Epoch Times: Lawsuit Against Chinese TV Network - 'The Same Song' Said to Instigate Torture, Brainwashing

Jan 22, 2006

A woman lies naked and bleeding profusely on the cold cement floor of a Chinese forced labor camp. Her skin is so bruised and burnt from the electric shocks inflicted by her torturers that she is almost unrecognizable.

The smell of burning flesh is in the air.

Again, her torturers demand that she renounce her faith and adopt the Chinese Communist ideology. As she has done for the past three days of this "interrogation," she ardently refuses.

Exasperated, her captors roll out a television, put in a tape, and play it. Lifting her weary head from the floor, she peers up at the television. The woman first sees the grandeur of New York City's skyline. The video cuts to a shot of Radio City Music Hall and then fades in to Radio City's stage, where what appears to be a grand performance is about to commence.

The woman's confusion at being shown such benign images quickly turns to horror as the performers on the video begin singing "The Same Song" --a song that is used throughout Chinese forced labor camps to celebrate when a victim of torture has relented, agreeing to give up his or her beliefs and become obedient to the Communist Party.

The woman's head falls to the ground, and with it, the last of her resolve. Surely, she thinks to herself, if "The Same Song" is celebrated in New York City on Radio City's grand stage-surely what her captors tell her is true. The whole world is persecuting Falun Gong. We are alone. No one cares if we live or die here.

Utterly defeated, the woman relents.

This is precisely the scene that several U.S.-based human rights organizations, and their attorneys, are seeking to prevent from ever happening by filing a civil complaint against China Central Television (CCTV) yesterday in New York.

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, which announced the lawsuit today, the complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is "an action for compensatory and punitive damages against CCTV for its intentional production, broadcast and dissemination of propaganda and other material geared specifically to incite, aid and abet, authorize, order or instigate the illegal arrest, prolonged arbitrary detention and severe mental and physical torture and brainwashing of plaintiffs and persons similarly situated in China."

The Center says the complaint was filed by International Advocates for Justice, World Organization for Human Rights (USA), and the Human Rights Law Project, all of which are based in the United States.

Attorney Ms. Lana Han, who represents the plaintiffs, says CCTV's "Same Song" performance, set to play at Radio City Music Hall on Monday, January 23, is a key component of CCTV's persecution of Falun Gong. "While it appears to be a benign pop tune and a far cry from the forceful, Communist-style propaganda that the Chinese Communist regime has directed at Falun Gong over the past six years," Han says, "it is actually a key element of the torture campaign that is being waged in China.

Han explains that "The Same Song" is used in forced labor camps throughout China amidst torture sessions as a way of celebrating the breaking of a person's spirit through intense brainwashing and brutal violence. "As the victim succumbs to the torturers and pledges total allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party, both torturer and victim alike must join in singing 'The Same Song,'" Han says.

In a statement released on Wednesday, January 18, the New York Falun Dafa Association expressed grave concerns over how the Chinese regime will use Monday's planned "Same Song" performance at Radio City Music Hall. In its statement, the Association said, "The Chinese Communist Party will certainly film this show on Radio City's grand stage so that it can be turned into propaganda films and shown inside labor camps throughout China to further terrorize torture victims, leading them to wrongly believe that even in New York City, people celebrate the song that, for them, is synonymous with brainwashing and horrific violence. This cannot be allowed. It is a demented and totally unacceptable use of our theatre, our city, and our nation."

Still, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Dr. Terri Marsh, says the lawsuit is targeting the broad spectrum of propaganda and "outright lies" that CCTV has propagated against Falun Gong, and not just the use of "The Same Song."

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, CCTV makes no secret about its mission to advance the cause of the Chinese Communist Party. CCTV's own website states that it "serves as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party and follows the CCP's plans and mandates as well as those of the Central Propaganda Department."

Marsh likened CCTV's tactics to "those used in Nazi Germany, in Rwanda, during the massacre of the Tutsi by the Hutu, and in Yugoslavia under Slobodan Milosevic." Marsh explains, "In all of these massacres, not only is the message always the same ('Destroy them or they will destroy you'), but the name of the mass crime that follows is genocide or ethnic cleansing , and now we're seeing something similar propagated against Falun Gong in China."

"CCTV has effectively created a network of lies about Falun Gong that encourages and incites the public, the police, and other security forces in China to subject practitioners of Falun Gong to unlawful arrests and detention, illegal police interrogation, torture as well as brutal forms of brainwashing and indoctrination techniques to force practitioners to renounce their belief in the tenets of Falun Gong," Marsh said.

The Falun Dafa Information Center says that since the Chinese Communist regime first launched a nationwide campaign in 1999 to "eradicate" the practice, the Center has verified details of 2,804 deaths and over 44,000 cases of torture. Millions have been detained with as many as two million sent to forced labor camps.

"The role of CCTV in the persecution of Falun Gong is broad and sinister,"

explains Marsh. "But a key component of CCTV's arsenal is 'The Same Song'

show set to play at Radio City. Thus, if it goes on, we will explore the possibility of additional persons being complicit in the event. It is very likely others might be named alongside CCTV for aiding and abetting the abuses perpetrated against Falun Gong."

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-1-22/37234.html