August 13, 2000

[Rabbi David Saperstein is past chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and present Director of the Religious Action Center of the Reform Judaism]

"...This struggle for freedom is not just the struggle of the practitioners, not just the struggle of those of you who are believers, but it's the struggle of every caring, thoughtful, and committed human being who believes that freedom, including religious freedom, is the ultimate destiny of all humankind. It is that fundamental belief that has brought us together..."

I'm David Saperstein.

I represent the Reform Jewish Movement here in Washington [DC] - the largest segment of American Jewry -- and I serve as a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. I stand here today representing the Jewish Community's concerns about this for reasons that should be almost self-evident.

For the Jewish community, religious oppression and religious freedom are indivisible everywhere in the world. We Jews have tragically been the quintessential victims of religious persecution for 3,000 years of Western civilization. From slavery in Egypt through the gas chambers in Nazi Germany, to the efforts at spiritual annihilation of the Jews under the regime of the Soviet Union using many of the same tactics that you see in this film. People who are outlawed from practicing their religion simply, for no other reason than they were practicing their heartfelt beliefs. People were thrown in jail for the practice, people were thrown in jail for the teaching of it. People in jail were often treated as being mentally ill and [the persecutors] tried to define religious activity as a manifestation of mental illness.

The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of many problems, but amongst those, the impact of its effort to deprive its citizens of fundamental human rights and human liberties. These are indivisible rights, from our perspective given to us by our creator. Every human being is endowed with such rights. That is the foundational vision of this great country, the United States. Of all the liberties protected in the Bill of Rights, the first of those liberties is the protection of religious freedom, because of the recognition of the founders of this country. Without religious freedom none of the other freedoms can sustain themselves. Ultimately religious freedom is the litmus test ... for the decency, the openness, the freedoms, the democracy of any nation, anywhere across the globe. On that test, China has failed miserably, identified by the United States as one of the key persecutors of religious groups by being designated as one of the seven countries involved in egregious systemic religious persecution [identified] by the United States government. Indeed Falun Gong, as I indicated in the movie, has become a symbol of the struggle for religious freedom more broadly, in China and elsewhere.

China has proven itself to be an equal opportunity persecutor, ... regarding almost every manifestation of religious life as a threat to China. Now why in particular Falun Gong? I'm sure many of you have your theories. The film I think wisely did not suggest, particularly, any of them, but to me I think one of the reasons is self evident: It is simply the growing widespread belief in the hearts and souls of people, people who are found in the Communist Party, in the government, in the military, in every walk of life. Because truth as you see it has no bounds. It is accessible and available to everyone. That's what the argument and debate of a free marketplace of ideas -- whether those ideas are political ideas or religious ideas -- is all about. And when this [Chinese] government cannot control something, as it cannot control the heartfelt beliefs of all of the religious groups that exist in that country, it regards it as a threat to its existence. It doesn't need to be so. China has nothing to fear from peaceful practitioners if they just let them live out their lives without government interference and oppression.

Instead of strengthening China, in the long run this crackdown fatally weakens China, complicates its foreign relations, it undermines its standing amongst ordinary Chinese citizens. If China wishes for the world's respect, then it must respect the heartfelt beliefs of its own citizens. That's why I am here. China is the largest country in the world. We live in an extraordinary age, where we have seen the expansion of freedom and democracy across the globe in a way that we could have only dreamed about just a generation ago. What China does now will have a profound impact on the world.

This struggle for freedom is not just the struggle of the practitioners, not just the struggle of those of you who are believers, but it's the struggle of every caring, thoughtful, and committed human being who believes that freedom, including religious freedom, is the ultimate destiny of all humankind. It is that fundamental belief that has brought us together. It is that fundamental belief that has hundreds of people, just as we meet here, exercising their freedoms in this country, outside the Chinese embassy. It is that freedom that we will not stop fighting for until it has become real: for all those that practice this belief, and for all God's children everywhere. Thank you.