You’re listening to part two of an interview with the third place winner of the Catholic University Center for Human Rights Annual Human Rights Essay Contest by William Saunders, director of the Center for Human Rights. To read the award winning essays, go to humanrights.catholic.edu

Bill Saunders: The listener should know that this was a short essay. I’m sure Father Ambrose could have written a book about this subject, but it had to be condensed for this short essay contest. This kind of control of the Internet has consequences for religious organizations. What would you say some of those consequences are, Father? What are the problems created by Chinese Communist control of the Internet?

Fr. Ambrose Ekeroku: The implications of the religious freedom violations by this kind of censorship that the Chinese government is perpetrating on its citizens is the fact that it is directly targeted against those who seek to practice and spread a religion. Any kind of religion except for the official Confucianism, as the government feels that it aligns with the goal and the aim and objectives of the CCP. It’s a negative and unfavorable stance that the Chinese government has taken on religion by censoring religious individuals, including teachers. Certain literatures are not allowed in the country, and then they don’t want to have anything that believe or they have judged to not concur with the CCP

The implication is that it’s violating these most fundamental human rights, the right to worship, the right to freedom, the right to freedom of information as well. This has affected the Catholic Church in a very fundamental way as the Catholic Church is united all over the world; although there are different Catholic Churches, they are all under the leadership of the Holy Father. The Catholic Church in China is configured differently. The Vatican had to make certain concessions and the government has a lot of a stranglehold, I should say, on the Catholic Church and its operations and its organization in China. This is not what is supposed to be, because the Catholics there are not allowed to worship God as they’re supposed to be or do and as other Catholics in other parts of the world do.

That is just one of the many instances. You also have some extremist groups; one example would be your Muslim community that were prevented from making holy pilgrimage to Mecca, citing that it might bring religious extremism. There are so many religious leaders who are being detained or who are incarcerated in different prisons because they disseminated religious teachings, and that implies that the CPC is completely in control over the entire population of China. That’s a very terrible stance for any government to take to have complete control of how the people should worship or whether they should worship at all or nothing.

Bill Saunders: That’s a good description. People listening should understand that what the CCP is doing is a violation of international human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in various treaties that guarantee religious freedom, not only to worship in your church, but to manifest your religion in the community. Father, given these human rights abuses, what can Americans who are listening to this, or maybe somebody in Nigeria will be listening to this, what can they do? What can they do to try to help here?

Fr. Ambrose Ekeroku: Thank you very much, Professor Saunders. I’m glad you mentioned what people outside of China could do, because most of the people in this situation cannot help themselves. Some of them are very frightened of either being persecuted, going to prison, or being fined. In effect, those who can help them in this situation are those from the outside, the international community. This is not just those in America alone. It is something that the whole world needs to rise up and condemn and find ways to assist our brothers and sisters in this situation in China.

The plight of these religious practitioners in China has a global challenge. First of all, religious believers and organizations around the world need to partner with our brothers and sisters to avoid this technological repression that is going on. It is important to stress what America can do because America is the superpower of the world. There’s always a far reaching effect to some policies and legislations that emanate from the United States. A great number of other countries might be able to latch onto it. Of course, world leaders will equally listen if that’s taken seriously.

The relationship of technological powerhouses, which the US has a high stake in, the partnership that America has with this technological powerhouse that also the Chinese government is trying to use to carry out this repression should be leveraged to ensure that those companies adhere to international human rights standards.

Bill Saunders: Companies that are doing business in China.

Fr. Ambrose Ekeroku: Yes, companies doing business in China, but also most importantly, companies that are producing these technological devices. Companies that are producing the technological devices like smartphones, laptop computers, iPad and what have you; America is a huge market for them and there are partnerships that the American government has had with some of these companies. They can insist that these companies must adhere to International Human Rights standards in producing the products they sell to people both home and abroad. Secondly, Americans and the international community can also support projects that can help religious practitioners maintain communication with both their fellow believers in other parts of the world and the outside community. We can also talk about the international community directly supporting persecuted religious believers.

I was so impressed during the last International Religious Freedom Summit that was held in the Washington D.C. Hilton. A group of Chinese Christians who were rescued and brought into the United States by Americans through the intervention of Congress came out there in front of all the participants and testified to how we are supported by Americans and that we are rescued from their detainment.

Apart from just praying in solidarity with these fellow Christians, there is need to provide more direct support for these persecuted believers, especially the Christian, but also people of all faiths or those who have been persecuted for their faith. There are Catholics and the Protestants churches that are on the ground, worshiping in secret in China, that are largely cut off by one another and even denied access to the outside world. Supporting people like this goes a long way in ensuring and reassuring them that the choices they have made, the decision they have taken to worship God the way they feel their conscience, has allowed them to make the right decision, and that they are within their rights to do so.

Americans will really need to be a little bit creative because China is a technological giant, and they’re coming up with very new initiatives, which is restricting their people. So, America, we need to really think out of the box, as they say, to be sure that China is stopped.

Bill Saunders: Okay Father, thank you very much. Those are wise words. I want to say to the people listening, he mentioned Ambassador Brownback. Ambassador Brownback is a fellow of our Center, as is Chen Guangcheng. He’s a former US senator and a former US governor, but he is also the former US ambassador for International Religious Freedom. He teaches a course on international religious freedom as part of my Human Rights program. My students were able to participate in this Summit on International Religious Freedom, which took place in Washington D.C. in January because of our program. If you have any interest in studying human rights, I really urge you to look into our program. For now, I’ll just say thank you to Father Ambrose, and we’ll see you here next time on another podcast of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China.

The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Humanity, Human Rights. The documentary features world class human rights experts, from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu.