During the City Council Meeting, Edison Falun Gong Practitioners recounted the brutal persecution to Falun Gong in their sister city the city of Shijiazhuang.

The following is the speech by Edison Falun Gong practitioners during the City Council Meeting.

To the Council Members of Edison Township,

On behalf of Falun Gong practitioners and supporters of Edison, I am here to present to you the latest human rights violations against Falun Gong practitioners in Shijiazhuang, the sister city of Edison. We urge your immediate help to rescue Falun Gong practitioners currently being detained, tortured, even raped in Shijiazhuang as well as other parts of China. Every minute, there are Falun Gong practitioners facing the risk of losing their lives for practicing Falun Gong. But first, we would like to formally thank the Edison Council for your continuous support of the Falun Gong practitioners in Edison. We commend your initiative in proposing resolution 461 that will be discussed this evening.

We are deplored to report that our sister city of Shijiazhuang has been one of the most brutal persecutors in China during this anti-Falun Gong campaign.

According to reliable sources, the Shijiazhuang Labor Camp has resorted to intensive violence against Falun Gong practitioners in recent months, which led to many deaths at the end of June. According to eyewitnesses, in the latter half of June, emergency ambulances were seen going in and out of the labor camp four to five times every day. Insiders from the labor camp reported that a mass killing took place there. And prior to that mass killing, at least 7 practitioners were known to have been tortured to death in Shijiazhuang.

In Shijiazhuang Labor Camp, Falun Dafa practitioners are forced to work 17 to 18 hours a day. Practitioners are frequently beaten, shocked with electric police rods, tied tightly with ropes, denied sleep for days and forced to run for 7-8 hours each day. When Falun Gong practitioners protest their deprived rights guaranteed by the Chinese constitution through hunger strikes, officials use brutal force feeding to respond to their request. In addition, the guards frequently force toothpaste, soap, dirty cloths or used sanitary napkins into the mouths of the practitioners.

Frequently, guards sexually abuse the female practitioners, and also instruct criminal inmates to participate in the abuse. It is been reported that guards scratch the vagina and beat the breasts of the practitioners. Some practitioners' nipples are seriously injured or even torn off. Several practitioners are stripped naked so that the guards or inmates can use the bottoms of their shoes to hit their genitals. In January 2001, we learned that female practitioners were thrown into a cell with male prisoners. The results of this unbelievable act were beyond description.

Currently, at least 600 Falun Gong practitioners are detained in labor camps, and detention centers in our sister city. As pointed out by the US State Department on July 5, these people should never have been incarcerated in such camps in the first place.

Countless others have been fired from their jobs, expelled from school, fined, or evicted from their homes. And this only represents the tip of the iceberg. Most of the atrocities will remain unknown to the world due to tight control over information by the Chinese authorities.

And more disturbingly, all the signs have shown that China has used the winning of the 2008 Olympic bid as a license to intensify the persecution. Specifically, in Shijiazhuang, they are planning to spend $200,000 to build a brainwashing center to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their practice. Please keep in mind, the average income for a Chinese person is only $580 a year.

We call on the officials of Edison to use all possible channels to send the message that Edison is strongly against the injustice and violations of human rights against Falun Gong practitioners. We urge the council and the mayor of Edison to use our cultural relationship with Shijiazhuang to rescue the Falun Gong practitioners in China whose lives are in immediate danger.

Lets speak out for those whose voice cant be heard.

Falun Gong Practitioners and Supporters