Human Rights Shouldn’t Take Back Seat in Trump–Xi Talks, Rallygoers Urge

WASHINGTON—Hundreds of human rights activists gathered for a rally blocks away from the White House, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with President Donald Trump on Sept. 24.

At the U.S. Navy Memorial Plaza, the protesters urged Trump to keep human rights as part of the dialogue as he meets with Xi to discuss issues such as trade and artificial intelligence.

Activists, scholars, and current and former officials who spoke at the rally emphasized the importance of putting human rights and religious freedom front and center in foreign policy.

David Trimble, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, said religious freedom is often overshadowed by concerns of economic stability and national security.

The Founders placed religious freedom in the First Amendment because religious freedom “stands as an anchor to stability, as an anchor of international relations, and as an anchor of national security,” he said.

Congressman Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who joined the rally, said it was a “disgrace” to welcome Xi with a red carpet, “when we know my own constituents have had their literal bodies mutilated and ripped apart as part of this systemic practice of organ harvesting.”

In 2019, an independent China Tribunal in London concluded that forced organ harvesting had occurred in China “on a significant scale” for years targeting prisoners of conscience.

Ryan called Xi “the No. 1 villain around the world of religious oppression and anti-freedom agenda.”

For Maryland accountant Alisa Zhou, the persecution hit close to home.

In April, Zhou’s mother, Wang Youmei, was one of 17 arrested in the Chinese city of Wuhan over her Falun Gong faith, which features meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

In 1999, the Chinese communist regime ordered a brutal eradication campaign against the practice, also known as Falun Dafa. Millions of practitioners have been subjected to arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and even death by forced organ harvesting.

The detention of her mother “doesn’t have any grounds,” because faith is “not a crime,” Zhou told The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the summit, a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Trump urging the president to champion for the release of China’s political prisoners.

“We request that you continue keeping those persecuted for their faith in China, including ethnic and religious minority groups such as Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners, top of mind in conversations with President Xi,” the lawmakers wrote.

Pressure can make an impact, Zhou said. After pressure from various lawmakers and the State Department, Zhou said, her mother was finally able to see her attorney. Her mother, during that meeting, told the lawyer that she was grateful for the international advocacy and that she believed there would be positive results from it, Zhou said.

Robert Destro, a State Department official focused on human rights during the first Trump administration, said Washington needs to be clear-eyed about who it is dealing with.

The Chinese communists “don’t believe in freedom,” he said during the rally. “They believe in the Party.”

“The CCP is a cancer. The CCP is a parasite. You know, and a parasite sucks the life out of everything,” he said later in an interview.

The demonstrators here “​​know what terror looks like,” he said. He hopes others can also understand it.

Dave Wallace, a Republican candidate running to represent Maryland’s fifth congressional district, made a similar point.

“The light is the greatest disinfectant,” he told The Epoch Times.