Sample Letter to President Hu Jintao of China
His Excellency, President Hu Jintao
State Council Secretariat
Zhongnanhai
Beijingshi 100017
People's Republic of China
Your Excellency:
I am writing to express my grave concern and disappointment with China's continuing human rights violations and to urge your government to keep the promises it made while bidding for the right to host the 2008 Olympics.
In violation of the UN Convention on Refugees to which China is a signatory, your government continues to arrest and repatriate North Korean refugees, knowing that the Christians among them will perish in Kim Jong-il's concentration camps and that the babies of the women who became pregnant after being sexually enslaved in China will be killed.
Your government not only is the largest financier and arms supplier to the Sudanese government and Janjaweed who have killed 400,000 people, displaced 2.5 million and burnt 3,000 villages in Darfur, but also uses its veto threat in the UN Security Council to protect the perpetrators of this genocide against UN resolutions.
In violation of China's own Constitution, your government continues to repress Chinese Christians who refuse to join the deviant Three Self Patriotic Movement, as well as journalists, both Chinese and foreign. And in Tibet, your government continues to repress the Tibetan culture and people to extinguish their identity.
Instead of halting these injustices and improving your human rights record ahead of the approaching Olympics as promised, your government is intensifying a crackdown to make them disappear during the Beijing Olympics. It is my strong belief that this unjust and reckless policy will backfire and make your government and China lose face before and during the Games.
For the success of the Beijing Olympics, to save and enhance China's image around the world, and for the good of your people and government, I ask you to please:
1. Stop arresting and repatriating North Korean refugees; allow the UN to access, help and resettle them in other countries.
2. Halt the rape and sexual trafficking of the women and girls among the North Korean refugees by Chinese men.
3. Use your clout with Kim Jong-il to pressure him to close his concentration camps and to stop killing his people.
4. Stop supplying arms to Sudan and impeding UN resolutions against Sudan.
5. Use your clout with Omar al-Bashir to pressure him to stop destroying villages, killing his people and hindering humanitarian aid workers.
6. Allow your citizens, including Christians, to enjoy religious freedom as guaranteed by Article 35 of your Constitution.
7. Halt the repression of the Tibetan culture, society and people.
8. Release imprisoned journalists and stop imprisoning or intimidating them for doing their work.
9. Stop forcing online companies to delete dissident websites and blogs from search results, and allow media organizations to pay reporters reasonable salaries so that they can live on telling the truth instead of pleasing censors.
10. Stop requiring foreign journalists to hire local guides to cover stories outside Beijing, and permanently waive the need to receive local government permission for such coverage.
Thank you in advance for your consideration and decisive action. I hope China will prove to be a successful and genuinely worthy host of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Sincerely yours,