Speech by U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas at July-19 Washington DC Rally

(Hostess: Senator Brownback is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he is the ranking member of the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Committee. He served in the Senate since 1996 and has been a heroic champion of religious freedom for all faiths around the world. Please join me in welcoming Senator Sam Brownback.)

I am delighted to follow my colleague, Senator Durbin from Illinois and be able to express my support for the resolution he put forward last year and to state that I will be joining him with that. We will be working that resolution out to recognize the horrible situation that is taking place today and condemn those actions. I believe that religious freedom is in deed is the greatest of personal freedoms. So I am pleased to join with you today and I thank Freedom House and the Association of Falun Gong practitioners for hosting this important event

In some parts of the world your religious identity can be your death warrant. This should not be so. It shouldn't have happened in the past, it should not happen today. We should not allow it to continue to occur. I know that many of your friends and family suffer in China simply because of their religious identity, because they practice Falun Gong or other peaceful faiths. I am here today to take a stand for the peaceful practitioners who experience severe persecution throughout China.

Today we urge international support and recognition for peaceful people such as these who humbly seek religious liberty. The dignity of each person demands that no one should be coerced for his religious beliefs. This right is insured universal and applies to all people. It's our duty to continue to advance the simple notion that it is an inalienable right, which no one can dictate, not even government. It is a higher principle protected, divine, precious, fundamental, universal and vastly personal. Yet according to the shocking accounts of deaths while in detention, illegal arrest and imprisonment and torture among other forms of persecution, simple people of faith are paying dearly for their religious convictions in China.

We gather here today to reaffirm our strong commitment to all people of faith who seek to express their religious convictions without crushing governmental interference. We call today for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China as well as other persecuted religious groups. We ask today for the Chinese government to end its campaign against the Falun Gong. Stay with it, stay at it.