{"id":837,"date":"2008-07-30T17:34:49","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T17:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre.php"},"modified":"2008-07-30T17:34:49","modified_gmt":"2008-07-30T17:34:49","slug":"federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","title":{"rendered":"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ashly McGlone<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>WASHINGTON (RNS) <\/strong>A federal religious freedom watchdog panel on Wednesday (July 30) asked President Bush to use his trip to the Beijing Olympics next month to speak publicly against abuses of religious freedom and human rights in China.<br \/>\nThe U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, joined by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, also voiced support for a resolution pending in Congress that urges China to end all human rights violations.<br \/>\n&#8220;We were in the White House and I told Bush that he had made a horrible mistake to go to the Beijing Olympics,&#8221; said Wei Jingsheng, one of five Chinese freedom activists who met with Bush on Tuesday (July 29).<br \/>\n&#8220;I do know that the Bush administration did try to push for human rights. Unfortunately, such an effort did not make much progress. Not only is there no improvement, as a matter of fact, human rights have gone backwards.&#8221;<br \/>\nIn addition to a televised speech, the joint appeal asks Bush to urge the Chinese government to end religious oppression, to release detained religious leaders and groups, and to urge China to use its &#8220;considerable leverage&#8221; with Sudan to end the genocide in Darfur.<br \/>\n&#8220;Hopes that the Olympic Games would dramatically improve human rights conditions in China have not been realized,&#8221; said Felice D. Gaer, the commission&#8217;s chairwoman. &#8220;Instead, the situation has grown increasingly dire, particularly for many of China&#8217;s religious adherents.&#8221;<br \/>\nRep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., an outspoken opponent of China&#8217;s human rights record, said granting the 2008 Olympics to China was a &#8220;terrible mistake.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;When you see all the choreography smiling faces in opening ceremonies, know that they are the lucky ones,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ashly McGlone Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal religious freedom watchdog panel on Wednesday (July 30) asked President Bush to use his trip to the Beijing Olympics next month to speak publicly against abuses of religious freedom and human rights in China. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, joined by the Congressional&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Ashly McGlone Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal religious freedom watchdog panel on Wednesday (July 30) asked President Bush to use his trip to the Beijing Olympics next month to speak publicly against abuses of religious freedom and human rights in China. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, joined by the Congressional&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-30T17:34:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom","og_description":"By Ashly McGlone Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal religious freedom watchdog panel on Wednesday (July 30) asked President Bush to use his trip to the Beijing Olympics next month to speak publicly against abuses of religious freedom and human rights in China. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, joined by the Congressional&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-07-30T17:34:49+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre","name":"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-30T17:34:49+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-30T17:34:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/federal-panel-asks-bush-to-pre#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Federal Panel Asks Bush to Press China on Religious Freedom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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