gla urges city of riverside to end its sister city relationship in communist china over the mark swidan case, an american held hostage in china

(Alexandria, Virginia)  In a letter to the City of Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, the Global Liberty Alliance urged Mayor Lock Dawson to sever its Sister City relationship with the City of Jiangmen in the Guangdong Province over the unlawful imprisonment of Mr. Mark Swidan from Texas.

"While the U.S. Department of State and the Congress, including President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Mr. Roger Carstens, work to secure Mark’s release, it is critical that all American stakeholders that have contacts with the City of Jiangmen rally to Mark’s cause in whatever way that the can.  The Communist Party of China must know America will not tolerate hostage-taking or unlawful imprisonment of U.S. nationals.  By severing the Sister City relationship with the City of Jiangmen, the City of Riverside will lead by example and do right by Mark and the American people.  You will also be part of a coalition of Americans helping to bring Mark home," said Jason Poblete, GLA President and Counsel.

Unlawfully imprisoned in Communist China for close to ten years and in inhumane conditions, Mr. Mark Swidan Mark has suffered, and continues to suffer, as a political prisoner of the Communist Party system.  According to the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, which, along with his mother Katherine in Texas, has championed Mark’s case for several years, Mark’s “sentence is believed to be the first time an American citizen has been sentenced to death, suspended for two years, by a Chinese court.”  The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in Geneva has demanded his immediate release and ordered reparations.

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