Front Royal, VA, 11/11/08 – The Population Research Institute, whose groundbreaking investigation in China led the Bush administration to cut funding to the U.N. Population Fund for the past seven years, stands by its accusation that the UNFPA was--and is--involved in coercive abortions in China.
"Our investigation remains valid," says Colin Mason, PRI's media director. "We put boots on the ground, and made the results available to anyone who wanted them. Those who would disregard our findings show an appalling lack of respect for human rights."
PRI's report, entitled "UNFPA, China, and Coercive Family Planning," is based on an investigation conducted by PRI researchers in China's Sihui County. Relying on interviews with over two dozen victims and witnesses, the 2001 investigation found that coercive abortion and sterilization practices were taking place in that county where the UNFPA had supposedly instituted a "client-centered and voluntary family planning program." In fact, PRI's investigation discovered that the UNFPA shared an office with the very Chinese family planning officials who were carrying out forced abortions.
Prompted by this investigation, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell sent his own research team to China, which independently verified the facts that PRI had gathered. As a result, Powell himself urged that the U.S. government stop funding the UNFPA. Said Powell in a 2002 letter to Congress. "UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."
"President-elect Obama and his supporters blame the Bush administration for this decision," says Steven W. Mosher, PRI's president. "But in fact it was Colin Powell, who is no friend of social conservatives and who recently endorsed Obama for President, who made this call."
"It would be a shame if Obama abandons both the women of China--and one of his most high-profile backers--in the name of the failed ideology of population control," said Mosher. "Americans don't want their money going to an organization--the UNFPA--which works hand-in-glove with China's population control police as they drag women off for forced abortions and forced sterilizations."
The first episode of PRI's new video series on the UNFPA is available for viewing on PRI's YouTube page:
www.youtube.com/colinpri1.
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