From Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition
February 29, 2008

On Monday, February 25, 2008, Wei Jingsheng wrote a letter to Mia Farrow and her son Ronan Farrow. Mia Farrow is the movie star best known to the Chinese audience for her beautiful performance in "Sound of Music" as the eldest daughter of the six children of Captain von Trapp, and humanitarian especially for her internationally well known effort to bring awareness to and to stop the Genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan in the last several years.

On February 27, 2008, Mia Farrow wrote Wei Jingsheng the following warm response:

Dear Ciping Huang,

Thank you so very much for forwarding this remarkable letter from Wei Jingsheng. I will be proud to place it on my website along with his biography - the biography of a hero.

It is wonderful to hear the true voice of China ringing loud and clear. May I express my deep respect and my solidarity with the people of China.

With hope,

Mia Farrow

They have exchanged several rounds of letter since then. The following is the letter from Wei Jingsheng to Mia Farrow which has already been posted on her website MiaFarrow.org. The site contains very comprehensive material including first-hand writings and vivid photos about Darfur, its people and their suffering, a collective effort lead by Mia, her children and others. We hope all especially Chinese people visit her site to learn and to support her powerful message of peace and humanitarianism.

Dear Mia Farrow and Ronan Farrow:

For a long time, you have been fighting for human rights in the Darfur region. You are condemning the Sudanese government, which is directly responsible for the genocide; for the loss of hundreds of thousands of human lives there. At the same time, you have cried out to people of justice in the international community, to collectively intervene in the disastrous situation inside Sudan. Your precious effort has gained success recently. A respectful artist, Mr. Spielberg, acting upon his conscience has now refused to be a director for the performance show in the Beijing 2008 Olympics because the Beijing Communist regime is a major supporter of the Sudanese government.

I fully support you and Mr. Spielberg's action and wish to show my respect for your courage and conscience!

Wherever human rights are endangered, the speakers for the local authorities have a common tune: it is an internal affair, do not intervene. But you know the truth: human rights issues are never an isolated, local or internal affair. Especially with today's advance of the world civilization, it can be no small issue when a government openly suppresses the peoples' basic human rights of freedom, including that of religion, assembly, speech and press, by using prison, exploitation, and even genocide against those of different nationality or faith. Anyone with conscience witnessing such injustice will be forced to act. We fully understand you, respect you, and support all your efforts for the human rights in Darfur, to save peoples' lives by putting pressure on the Beijing regime.

The fact that so far the Chinese communist government has refused to do anything to ease the crisis in Darfur, even refusing to address the issue or reply to the international world, is consistent with its own record. It has been brutally suppressing human rights in China for nearly 59 years. It has committed numerous criminal movements or campaigns against humanity, resulting in tens of millions starved or un-natural deaths and persecuted millions of political prisoners. Today, with more sophisticated weapons and equipment, the Beijing regime is doing more and more to monitor, block, and suppress any free thought or speech inside China. More dissidents, or prisoners of conscience, are brutally jailed, tortured or sentenced without fair trial, if any trial at all. Under the communist government, workers in China now have no real union, no right to bargain, and no basic salary; child laborers, slave laborers, and farmer-turned workers are in even worse situations.

The Beijing communist regime practices hatred toward all the freedom-oriented societies. It uses various methods, such as distorted propaganda, cheating, spying, bribery, and economic threat, to gain profit for the dictatorship regime. Toward countries like Sudan, the Beijing regime could care less regarding human rights there, as long as it can share profit from blood. After all, they two are real friends in many ways. Beijing wants to be a part of the global economy, but does not want to take global responsibility.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said to the suppressed or suffering, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Dear Ronan Farrow and dear Mia Farrow:

We are very happy to say that you are not silent. Mr. Spielberg is not silent. We shall never be silent! Your influence and loud voice, from your deep conscience, demonstrated the power of justice from the international community. You are friends for human rights. Your action encouraged all of us to continue to fight for the human rights in the world. Your action, we believe, will awake more friends from silence. Please allow me to take this opportunity to call on the international community, all the peace loving friends, governments, authorities, business organizations, artists, scholars, all the people of conscience and justice, to unite. Let us pay attention to the situations in Darfur, Sudan, and the Olympics 2008, Beijing. Let us shout out in one voice: stop the killing!

Long live human rights!

-- WEI Jingsheng
Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition