Student organizers of an event to expose China’s human rights abuses are hoping campus security will be tight at the University of California–Berkeley campus in Northern California.
“The goal is to use this event to spark major campus discussions and conversations regarding communism and the CCP,” said David Chan, the event organizer and the incoming president for Berkeley College Republicans, the event hosts.
“We are giving voice to the victims of the CCP’s oppression and aggression against these innocent people.
“The majority of the students, especially at Berkeley, are completely clueless to the regime’s evil, their murders, their concentration camps, and countless other brutalities against their people to keep full authoritarian control.”
Bob Fu, a Chinese American pastor and founder of China Aid, is scheduled to speak at the event.
He said the added security concerns are obvious after the Justice Department’s indictment of five Chinese spies for harassing and threatening human rights defenders from China.
“But I am confident U.S. law enforcement will handle this properly,” Fu said.
Fu’s close friend, Li Jinjin, who was a student leader in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, was fatally stabbed in his office in the Flushing neighborhood of New York on March 14, 2022.
Campus police haven’t yet responded to the security request, Chan said.
The UC Berkeley Police Department didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times asking if it’s aware of the event and if it intends to provide security.
Instead, an auto-reply standard email was received: “Due to our very low staffing, replies may be significantly delayed. We will make every effort to respond before your event, but there may be times when we cannot. Our failure to respond will not imply the event is approved by UCPD. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
Minghui Wang, a student at UC Berkeley and a featured speaker at the event, said she personally experienced China’s religious persecution. In 2011, she escaped from the regime and wants to share her family’s story as victims of communism.
“There are a lot of Chinese students on this campus. I really hope this event reaches them and that they can grasp this opportunity to learn the truth about the CCP, and hear the voices that are silenced in China,” said Wang, who was persecuted for practicing Falun Dafa.
Other speakers include Fang Zheng, a Tiananmen Square massacre survivor who lost both of his legs after being run over by a tank; Ms. Geng, who will be speaking about her husband, Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer who went missing in China for many years after speaking out against the regime; and Li Aijie, who will speak on behalf of her husband, Zhang Haitao, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison as a citizen journalist.
China expert James Gorrie said the importance of holding this event on the UC Berkeley campus can’t be overstated.
“I can think of no other university in America that is as synonymous with echo-chambered far-left groupthink and communist apologists as Berkeley,” Gorrie said.
“Speaking the truth at Berkeley is both a privilege and a necessity, like exposing darkness to light, and thereby destroying that darkness. The irony is that in the 1960s, the students at Berkeley fought for free speech. Today, they fight for thought control, speech police, and other Stalinist machinations.”
Chan said the event is the first of many his group hopes to host about China.
“Especially since a large population of our campus is Chinese (many from mainland China), I intend to make the stories of these proponents heard and resonate within our student body and communities,” he said.
Event Details
“Atrocities of the CCP”Sunday, April 15 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Dwinelle Hall, Room 155 3229 Dwinelle Hall Berkeley, California
The Epoch Times will livestream the event on its website.
