My friend Reggie Littlejohn, founder of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, emailed me to let me know that one of her fellow witnesses at the One Child Policy hearing before Congress last week was detained when he returned to Beijing. Jianyg Tianyong was thrown violently into a police car while other police officers beat his wife in front of the couple's 7-year-old daughter.
Reggie writes:
When he was leaving [Congressman] Chris Smith's office after the Hearing, Jiang Tianyong said that he was worried about his wife and daughter, and we prayed protection for him and his family. Now his worst nightmare has materialized. Could you please pray for him and contact the Chinese Embassy in D.C.? (Their contact information is in ChinaAid's announcement below.) I know Jiang has been released for the time being, but he could easily disappear, like Gao Zhisheng, unless people intervene with prayer and prayerful action.
More information can be found here (scroll down)--including the telephone number of the Chinese Embassy. But we're not certain it's the right number. Reggie later wrote to tell me, "I just looked up the Chinese Embassy in D.C. at 3505 International Place (which I understand is their current address) and their contact page has been deleted!
"There are also Chinese embassies in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, and Houston. ChinaAid is looking for a phone number somewhere that works."
When we get one, I'll update.
Daily roundup
By: Gina Dalfonzo|Published: March 18, 2010 5:12 PM
Many are working to bring the disparity in sentencing between cocaine and crack to an end. Pharmacologically they are almost the exact same substance. Personally, I think the disparity should be reduced a bit, but I also think that community-based treatment for non-violent offenders should be used on a much larger scale.
William Saletan of Slate observes that we're in a "war between the worlds": the world of reality and the world of virtual reality. The frightening thing is that some of the casualties in this war are not virtual casualties. They're real ones.
The compromise [Uganda] had accepted, which the president [Yoweri Museveni] presented as reconciliation, was actually something more complex and less sturdy. It was as if, having found themselves unable to forgive, his people had concentrated on forgetting, and when they’d failed at forgetting, they’d chosen to believe what they wanted to believe. So long as nothing disturbed their conception of the past or exposed them to scrutiny, the nation could continue its halting procession along Museveni’s chosen path. To the president’s way of thinking, therefore, justice was a threat to progress, not because it promised verdicts and punishments, but because it forced people to remember.
