WASHINGTON—The Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of religious believers “delegitimizes the regime,” Sam Brownback, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said on Feb. 2.
“How do you expect that we should have you run the world if this is how you treat your own people?” he told an audience of hundreds on the opening day of the International Religious Summit. “That’s the same thing with what’s taking place with Communist China, how it treats the Falun Gong is more than barbaric—forced organ harvesting.”
Brownback made the remarks alongside summit co-chair Katrina Lantos Swett and Jan Jekielek, senior editor of The Epoch Times.
Jekielek, who moderated the panel, has written a book addressing the issue.
Having seen an advanced copy of the book, Swett described the abuse as “something so chilling and appalling that a lot of people don’t even want to think about.”
“These kinds of barbaric and evil practices—they reveal the character, the underlying character of the adversary,” she said. “They are not an isolated sort of aberration. They are a revelation of the dark evil that lies at the heart of the Chinese communist regime, and their massive repression of every community of faith is another indicator.”
The annual summit, the sixth of its kind, gives a platform to policymakers and activists to promote religious freedom. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Michael Waltz were among the speakers.
Waltz elevated the matter to one of national sovereignty, telling the crowd at the summit that the United States will stand for everyone’s right to worship.
“This has always been, and will always be, a land of religious freedom,” he told an audience of hundreds at the International Religious Summit. “And for any country to think they can attack someone here, intimidate, attack, in some cases, even try to kidnap and take back to their country, is wholly unacceptable. We will not stand for it.”
Speaking Out About Human Rights in China
Sharing the stage with Waltz was former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who has been fiercely critical of China’s human rights record.“When I started to talk about the problems that are happening in Turkey, everybody really supported me. They have my back. It was amazing,” he said at the panel. “But when I started to speak up about China, that support was nowhere near found.”
The about-face, he said, came from fear—fear of losing money from China. After the 2021–2022 season, he received no offers to play for NBA teams, which he attributed to his speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party.
“It’s just disgusting how they can control an American-made organization,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said he’s saddened to see the same fear in Hollywood, on Wall Street, and among world leaders.
“But while they are worried about their economy, on the other side of the world, people are suffering,” he said. “There are so many innocent people in mainland China being persecuted right now—you see Hongkongers, Falun Gong, Mongolians, Uyghurs, Tibetans.”
Grace Jin Drexel is one witness to abuses in China, which has consistently ranked as the world’s most restrictive country with regard to religious freedom.
Authorities banned her father from leaving China in 2018 because he refused to install facial recognition cameras inside the sanctuary of his church.
She hasn’t seen her father for seven years, and in Washington, her family has received threatening phone calls, and suspicious people have followed her, she said.
“I am sometimes fearful. After all, I am seeking to expose and hold to account the second-most powerful nation in the world,” she said. “Yet, as a Christian, I believe that we are asked to take courage and to speak the truth, and that the God who created Heaven and Earth will stand by our side.”
‘Biggest Threat to the Free World’
Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas also experienced retaliation after, at a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute, she denounced Beijing’s mass detention and torture of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.She was exercising freedom of speech, she said. But days after she spoke out, authorities abducted her sister, who has now been in jail for seven years. Recently, when Abbas published a memoir, titled “Unbroken,” two fake copies appeared online under the same name, she said. She said she believes that it’s a character assassination tactic of the Chinese regime.
“This is how far a country goes to silence people who speak up,” she said. “Silence is the oxygen of tyranny, and I refuse to be silent.”
“This is not just a real story,“ she said. ”This is a story of every Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and Hongkongers. Taiwan is a threat next. If we don’t speak out, it will be all of us.”
Freedom, the former NBA player, shared Abbas’s sentiment.
“China is the biggest threat to the free world, and we’ve got to do whatever we can to put that message out there,” he said.
For speaking out, he said, he has lost his career, which he estimated would have garnered about $40 million to $50 million in salaries and potential endorsements. However, he expressed no regrets.
“This is bigger than myself, bigger than NBA, bigger than basketball,” he said. “People are losing their loved ones, losing their lives, and losing their home.”
To deter further abuses, sanctions are necessary, Freedom said.
“Our Western leaders are not putting enough pressure on the Chinese Communist Party, and they’re taking advantage of that,” he said. “Condemnation is not going to work when you’re fighting against the biggest dictatorship in the world.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the NBA for comment but received no response.
