Good morning,
I want to tell you about a journalist I’m particularly proud of—whose reporting helped save 63 Chinese dissidents from the gulag earlier this year.
Susan Crabtree is a RealClearPolitics political correspondent. You’ve probably noticed her coverage of the political scrum: primary debates, jockeying over the Speakership, or confirmation drama.
But the issue that’s dearest to her heart—and one that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves in the press—is religious freedom. This is a preeminent human right. And it is in a precarious position across the globe.
Susan has written about the persecution of Nigerian Christians, atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in China, the crackdown on the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, and pressure tactics against believers in Russia and Taiwan.
This year, Susan reported on the plight of 63 Chinese Christians caught up in China’s crackdown on the practice of most religions. These 63 men, women, and children are members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church, dubbed the “Mayflower Church” in homage to the Pilgrims who came to America to escape religious persecution.
China had persecuted the Mayflower Church through repeated interrogations of its pastor Pan Yongguang, as well as laws requiring Christian churches to put fealty to Communism on an equal footing with devotion to Jesus.
The Mayflower Church was getting scant coverage in much of the media. Susan set out to change that and tell their story.
What happened next is a case study of how serious journalism can spur much-needed action by policymakers in Washington.
[Download RealClear’s 4-part investigative series on religious persecution in China.]
Susan began covering the Mayflower Church in January of this year—recounting how they had fled China in 2019, spent a year marooned on a South Korean island, and ended up in Thailand, from where they petitioned for asylum in the United States.
Their pleas to the State Department, however, were going unanswered. In late March, the very nightmare the church’s supporters feared took place: All members of the Mayflower Church were arrested by Thai authorities—and faced possible repatriation to China, where they could have been imprisoned, tortured, or worse.
But Susan stayed on the beat with a series articles highlighting their predicament and the efforts of U.S. Ambassador for Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain to help them. Susan got key congressional offices on record—and human rights activists circulated her reporting.
Two days before Easter came a breakthrough. The group was boarding planes bound for Texas, where supporters would help them resettle. The State Department had negotiated their release from Thailand and granted them emergency asylum in the United States. Their three-year ordeal of legal limbo was over. Supporters in Washington celebrated their release.
This story is just one example of how RealClear is having a real-world impact, thanks to faithful readers like you who support our work.
As a way to say thanks being an RCP reader, I’d like to offer you a free PDF download of RealClear’s 4-part series: The Long Road to Confronting China’s War on Religion. Just click this link to get your free download:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2023/The_Long_Road_to_Confronting_China_RealClear.pdf
Sincerely,
Carl Cannon
Washington Bureau Chief
RealClearPolitics |
|
|
|
