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this articleZhang Hongbao in Blast Furnace
---- A documentary on how the outstanding spiritual leader transformed to a political leader
Appropriate Handling of Zhang Hongbao's Asylum to Mend Image of the US in the World
Fang Yuan Ju
The US should grasp the opportunity to mend its image in the world that has previously been impacted due to improper handling of Zhang Hongbao's case by taking corrections in further proceeding.
I have drawn this conclusion from the following two points:
First, President Bush put forward 'To recover Americans' trust and respect to White House!' as his presidential campaign slogan. The result was he won the campaign to take the office in White House. This from some aspect embodies that the American people value the image of White House. It also suggests that the American people place great anticipation on President Bush.
Second, attitude of the American people to the Ex-president Clinton again suggests that they consider the US's international image of great significance. As reported in New York Times of Feb.10, Morgan Stanley Trust & Bank Company in Wall Street received many protesting letters from their customers right after Clinton gave a speech at Morgan's invitation. Those customers complained that Clinton should not be forgiven as his scandal humiliated the United States in front of the whole world. Thereafter the president of Morgan Stanley had to apologize to those protesters through e-mail and acknowledge his fault of inviting Clinton to give speech, promising they would never invite him to give speech again. Upon its publishing, another big company soon canceled its invitation of Clinton to give speech, fearing that would arouse dissatisfaction of customers and so losing business. New York Times forecasts that other big companies would also either cancel or stop offering invitation to Clinton for giving speech with the same consideration. In the mean time, the Property Management Agency for Carnaegie Building is also discontented at Clinton's careless conduct, wherefore they largely raised the rental when Clinton wanted to rent office in the building. These are all due responses of the society to Clinton.
Such response seems to continue. Recently, the weekly journal ' renjianshi' pointed out since some free personages suspected former President Clinton might have taken bribes in the case of granting pardon to the escaped financial criminal Marc Rich , they should have no excuse not to investigate the much more important issue that CPC might have bribed officials in Clinton's administration. It also raised up many dubious points.
American people are trying hard to mend the previously damaged image of the United States. Such amendment, on one hand, is to correct the previous mistake, on the other hand, is to cheer up for President Bush's determination of re-portraying international image of the US. The people and President Bush are striving together for a new portrait of the United States.
Due to artificial reasons, Zhang Hongbao's asylum application, originally being an ordinary case, has developed to a transnational political issue, and even been carried over to another century. According to the already open information, the image of the United States has been humiliated in many ways during the evolution of this case in the past one year odd. The Congress can't be unaware of it, nor the US President.
It was out of trust in the US that Zhang Hongbao, as the leader and representative of Zhong Gong organization that has been under political persecution in Mainland China, came to ask the US government for humane help. After being introduced of Zhang's situation, the INS officials who received Zhang Hongbao at the Guam Airport said that a case under such special circumstances should be settled within 15 days according to the new regulations. That stood for the true image of the US without any interference.
However, once brought into judicial procedures, the case became deliberately complicated due to mishandling of some official with the excuse that has never been convincible up to now.
First of all, it was not regarded as a case under special circumstances. Instead, they had Zhang Hongbao settle his own status by applying for political asylum. Of course it was not solved within 15 days. Actually the first court session opened on June 13, which had been 130 odd days behind. If it were an adaptation and adapted judicial procedure, it would give no cause for much criticism.
But, when the judge decided to grant Zhang Hongbao asylum, the INS firstly stopped him from signing the document at the site with the excuse that his fingerprint appraisal had not come out, and then they announced that the fingerprint appraisal had been lost and should be done again, which indefinitely postponed the session to no where.
It was 45 days later when the court session reopened on July 28. Zhang Hongbao's fingerprint appraisal was received. But, the INS through some unofficial channel submitted to the court a letter from Chinese Embassy accusing Zhang Hongbao of criminal offense. This time the INS assisted CPC to stop the judge from signing the document approving Zhang Hongbao's asylum. Again, the session was pending.
Appraising the 'evidences of Zhang Hongbao's crime' provided by Chinese government, both the two authorized departments --- the Human Right Bureau of the State Department and the Law Research Department of the Congress's Library concluded that they were not convincible and that their authenticity was questionable, emphasizing that timing of the criminal accusation tallied with timing of the persecution on underground spiritual movement. Thus, CPC unexpectedly confirmed its persecution on Zhang Hongbao and his Zhong Gong organization from the reverse side by providing perjuries. Settlement of the case of Zhang Hongbao's asylum should then be undoubtedly logical. Surprisingly, the INS official took no consideration of the judicial appraisal and assessment. Lawyer of the INS even asserted that they would lodge an appeal if the judge approved Zhang's application. This is another withdraw of the court decision.
After another postponement, the judge had no alternate but to commute the decision of asylum to 'Anti-maltreatment Protection' and 'Relief of deportation'. However, the INS refused to enforce the court decision. Instead they continued to keep Zhang Hongbao in jail and treat him with inhumanity under the excuse of 'protecting his safety'. When asked, the INS officials would answer: 'we just follow the order from upper level, and up upper level.'
The series of mishandling as above were typical examples of administrative interference with judicial independence, which have brought disgrace to the dignity of the US judicial independence.
As a spiritual leader seeking for humane support but being jailed together with smuggled aliens for a long time, and being treated with inhumanity in the name of "Anti-maltreatment protection", Zhang Hongbao had to protest by going hunger striking. It aroused a public outcry in the world and of course brought disgrace to the United States that was founded on the basis of humanity and human rights.
When it came to Oct., the INS lodged an appeal firmly requiring Zhang Hongbao to be deported to some third country. Such conduct undoubtedly made people think that under pressure from CPC, the US was incapable to protect the spiritual whom CPC tried to extradite back to China. This made the US subjected to even more humiliation.
In the processing of Zhang Hongbao's asylum application, some officials in the Ex-administration have conducted a series of acts which not only made themselves suspicious to have something disgusting behind the scenes but also damaged the image of the United States. Those acts include breaking the original agreement on how to handle the case at the beginning, leaking information, postponing court session, misleading public, opinion convincing, ignoring judicial appraisal and assessment by authorized departments, refusing to enforce court decision, and trying to deport Zhang to some third country so that CPC could extradite him back to China, and so on…
The American people have been regretting the loss of the US's image for a long time. Representative of Georgia stated when Clinton was relieved of his office that American people should start to make up loss caused by him in the field of legal system, national security and political system, and to redeem respect to the post of President and Judicial Department.
It is known to all that Chinese government has been good at achieving goals though bribing since Jiang Ze Min came into power. It is also known that some people would not hesitate to betray national benefits to help CPC achieve their goals so as to obtain private wealth.
The evolution of Zhang Hongbao's case was obviously marked with the signs of mutual motivation in obscura between the Ex US administration and Chinese government. I can't help suspecting " Since Chinese government openly offer a reward of US$500,000 to capture Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, why not to secretly offer some certain amount of rewards to some certain officials in US government to get Zhong Gong leader Zhang Hongbao extradited back to China?
The weekly journal "Renjianshi" brought up the idea that they should investigate whether CPC has bribed officials in Clinton's administration. Isn't that reminding relative parties whether it also happened in the processing of Zhang Hongbao's case. American free personages have ever suspected that former President Clinton might have taken bribery in the Rich pardon. Would they also suspect the same thing in the case of Zhang Hongbao's case? If not, how can we explain the fact that the Ex-administration did their utmost to the degree of being rude to avoid making response to the appeals and letters that Zhong Gong organization members together with democratic movement leaders, and human rights organizations arranged requiring the US government to accord Zhang Hongbao courteous reception as a spiritual leader deserves?
Aforementioned are issues that the American people, President Bush and his new administration should be very cautious to handle when they mend and re-portray the image of the US in the world.
Try to settle the case of Zhang Hongbao's asylum at the soonest to mend the international image of the United States!