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Wei Jingsheng's Open Letter to Der Deutscher Bundestag (National Parliament of Germany)
Chinascope October 12, 2008
On September 24, Germany’s government-funded international broadcaster
Deutsche Welle (DW) revoked Zhang Danhong’s official title as the deputy chief
of its Chinese division after her public defense for Beijing’s human rights
policy and Internet censorship. Four days before the Beijing Olympics, Zhang
hailed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) practice of article three of
Universal Declaration of Human Rights unmatched by any other political force.
She also likened Beijing’s blocking of Falun Gong and Tibetan movement websites
to Germany’s restriction on child pornography or right-wing extremist sites. She
has since been taken off the air by DW. On October 1, 2008, Wei Jingsheng, a
long-time activist in the Chinese democracy movement, wrote a letter to the
German Parliament (cc US Congress and National Assembly of
France)
Respectful members of the German Parliament,
The
Deutsche Welle (the German Wave) is a broadcasting station fully funded by the
country of Germany. Yet, we have learned recently that not only do the Chinese
programs broadcast by Deutsche Welle lack attention to Chinese human rights, but
also the station even employed a pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) person as
editor, who would defend Chinese human rights abuses for the Chinese Communist
Party.
1. In many countries, there are directly funded broadcasts to
other countries. The purpose of these broadcasts is to introduce the political,
economic and cultural lives of these countries, as well as propagate the
ideologies of these countries. Just like other similar broadcasting services in
Europe and America, the Deutsche Welle were born a half century ago as a
declaration of democracy against dictatorship. Therefore, Deutsche Welle (DW),
Radio France Internationale (RFI), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and
Voice of America (VOA) became the important windows for the democratic world to
propagate information to the dictatorial countries. These broadcasting services
made incalculable contributions to the peaceful revolutions in the Eastern
Europe in 1989. People will never forget that it was you who gave moral support
and spiritual encouragement to the people of Eastern Europe during the most
difficult time of dictatorial rule, and thus enabled them to crush the
dictatorship, walking toward democracy.
2. Very unfortunately, with the
ease of the Cold War, especially the development of economic globalization, some
politicians and business enterprises of the democratic countries have given up
the political and moral support to the people of the developing countries
(especially the dictatorial countries), for their short-term economic benefits.
Reviewing the programs at DW, RFI, BBC, VOA, even RFA (Radio Free Asia) in these
years has often made me disappointed and angry. Some people willingfully support
the idea of “economic exchanges to bring political reforms”. They are even
willing to accommodate dictatorial governments in an effort to maintain
association with these governments, and thus take a low-key treatment of the
human rights abuses by them. This approach severely damaged the Chinese people's
confidence for human rights and freedom.
3. Nowadays, the Chinese
Communist Party has stepped up its human rights abuses. This increase is already
sufficient to prove that the theory of “economic exchanges to bring political
reforms” is totally wrong. “To exchange” with the CCP dictatorial government has
in fact pushed the CCP to be even more dictatorial, and thus to suppress the
Chinese people unbridled. The CCP has been putting the wealth it controls into
its armaments to threaten the peace in Asia on the one hand, while on the other
hand to play “diplomacy of business orders” in an effort to prevent democratic
societies to condemn its tyranny against its people. The CCP uses hundreds of
thousands of Internet police for information blockage. Furthermore, the CCP
invested a great deal of money to seal or buy out overseas Chinese media in
various forms. So this “Zhang DanHong incident” at Deutche Welle is not an
accidental incident, but a big exposure of how the CCP has infiltrated the
media. After it was reported by the German news media, the CCP promoted an
Internet protest movement to fan up Chinese' nationalism against the West. This
is a very dangerous omen. After 60 years of dictatorship by the CCP, social
conflict has been increased to such a degree that even the CCP itself has
totally given up communism, so only nationalism becomes the open spiritual
weapon for the CCP to use. The CCP wants to use nationalism to shift the focus
of the Chinese people, in an effort to reduce the social conflict that could
explode any time inside of China. People should remember what deep disaster
nationalism brought to the world during World War II. Now this disastrous bomb
is in the hand of the CCP. And just like before World War II, it has received
support by some Western politicians.
4. We have never given hope to a
dictatorial government. We put our hope on the shoulders of the Chinese people.
However, just like that peaceful revolution in the Eastern Europe, without the
wakening of the Chinese people, without the support of the international
society, the Chinese Communist government would not make any political
compromises. Thus, the Chinese will not be able to peacefully realize democracy
and human rights. Therefore, we need more importance placed on the voice of the
international society to the Chinese democracy and human rights movement. The
theory and experience of human rights and democracy should be the main theme of
the international Chinese broadcasting services and Internet websites.
Unfortunately, Deutche Welle, Radio France Internationale, British Broadcasting
Corporation, Voice of America, and Radio Free Asia have done far less than
enough. In particular, Deutche Welle, as an organization fully supported by
German taxpayers, went the wrong way. It was supposed that the Chinese people
could hear more truthful information from this radio, in an effort to supplement
the lack of information and errors due to the blockage by the Chinese Communist
Party. But the reality is that, the Chinese government heard distorted voice, a
voice in defending the CCP's tyranny, a voice that was helping the Chinese
government to block information and betray its audience, a voice making the
Chinese audience to think that the country of Germany is in support of the
tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party.
German Parliament must give full
attention to this “Zhang DanHong incident” in Deutche Welle and give a
throughfully investigation of the related personnel and adjust the Chinese
broadcasting programs at Deutche Welle as well. Both program arrangements and
personnel arrangements must take the principle of promoting Chinese democracy
and human rights, with the purpose of being to supplement of the blocked
information by the CCP, instead of being a repeat and supplement of the false
propaganda of the CCP. Hereby, I am also sincerely hoping that Deutche Welle
could be waked up from this lesson, to assure that promoting human rights to be
not only the guideline of the German constitution, but also the spirit of
Deutche welle. It would not just be beneficial to the Chinese for China to
realize democracy, but also beneficial to all the people of the
world.
Sincerely yours,
Wei Jingsheng In Washington, DC Cc:
US Congress and National Assembly of France [1] The Wei Jingsheng
Foundation, October 1,
2008 http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2008/report2008-10/GermanParliament081001WeiJSopenletterA413-W223.htm
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