FDI: Top Chinese Attorney Kidnapped Following Letter to U.S. Congress
Gao Zhisheng's letter called for a U.S. Olympic boycott over the persecution of Falun Gong

NEWS - Sept. 25, 2007

NEW YORK - Gao Zhisheng, one of China's most prominent human rights lawyers, was seen being taken away by secret police from his Beijing home on Sunday according to eye-witnesses. Gao had broken China's biggest taboo by publicly calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.

The apparent kidnapping came less than 48 hours after Gao published an open letter to the United States Congress. The letter called on the U.S. to boycott the Olympics over the Communist Party's ongoing campaign against the Falun Gong.

"The eight-year long suppression of Falun Gong is so far the most long-lasting and the most serious human disaster in China and in the world," Gao, a Christian, wrote, adding that he has published the findings of his investigation of secret torture chambers (http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-12-16/35876.html).

Gao wrote that he longs to see the Olympics in Beijing. "But when I think about Chinese society's current environment and how the Olympic Games will be used here, my conscience and sense of justice make my heart ache."

The letter came the day after an international press conference about him was held in Washington DC's Rayburn House Office Building. Speakers at the Thursday press event included Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) David Kilgour, and European Union Vice-President Edward McMillan-Scott.

"There are few in the world who are more acutely aware of Beijing's severe shortcomings in the area of human rights than the famed human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Mr. Gao Zhisheng," said Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen.

Gao's New Book

Gao's abduction also comes just as his new book, A China More Just, has been published in English. The book includes his investigative findings and exposes a wide range of torture methods that the Chinese Communist Party has been using on the Falun Gong. (torture methods)

The book also tells his remarkable personal story of growing up in a poor rural family and eventually becoming one of China's top lawyers, why he quit the Communist Party after originally trusting the system, the persecution he and his family have faced, and his faith-inspired courage to risk his life seeking justice for a broad range of oppressed Chinese groups.

For more about the book, see: http://www.broadbook.com/english/1product.asp?id=216.

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NEWS - Sept. 25, 2007
Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net

Background
Founded in 1999, the Falun Dafa Information Center is a New York-based organization that documents the rights violations of adherents of Falun Gong (or "Falun Dafa") taking place in the People's Republic of China. In July of 1999 China's autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda with the intent of "eradicating" the apolitical practice; it is believed certain leaders feared the influence of the practice's 100 million adherents. The campaign has since grown in violence and scope, with millions having been detained or sent to forced labor camps. The Center has verified details of over 3,000 deaths and over 63,000 cases of torture in custody (reports / sources). Falun Gong is a traditional-style Buddhist "qigong" practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for health and spiritual growth.
 

Ms. Huang Dingyou Tortured to Death
 

Ms. Huang Dingyou was 61 years old. She was from Qiuchang Township, Huiyang District, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province. In March 2003, policemen from Qiuchang Police Station tricked a practitioner into going to the police station and then illegally detained him. Then they illegally searched his home and took away many Falun Gong books and truth-clarification VCDs. They illegally sentenced him to two years of forced labor. When Huang Dingyou heard the news, she called the city 610 Office to clarify truth to them and requested that they release the practitioner. Authorities from the 610 Office refused to listen to her and illegally arrested her. She was held at the local detention center.

In order to protest the authorities' persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Huang Dingyou went on a hunger strike for 27 days, however, the perpetrators continued the persecution. When Huang Dingyou was almost unconscious, they coerced her into giving them all of her Falun Gong books and into telling them where truth-clarification posters were put up. They then illegally sentenced her to five years' imprisonment and sent her to the Guangdong Province Women's Prison, where she was forced to continuously read materials slandering Falun Gong.

Before Huang Dingyou was illegally arrested, she was a healthy person. Since she started to practice Falun Gong in 1996, she had good health and never took any medicine. After she was sent to the Guangdong Province Women's Prison  the doctors there often drew her blood, saying that they were examining her. She was forced to take large doses of unknown medicine; each time she was forced to take a handful of pills.

In July 2007, authorities from the prison called her family and asked them to take her home. They told her family to sign a release form without telling them that she was in the last stages of leukemia. Her family found out her condition after they brought her home. On August 8, less than one month after her release, Huang Dingyou passed away.

Nearly 400 Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured at the 2nd Women's Forced Labor Camp of Shandong Province
 

Among about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners who are illegally jailed in Shandong Province, nearly 400 are imprisoned in the 2nd Women's Forced Labor Camp. The prison sentences are getting longer.

Practitioners imprisoned in the camp are tortured and forced to perform hard labor. The majority of people in the four wards are practitioners, and the rest are drug abusers and religious believers. The torture practitioners suffer is getting worse and the time to do slave labor is getting longer. Practitioners are forced to get up at 4 a.m. and begin to work at 5 a.m. until10 p.m. But, sometimes they have to work until midnight or 1 a.m. They eat breakfast at 7 a.m. and are given only 20 minutes to eat and clean up. Lunch is about 15 to 20 minutes and dinner is at 5:30 p.m. Practitioners are forced to sit on hard stools until their skin becomes raw and infected from the pressure. Cushions are not allowed. Guards will remove cushions and berate practitioners if they find one.

The food is awful. Drug abusers don't eat that food. Their families send money and the camp staff will prepare separate meals. Practitioners are fed a watery dish that is made from pumpkins which tastes bad. Practitioners used to be able to eat during family visits. But the visitors building was torn down in October 2006. Now, family visits only last half an hour and practitioners can't eat in the meeting room. All food from outside is prohibited, even a piece of candy. Slave labor has become more backbreaking, practitioners lack nutritious food, sleeping is difficult and there are many practitioners who faint.