Wall, The Temple of Heaven, Beijing University, some Three Self Patriotic Movement Churches and the illegal underground churches.
Other Christians remain in prison and slave labour camps making products sold in our chain stores, with wives and children left behind to face poverty. I discovered in China that not only were Christians suffering persecution, but also members of a religious cult known as Falun Gong practitioners. Since then I have worked for their human rights as well.
A sickening step in the persecution was taken when reports, later verified at the highest level, were published in the West claiming human body parts, including kidneys, eye corneas, livers, hearts and lungs were taken from many of these persecuted prisoners for sale by the Government to mainly Western wealthy people who ordered the parts. The bodies of the unwilling donors were cremated immediately.
A Global Human Rights Torch Relay inspired by the Olympic torch was lit in Greece on Thursday 9 August 2007 and is travelling around the world to put human rights on the agenda in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Over 25 countries and more than 100 cities will be taking part in this torch relay that is going to span five continents. Initiators of the torch, a coalition of people who came together over concerns about organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China, include former Canadian secretary of state David Kilgour, and former Australian Human Rights Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski.
Sydney was the location for 21 world leaders to discuss issues of trade and economics at the Sydney APEC Summit. Some of us were determined that human rights must be pushed into the APEC agenda. So we organized a huge protest march through the streets of Sydney surrounded by the massive presence of police. There was no violence as there was with other protests during the APEC Summit.
On Wednesday 5 September it was my privilege to present humanitarian awards in memory of some who had died in prison. I hosted a free public forum on “Balancing the Scales with China” at Parliament House. International experts such as The Hon. David Kilgour (Former Crown Prosecutor and Member of Canadian Parliament for 26 years), Dr Wang Juntao (Political Scientist and key Chinese pro-democracy figure), Mr. David Matas, Esq. (Renowned Canadian Human Rights lawyer, Senior Legal Counsel and author of the independent “Report into Allegations of Harvesting Falun Gong Practitioners in China”), Mr. Erping Zhang (Executive Director of the Association for Asian Research USA), and Dr Elliott Fan (Research Fellow from Australian National University) discussed current issues which have global repercussions.
Over 500 people attended the three public forums held throughout the day. Local media as well the international press were present to hear the ongoing human rights abuse in China. We have received considerable media publicity with major media publications such as the Daily Telegraph, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Agence France-Presse reporting the human rights event.
Australia and the world are looking to China with both excitement and fear. Financial anticipation is tied to the boom of the Chinese economy, yet quality of consumer goods, an increasing military build-up and unceasing reports of human rights abuses are a range of growing concerns. The need to understand China, economically, socially, and politically is becoming essential for a growing number of Australians. Spiritually, the country will be a key factor in the future.
At the forum I said, “This forum is available to all members of the public and is not in opposition to APEC. Rather, it is an opportunity to raise issues that are not – but should be – on the APEC agenda. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and their human rights record should be addressed at this time. This is an opportunity to give voice to those who are persecuted and denied the basic human rights in China. If Australia is serious about upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we should use this opportunity”.
International expert speakers presented a horrifying litany of human rights abuses occurring in China today. It was little wonder a week before the President of China arrived in Sydney, the Chinese Embassy sent high-level officials to the Parliament to put immense pressure on the Premier and the President of the Parliament to stop the protest. Both refused to do so. It is a 600 year right of the Westminster System of Parliamentary Democracy, that concerned citizens have the right to enter Parliament House to discuss matters of concern with their Parliamentarian. That is what is not allowed in China. During our protest, Chinese men in suits videoed and photographed everyone participating. Thank God we are free to discuss important universal values such as human rights and to protest against the escalation of violence and fear in order to restore and protect the principles of democracy and human rights especially to our largest trading partner.
But as a Christian, why should I care about a non-Christian religious sect called the Falun Gong? Because as a young Christian I heard Pastor Martin Niemoller, who had been a hero and a U-Boat Commander in World War I, and who had stood up against Adolf Hitler’s suppression of human rights. After years in the Nazi concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and Dachau, he became a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people. I heard him say:
“They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
This is a time for all people concerned with the human rights of all people to stand up and speak out.
REV. THE HON. DR. GORDON MOYES, A.C., M.L.C.