How Faith and Courage Stand Against the Red Dragon

Iwill never forget the story of Mihrigul Tursun. At just a few months postpartum, Mihrigul had her triplets torn from her arms by the Chinese Communist Party and was interned in a reeducation camp simply because she is a Uyghur. She spent months at the camp, where she was subjected to various forms of torture. Upon her release, she begged to be reunited with her children and found that they were all hospitalized. What should have been a moment of relief turned quickly to horror. She was reunited with two of her three babies. Her third, a baby boy, she never saw alive again. She held his lifeless body and will likely never know how he died.

Mihrigul’s is but one of the many stories that Sam Brownback — former U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom who previously served as Kansas governor, senator, and representative — recounts in his latest book, China’s War on Faith. It is an intimate look into how the CCP violates personal freedoms of religion or belief. Rather than share a litany of facts about the CCP’s repression of its own people, Brownback allows individuals’ stories to speak for themselves. The picture they paint is one of a systematic war against people of all faiths. As my friend Frances Hui, a pro-democracy advocate from Hong Kong, says: “This is what authoritarianism does. . . . It strips away your power and your freedom — to think, to speak, to express yourself. It makes you feel powerless in every part of your life. Eventually, it tries to erase the parts of you that define who you are.”

About the Author

Olivia Enos

Olivia Enos is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an adjunct professor in the Democracy and Governance program at Georgetown University.

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Iwill never forget the story of Mihrigul Tursun. At just a few months postpartum, Mihrigul had her triplets torn from her arms by the Chinese Communist Party and was interned in a reeducation camp simply because she is a Uyghur. She spent months at the camp, where she was subjected to various forms of torture. Upon her release, she begged to be reunited with her children and found that they were all hospitalized. What should have been a moment of relief turned quickly to horror. She was reunited with two of her three babies. Her third, a baby boy, she never saw alive again. She held his lifeless body and will likely never know how he died.

Mihrigul’s is but one of the many stories that Sam Brownback — former U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom who previously served as Kansas governor, senator, and representative — recounts in his latest book, China’s War on Faith. It is an intimate look into how the CCP violates personal freedoms of religion or belief. Rather than share a litany of facts about the CCP’s repression of its own people, Brownback allows individuals’ stories to speak for themselves. The picture they paint is one of a systematic war against people of all faiths. As my friend Frances Hui, a pro-democracy advocate from Hong Kong, says: “This is what authoritarianism does. . . . It strips away your power and your freedom — to think, to speak, to express yourself. It makes you feel powerless in every part of your life. Eventually, it tries to erase the parts of you that define who you are.”