Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution of Falun Gong, many Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured and killed, and a lot of families have been destroyed. Equally horrifying is that many Falun Gong practitioners have disappeared. People have started paying more attention to the situation of those practitioners with whom they had lost contact during the seven-year-long persecution, especially after the CCP's crime of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in concentration camps was exposed to the international society.

In the last several years, people have systematically provided evidence of disappeared Falun Gong practitioners. The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group also submitted many disappearance case reports to the United Nations. Many of the disappeared practitioners are relatives of Falun Gong practitioners living outside of China.

Recently, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances published information on the disappearance cases in China that they have handled over the last year. A major portion of the disappearance cases in the last several years involve Falun Gong practitioners. The working group paid special attention to the disappearances of children. They dealt with one case in which the four-year-old child of a Falun Gong practitioner disappeared after being taken away by policemen.

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group hopes that people in China will provide more detailed information about the disappearances of Falun Gong practitioners. The working group also hopes that the family members of those practitioners who disappeared will get more actively involved in looking for them, and provide more first-hand materials to human right organizations.

In the past, most of the disappearance cases that the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances handled were cases between 1988 and 1990, and between 1995 and 1996. Most of them were about Tibetan people, and 19 of them were monks. It is said that these monks were arrested in Nepal, and transferred to China later.

Between 2000 and 2001, 13 of the cases were about Falun Gong practitioners. It is said that they were kidnapped by the public security department or local government. In one of the cases, a boy disappeared after being interviewed by an immigration officer in Hong Kong. In another case, a Chinese citizen, who has an American green card, was kidnapped by a policeman in 2002. In a case submitted in 2004, a four-year-old boy was taken away by a local policeman from his house in Tongnan County. His parents are both Falun Gong practitioners.

In last year, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances submitted 110 disappearance cases reports to the Chinese government. Ten cases were verified by the submitters, including the case of Falun Gong practitioner Jiang Renzheng, who was deported from Germany to China. Sixty-nine cases were verified by information provided by the Chinese government. Thirty-one cases are still under investigation.

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is concerned with a new phenomenon. Among those who are discriminated against in China, the number of the disappearance cases of children and others who have been persecuted by the government is increasing. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances hopes to find those people as soon as possible. The working group also hopes that the family members of those who have disappeared can provide more detailed information, so that the working group can negotiate with the Chinese government.

A press conference about human rights in China was held on June 23, 2006 at the Korean Parliament Assembly Hall. The conference was hosted by Member of Parliament Shen He Yong from the "Open Party." MP Hang Guang Yuan and MP Park Jae Wan from the "One Nation Party" also attended the conference. Mr. Erping Zhang from the US was invited to make a speech.

The conference was co-sponsored by NTDTV and the Epoch Times. Mr. Hong Cheng Ge from the Epoch Times and Mr. Wu Shi Lie of Amnesty International also spoke at the conference.

Member of Parliament Shen He Yong emphasized that regarding brutal human rights abuses, if one in the political circle looks on and remains silent, he should take a look at himself. Serious human rights violations such as organ harvesting actually exist, but due to limited media coverage, people in Korea are unable to accurately learn about the actual human rights condition in China. The press conference will help get the word out to the public.

MP Park Jae Wan said that the long history of humanity is a history of striving to strengthen life's dignity. The concept of "heaven-endowed human rights" is the result of steadfast struggle of a few courageous people.

Mr. Erping Zhang spoke at length about the actual situation of human rights in China. He pointed out that the economic numbers claimed by the CCP are not matched in reality. The CCP and its autocratic regime have lost the foundation of people's support and will soon collapse.

Mr. Zhang said, "Not resisting the evil is equivalent to giving up kindness. One person's righteousness and justice is consistent with more people's righteousness and justice. Future generations will comment on what we are doing now, but also will make judgments on things that we should have done but did not." "Governments around the world should seek support from the Chinese people in their policies, not just the Chinese Communist Party."

He went on to discuss China's economic situation. He said that in China, foreign investment accounts for 70% of the total GDP. Bank bad debts total 40% of the GDP. The economy is therefore actually suffering negative growth. Under such circumstances, China's economy is at risk of collapse. In addition, China's competitive power lies in its cheap labor, lack of labor unions, abundant and cheap resources, and exports to sustain economic growth. Average income in cities is about 1,300 US dollars, while in rural villages, annual incove is a mere 362 US dollars. The gap is so wide. Corruption is rampant at even the highest levels, with an annual cost estimated at 22 billion US dollars.

The CCP claims harmony and stability, but in 2005 alone, 87,000 group demonstrations occurred involving more than three million people. That's one demonstration almost every five minutes. In areas of minority groups such as the Xinjiang Uighur Area, a large number of people have been detained or put into jail. No political asylum status has been granted to any person who escaped to China from North Korea. This is against the Refugees Protection Act it signed in 1950.

Mr. Zhang also stated that in order to filter the Internet, China has spent 800 billion US dollars building firewalls, and reinforcing the Internet monitoring system. There are also more than 50,000 Internet police manning Internet monitoring centers in over 700 cities in China, there are also over 40 Internet monitoring regulations. The CCP has signed monitoring agreements with international heavyweights such as Google, Yahoo and others. In 2004 and 2005, over 169 newspapers and magazines were shut down.

Mr. Zhang explained that the largest group victimized in China is Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a Qigong  practice. It involves cultivating one's moral characters following the standard of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," and practicing the five sets of exercises to keep fit. It is not a political organization. Falun Gong has a principle that anyone can practice Falun Gong so long as they want to. At the beginning, the director of the China's Sport Committee once announced that medical expenses can be cut down by 1,000 Yuan per person per year for those that practiced Falun Gong.

As for the reason for persecuting Falun Gong, he said that in 1998, according to CCP estimates, there were 70 million to 100 million people practicing Falun Gong. The number of Falun Gong practitioners exceeded that of the CCP membership. The CCP authorities did not want to see Falun Gong growing so rapidly, so it began implementing the persecution policy. In addition, the tenets of Falun Gong tend to emphasize traditional values. This is also one of the reasons for the CCP's suppression of Falun Gong. The persecution started in July 1999. The authorities burned Falun Gong books, deprived practitioners of their right to appeal in court and denied them the protection of their assets.

It has been verified that at least 2,910 practitioners have died as a result of persecution. The issue of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners who have been detained in forced labor camps and jails has recently arisen.

Mr. Zhang continued, explaining that since 2000, each organ transplant center has performed about 2,000 organ transplant operations on average. As the persecution of Falun Gong continues, this number is increasing sharply. The investigation over the organ transplant centers showed that they indeed harvested organs from Falun Gong practitioners.

Mr. Zhang pointed out that similar autocratic regimes collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They ruled the people on the basis of extreme unfairness and immorality, and could not gain support from the people and ultimately collapsed.

The Director of Korean Epoch Times pointed out in his speech that it is the responsibility of the media in all countries to expose the hidden truth in China. He said that this was a starting point for solving the human rights issues in China.

The Amnesty International representative said, "The Communist Party overrides the law." Eighty percent of the executions in the world are carried out in China. Violent behavior, corruption, bribery and the death penalty are all problems in China.