Remarks at Amnesty International Northeast Regional Conference 2007 By Yang, JianliRemarks at Amnesty International Northeast Regional Conference 2007 By Yang, Jianli October 27, 2007 Mr. Rubenstein, Dear Friends, It is with a joyful and thankful heart that I am here to speak to you, the most caring and loving individuals on earth. You are willing to devote their time, energy, resources, intelligence, and God’s given talents to care for other human beings, to rescue and save innocent lives from injustice and unfair treatment around the world. My dear friends, you are doing such a noble work, for which I give you my greatest respect and gratitude. Among the first things my told me when I got out of prison was that during my five year imprisonment in China, Amnesty International issued three Urgent Actions on my behalf, which generated thousands upon thousands of letters and appeals to the Chinese government wherever there is a Chinese Embassy or directly to the Chinese leaders in Beijing. And most precious of all, your postcards reached me in my prison cell. One day, after I was transferred to a new detention center, a prison guard brought me a bag, in it, I found over two hundreds postcards from many countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Taiwan and other places. Most of them had one thing in common: a hand drawing of a burning candle encircled in barbed wire. Tears came down my face as I read them. After about 15 months of solitary confinement, without any thing to read, without a pen to write, totally cut off from any meaningful human contact, you can imagine how much those cards meant to me. Thank you, my dear friends, every one of you, for you brought me light during the darkest hour of my life. I gained great strength upon learning the outpouring of support for me from the outside world, and I was tremendously encouraged to fight for justice and rights from within my cell. I had such courage because I knew that I was not alone, behind me there were thousands of you. Today, I am free, there are still many prisoners of conscience in China, including human rights and democracy activists, independent intellectuals, faithful journalists, human rights lawyers, Falungong practitioners and house church members, Chen Guangcheng, Gao Zhisheng, Wang Bingzhang, Peng Ming, Guo Feixiong, Lu Gengsong?Yang Zili? He Depu, Jia Jianguo, Shi Tao, Zhang Lin, Jing Haike, Xu Wei, Sun Lin…, just to name a few. So my dear friends, please keep up the good efforts and continue to work for freedom and better lives for our brothers and sisters in need. Let’s work together and pray to God that our perseverance will continue to make difference. Thank you! God bless you! -------------------------- ---Distributed by Chinaeweekly.com |