CHICAGO — On Sunday, March 6 a man named Daniel Lum ran over a man named Tony Hong with his pickup truck outside a recycling center in Los Angeles.
Tony is an Epoch Times employee who was videotaping Mr. Lum as he prepared to recycle thousands of copies of The Epoch Times he had stolen that day.
A team had monitored Mr. Lum for eleven straight days, documenting his movements as every day he stole thousands of copies of the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times and then drove off to make a few extra dollars by recycling them.
Mr. Lum was not in it for the recycling. He did not touch other free Chinese language papers that were there for the taking. He only stole The Epoch Times . Mr. Lum's full-time job was to keep the people of L.A. from having the chance to read our newspaper.
Mr. Lum is not alone. The Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times has had problems with thefts of its newspapers in major cities here in the U.S. since it began publishing over four years ago.
Why do these thefts occur? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot tolerate anyone printing the truth about the lies and terror it uses to rule China. In China, a journalist who dares to print an honest story may quickly end up in jail, or worse. Here in the U.S., Epoch Times' staff suffer personal harassment, are barred by Chinese Consulate officials from attending public events, and often find that potential advertisers are warned away from doing business with us.
What has happened to The Epoch Times has also happened to New Tang Dynasty T.V. (NTDTV). NTDTV has reported hundreds of instances of harassment, acts all too familiar to those of us at The Epoch Times . Chinese government officials have prevented NTDTV from covering public US-China events in the United States, harassed advertisers and supporters, blocked NTDTV program acquisition, and threatened potential business partners.
Of course, these acts of harassment against NTDTV and The Epoch Times are often against the law here in the U.S. But the CCP is no respecter of the rule of law. The hostility of the CCP to a free press is part of a general hostility towards the institutions of a free society.
This hostility is something that should concern every American. It is not just that the CCP's officials and agents break our laws and attempt to suppress the activities of law-abiding companies like The Epoch Times and NTDTV here in the United States.
The CCP also aims to change the standards and the behavior of western media companies, the same companies that those of us here in the U.S. depend on for our news and information.
Consider that Yahoo, after signing a contract with China, agreed to censor itself inside China.
Google agreed to alter its search functions so that internet users inside China would never know the government was blocking their access to large numbers of sites.
Rupert Murdoch famously bragged that satellite t.v. would transform China, but when his Chinese paymasters demanded he pull the BBC off his STAR t.v., he did so without a whimper.
CISCO systems and other U.S. IT companies have designed for Beijing's Internet police tools that allow them to monitor and censor the internet in a way that had previously been thought impossible.
And then there is Eutelsat, the European satellite company eager to pull NTDTV off the air for the sake of gaining fat Chinese broadcast contracts.
In all of these cases, giant, powerful western media companies are eagerly abandoning the standards of free and democratic countries in order to serve the authoritarians in Beijing. These media companies are not transforming the tyranny in China; they are themselves adopting the ways of tyranny. How long before these powerful companies begin to bring home the lessons learned in far away China?
The fight of NTDTV to preserve its broadcasts into China is a fight that all Americans have a stake in. This is not a Chinese issue. This is about the future of our own freedom.
When NTDTV brings the Chinese people honest news, not propaganda, and teaches the Chinese people about democracy and freedom, it is vindicating and defending the principles our nation is based on.
When Eutelsat offers to sell out NTDTV, it joins the CCP in becoming an enemy to freedom—not just freedom in China, but everywhere.
We in the U.S. need to realize what is at stake in the fight of this little company NTDTV. We need to understand that NTDTV's fight is our fight. And we need to give it our support.
Call your Congressman today. Tell your Congressman: support NTDTV, and make very sure our government does not support companies that prefer tyranny to freedom.
Thank you.
This statement was read by a representative of The Epoch Times at a press conference held on Thursday, May 19 in Chicago, Illinois.
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