Recognizes the ongoing abuse by the People's Republic of China of the most basic of human rights.
Urges the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless China makes significant progress to end human rights abuses, including by: (1) ending its one-child policy; (2) halting its persecution of North Korean refugees and releasing humanitarian workers that it has jailed; (3) discontinuing its intimidation of Taiwan's citizens; (4) making public the number of execution that are carried out each year; (5) halting the practice of parading prisoners through the streets prior to executing them; and (6) no longer holding public executions in stadiums filled with spectators.
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 141 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 141
Calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the
venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless the People's Republic of China
makes significant progress in ending human rights abuses.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 28, 2005
Mr. Tancredo (for himself and Mr. Smith of New Jersey) submitted the
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
International Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to change the
venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless the People's Republic of China
makes significant progress in ending human rights abuses.
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China has a long-standing
history of human rights abuses and repressive tactics;
Whereas China began a one-child policy in the late 1970s that has consistently
been based on forced abortion and forced sterilization;
Whereas the United States has for the last three years prohibited United States
funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), charging that
UNFPA's support of China's population planning programs allows Beijing
to implement its policies of coercive abortion;
Whereas according to the Department of State's Report to Congress on China's
Birth Limitation Policy, dated July 15, 2004: ``A new national Law on
Population and Birth-Planning went into effect on September 1, 2002.
This law codifies on a national basis, for the first time, China's long-
standing `one child policy' and specifies a number of government birth-
limitation measures that amount to coercion.'';
Whereas this report further states: ``China continues to employ coercion in its
birth planning program, including through severe penalties for `out of
plan births' . . . UNFPA continues its support and involvement in
China's coercive birth limitation program in counties where China's
restrictive law and penalties are enforced by government officials.'';
Whereas women in China are required to obtain a birth permit from their work
unit or local family planning office before ``legally'' becoming
pregnant;
Whereas so-called ``social compensation'' fees, imposed by the Chinese
Government for violating the one-child policy, range from the equivalent
of one half the local average annual household income to as much as 10
times that level;
Whereas other coercive measures used to enforce China's one-child policy include
loss of employment and cutting off state-funded health care benefits or
education for ``out of plan'' children;
Whereas, despite the apparent attempt by China through its Law on Population and
Birth-Planning to standardize birth-control policies and reduce
corruption and coercion, the Department of State continues to report
that China's one-child family planning program remains a source of
coercion, forced abortions, infanticide, and perilously imbalanced boy-
girl ratios;
Whereas the Department of State further reports: ``A high female suicide rate
continued to be a serious problem. Many observers believed that violence
against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, the
traditional preference for male children, the country's birth limitation
policies, and other societal factors contributed to the especially high
female suicide rate.'';
Whereas other human rights abuses documented by the Department of State include
instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of
prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy
incommunicado detention, and denial of due process;
Whereas human rights groups contend that traditional methods of execution are
being replaced by mobile execution vans in which officials execute
prisoners by lethal injection, harvest their organs without consent
obtained prior to their execution, and then sell the organs for large
amounts of money to foreign patients;
Whereas China engages in forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and
seizing of humanitarian workers, despite China's knowledge that these
refugees face imprisonment, torture, and even possibly execution upon
their return to North Korea;
Whereas the July 2002 United States-China Economic and Security Review
Commission report to Congress stated: ``China is enhancing its
capability to carry out attacks across the Taiwan Strait with its
special operations forces, air forces and navy and missiles forces.'';
Whereas China continues to threaten the security of Taiwan's 23 million
citizens by targeting Taiwan with approximately 500 ballistic missiles
and refusing to renounce the use of force against Taiwan;
Whereas Chinese military officials declared in a December 2004 ``White
Paper'' that China has ``a sacred responsibility'' to ``crush'' a free
and democratic Taiwan ``at any cost'';
Whereas China recently enacted a so-called ``anti-secession law'' authorizing
force against the nation of Taiwan in violation of China's promise to
resolve cross-strait differences peacefully, which unilaterally changes
the status quo and threatens security in the region;
Whereas in awarding the 2008 Olympic Games to China, the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) deceived itself by believing that the Olympic Games
would bring greater transparency to what China claims is its improving
human rights record;
Whereas the Nazi propaganda machine proudly and arrogantly flaunted the 1936
Olympic Games as an example of the leadership of Adolf Hitler and his
Nazi party, and the horrible miscalculation of the IOC lent credibility
to a man and a regime that later slaughtered more than six million Jews;
and
Whereas the IOC made the same mistake again forty-four years later by granting
the 1980 Olympic Games to the Soviet Union, and on the eve of those
games, the host country launched a war with Afghanistan: Now, therefore,
be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress--
(1) recognizes the ongoing abuse by the People's Republic
of China of the most basic of human rights;
(2) requests the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to
acknowledge that the egregious violations of human rights by
China should prevent China from hosting the 2008 Olympic Games;
and
(3) calls on the International Olympic Committee to change
the venue of the 2008 Olympic Games unless China makes
significant progress in ending human rights abuses, including
by--
(A) ending its one-child policy which results in
forced abortions and sterilizations;
(B) halting its violent persecution of North Korean
refugees and releasing humanitarian workers that it has
jailed;
(C) discontinuing its intimidation of Taiwan's 23
million citizens;
(D) making public the number of executions that are
carried out each year;
(E) halting the practice of parading prisoners
through the streets prior to executing them; and
(F) no longer holding public executions in stadiums
filled with spectators, including those which
schoolchildren are required to attend.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on International Relations.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations.
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