Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the context of economic and political relations with China, the plight of countless human rights and religious activists should not be forgotten. The persistent persecution of the mainstream Catholic Church as opposed to the Communist controlled Catholic community in China is contrary to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a party, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which holds amongst other things that everyone is entitled to freedoms contained in the declaration regardless of their religion. Importantly, the declaration specifically provides for freedom from persecution or torture on the basis of religion. The reason I make reference to Catholics specifically, bearing in mind the broadbased persecution of Christians and other Chinese whose only crime is to want to practise their religion free from interference of the state, is that I follow very closely the plight of one persecuted man of God, Bishop Su Zhimin, the hidden bishop of Baoding. According to some observers, the bishop has spent over 30 years in jail. He has frequently been arrested, imprisoned and released on short shrift only to be detained once more. In a letter from the Papal Nuncio to me, after I raised this issue with him, he says:

The competent authorities in the Holy See have confirmed that sadly the Most Reverend James Su Zhimin, the Clandestine Bishop of Baoding, has been under detention since October 1997. Since then there has been no information regarding his fate. The Holy See on many occasions has protested against his detention and continues to do all it can to ensure more religious freedom for the Catholic community in China.

The Catholic Church in China exists as a clandestine organisation, with the Chinese government considering loyalty to the Pope to be a threat to its national security. Authentic Catholicism is thus effectively illegal, with the requirement that Catholics practise within the framework of the Orwellian, state sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. This is fundamentally in opposition to Catholicism, which recognises the authority of the Holy See. I have followed this issue closely—along with the issue of a number of other Catholics who have been listed by the Cardinal Kung Foundation—working closely with the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Apostolic Nuncio and His Eminence Cardinal Pell to raise the issue of the hidden bishop and his compatriots in this country and beyond.

I have raised the bishop’s case with the foreign minister in question No. 5493. Typically, in our so-called human rights dialogue, the issue of the most senior and most longstanding prisoner of conscience from the most major religion, Catholicism, in China has not been raised. Australia has not raised it, despite this man’s standing. It is quite unfashionable in this place to raise issues of human rights, but outside China in the Western imagination human rights remains a very strong issue. China will need to release people like the bishop to get any credit in human rights before the Olympics. (Time expired)