The Student Life (Pomona College, Claremont, CA): Pomona Student visits UN High Commission on Human Rights

Last week, at the invitation of the human rights Non-Governmental Organization International Educational Development, I attended the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCHR) annual meeting in Geneva.

I met delegates from various countries, attended discussions led by UN human rights experts, and spoke to the representatives of NGOs from around the world. I was impressed by the genuine commitment of many of these people to ensure that every person on this planet, regardless of gender, nationality or race enjoys certain basic rights. But there was one person in particular whose courage and determination to speak out really inspired me. Her name is Ying Chen.

About a year and a half ago, a policeman arrived at Ying's home in China and requested that she accompany him back to the police station because his supervisors had some questions to ask her. He promised it would take no more than 20 minutes, so she agreed. But instead, when she arrived at the police station, she was sentenced to one year in a forced labor camp.

She was given no lawyer, no trial, no possibility to appeal, not even the chance to call her family and tell them where she was. Why was she sent to a labor camp? Because the police had found out she practiced Falun Gong, a Chinese mind-body meditation and spiritual practice.

The practice was banned in China nearly five years ago when the number of adherents surpassed the membership of the Communist Party. Former Party Chairman Jiang Zemin felt it was a threat to his power and initiated a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice.

Soon after Ying arrived at the labor camp she was taken to a room, handcuffed to the window and injected with an unknown drug. Afterwards, she could not think clearly and the left side of her body was numb. She was then forced to work over 18 hours a day, wrapping chopsticks for export. She had to ask permission to go to the bathroom and even then it was only a three-minute break. In the morning, everyone got only five minutes to wash. At night, Falun Gong practitioners were often not allowed to sleep and instead were forced to attend brainwashing classes, where camp guards tried to force them to give up their beliefs.

After a year, Ying was finally released and a few months ago, thanks to a fashion school she applied to in Paris, she was able to leave China and move to France. It was only after coming to France and reading stories of other people who had been tortured in China that she recalled what had happened to her. To this day, she still has pain and spasms in the left side of her body from the drug with which she was injected.

What amazed me about Ying was her determination to recover from her experience so that she could tell people about it and hopefully help the thousands of people who are still suffering in labor camps in China, be they Christians, Tibetans, AIDS advocates, Internet users or Falun Gong practitioners.

One would never guess that this well dressed, calm, and kind woman had, just a few months ago, been held up in a labor camp. It was evident that speaking about her experience was difficult for her, tears would come to her eyes and she would have to stop and collect her thoughts sometimes before she could continue. But she always continued.

When I thought about the recent events on campus and the discussions about not being silent in the face of hatred and intolerance, Ying's commitment not to remain silent inspired me. Speaking out against hatred and intolerance should not stop at Foothill Blvd. We need to speak out against hate wherever it breeds. In many ways, that is what the UNHCHR meeting was about.

One other thing I realized after spending a week hearing stories like Ying's is how lucky we are to be able to speak out, to be able to hold open discussions and not need to worry that the government is listening and might come and arrest us at any minute. I hope we can use this freedom not just to make our community safer, but also to help people in communities around the world feel safe in their own homes.

http://island.pomona.edu/tsl/article.aspx?articleID=277