MEDIA ADVISORY: Hearing on Unjustly Detained Americans in China, CECC, Aug. 8, 2024.
Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Chair and Co-chair respectively of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, will hold a hearing on securing the freedom of unjustly detained Americans in China on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, at 10:00 am (EDT). Following the high-profile release of Americans unjustly detained in Russia, attention to the cases of Americans imprisoned in China, many jailed for over or nearly a decade, remains a pressing diplomatic concern.
U.S. citizens David Lin, Kai Li, and Mark Swidan are serving long prison sentences in China. Each is considered by the U.S. State Department to be arbitrarily detained, affording them the diplomatic attention of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, yet they all remain imprisoned with no clear diplomatic progress made in gaining their release, and all have faced serious and ongoing health concerns while in prison. The CECC Chairs urged President Biden to raise these cases and others with Xi Jinping during the November 2023 APEC Summit in San Francisco. Gaining their freedom should be a priority of the Administration in the upcoming months, but there are other Americans currently serving long prison sentences in China who are not well known and who also did not receive a fair and transparent trial, with a genuine defense, in front of an independent judge, in an impartial court. These prisoners also face serious health challenges because of the bad conditions in PRC prisons, experience torture or mistreatment by guards and other prisoners, and suffer from often insufficient medical care and nutrition. Their cases deserve to be better known.
The discussion will draw input from representatives of American prisoners currently held in Chinese jails, former prisoners in China, and experts in the PRC’s legal and prison system to examine Chinese judicial and imprisonment practices and the need for greater diplomatic attention to the cases of Americans detained in China. The hearing will also look more broadly at the criteria used to determine which detained Americans are given preferential status under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act and what more can be done to secure their release.
Who: Congressional-Executive Commission on China
What: Hearing to examine the cases of Americans unjustly detained in China
When: September 18, 2024 @ 10:00 am (EDT)
Where: TBA
Additional updates about witnesses and other hearing details can be had by contacting Scott Flipse at scott.flipse@mail.house.gov