Statement by Morton Sklar, Executive Director of the World Organization Against Torture USA

On the Third Anniversary of the Campaign

Of Persecution by the Government of China

Against the Falun Gong Spiritual Movement

We all know how difficult it has been to convince the U.S. Government and the human rights enforcement agencies of the United Nations to take action against the Government of China for their campaign of persecution against the Falun Gong and for other major human rights violations. Unfortunately, trade policies and economic considerations tend to speak louder than human rights concerns, so it often is hard to get government officials and international agencies to speak out against China's abuses.

That is why it is so important to find ways that allow for victims of major human rights abuses in China, non-governmental organization human rights advocates, such as the World Organization Against Torture USA, and individual members of the U.S. Congress, to speak out against and bring attention to these abuses directly, without having to rely on support and official action from our government. In recent months our organization, working very closely with Falun Gong practitioners and other human rights groups, have found some new and creative ways to bring attention to the campaign of persecution against the Falun Gong in China. We have initiated several lawsuits in U.S. courts against officials of China who have been involved in the campaign of persecution and who are visiting the U.S. on a temporary basis. For example, during recent visits of the Deputy Chief of the Falun Gong Control Office (Office 610), the Deputy Governor of Liao Ning Province, where one of the major prison facilities used to house and torture Falun Gong practitioners is located, and the Mayor of Beijing, we filed lawsuits against them on behalf of the victims of the anti-Falun Gong campaign, seeking monetary damages stemming from their abuses. And this week, we are filing a similar case against Icelandair Airlines and the Government of Iceland for unlawfully denying Falun Gong practitioners the right to board planes to Iceland so that they could be present during the visit to the country by Jiang Zemin, the President of China, in order to peacefully protest against his initiation of the Falun Gong persecution campaign, and to practice Falun Gong spiritual exercises to demonstrate connection and solidarity with practitioners in China who are being tortured and executed. It is bad enough that the Government of China is persecuting its citizens because of their spiritual beliefs. Western democratic governments and corporations should not be supporting this persecution, and protecting Chinese officials from hearing peaceful objections to their abusive policies when they visit other countries.

One of the most troubling facts that the Iceland lawsuit has brought to light is that the Government of China has been circulating to Western Governments a "blacklist" of Falun Gong practitioners whom they are seeking to ban from travel and otherwise treat as security risks. This is one of the worst forms of McCarthyism to have emerged in recent years, and raises serious questions about invasions of privacy and personal rights against Falun Gong practitioners taking place not just in China, but in Western countries where the "blacklist" is being circulated and used, as well. The Icelandair exclusions included holding "interviews" with selected passengers of Asian ethnicity to determine whether they were Falun Gong practitioners or supporters. In other words, questioning people about their beliefs before allowing them to travel on flights on which they held tickets. We cannot allow spiritual beliefs to be used as a basis for deciding whether we can travel, and whether we are security risks.

By bringing Chinese officials before U.S. courts to answer for their role in connection with Falun Gong persecution and torture, and by holding Western Governments and corporations accountable for policies that support Chinese atrocities, we are trying to bring attention to the ongoing campaign of persecution and torture of the Falun Gong, and to provide a direct means for preventing and punishing these abuses. Hopefully, the next step along these lines will be to hold these same officials criminally accountable for their actions through prosecutions before the International Criminal Court and in the criminal courts of the U.S. and other sympathetic nations, applying the principles of criminal accountability and universal jurisdiction that were used against General Augusto Pinochet in the United Kingdom.

The abuses taking place in China against the Falun Gong and their supporters must not go unanswered and unpunished. We are happy to be part of the effort to bring attention these problems, and to find ways of preventing and punishing torture and other major human rights abuses through civil and criminal actions filed in U.S. courts.

I just came back from a visit to Chicago for a meeting of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA. In the lobby of the Chicago Tribune Building I saw this quote by former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Floyd Thompson engraved on the marble walls. He said: "Human liberty can not be secure unless there is freedom to express grievances." The Chinese Government, and regrettably some Western governments and corporations, have been trying to suppress not only free speech, but also the right to have and express spiritual beliefs freely, and to travel to do so. The Falun Gong spiritual movement is speaking for all Americans, and all supporters of human rights, in standing up for the right to maintain and express their values and beliefs without restrictions on their civil liberties and human rights. We must support and speak out for them when their rights, their personal security and liberty, and even their lives, are being threatened by the campaign of persecution now being carried out against them by the Government of China. This is especially important when these abuses are supported, intentionally or unwittingly, by the actions of Western governments and corporations, as seems to be the case through the circulation in the West of the Falun Gong practitioners "black list," and the denial by the Government of Iceland and Icelandair Airlines of the rights of those whose names appear on the list to travel to protest the policies of the Government of China, and to peacefully practice their spiritual beliefs wherever and however they may choose. We support these rights, and the efforts of the Falun Gong practitioners to exercise them.