Will Americans who demand the outing of anonymous donors to political causes listen to Jianli Yang?
One reason that people donate to organizations anonymously — just as they want their votes and other personal information to remain confidential — is to avoid being harassed by political opponents.
But being bullied in a restaurant is hardly the worst that can befall donors stripped of anonymity.
Jianli Yang is a Chinese dissident. In 2008, after spending years in a Chinese prison for his activism, he founded Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a US-based organization working to advance rights and democracy in China.
Yang notes that Chinese supporters of his organization, even if residing outside of China, “can face extreme consequences when they are identified by the Chinese government.” Without the right to protect donor privacy, affirmed in a July 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision on the associational rights of donors, donors can end up being punished by the Chinese government.
The risk isn’t just theoretical. In April 2021, one Mr. Lee, a businessman, was forced to appear on Chinese television to “confess” to supporting Citizen Power Initiatives for China. The government also sentenced Lee to eleven years in prison.
We must fight both the CCP and their wannabe branch in DC. Things are nowhere near as bad in this country as in China. But we don’t know what threats we will face the day after tomorrow even from our own government.
We need every First Amendment protection we can get.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Delivering to Evil”
I admit that I’d failed to consider the possibility of other governments making use of the information that the Democrats wish to force to be disclosed. (I had just opposed disclosure laws on basic principle.) Thank you for bringing this aspect to my attention!
This already happened to people in California not that long ago.