(Clearwisdom.net) International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and, more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women.

The United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day in 1975 on March 8. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution, proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. By adopting this resolution, the General Assembly recognized the role of women in peace efforts and development, and urged an end to discrimination and an increase of support for women's full and equal participation.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, ignores universally accepted values and human rights principles, especially in its brutal persecution of Falun Gong.

For example, Party officials arrested 69-year-old Ms. Liu Xiaolian from Chibi City, Hubei Province, after it launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. They savagely tortured this older woman, including sexually assaulting her and injecting her with powerful, mind-altering drugs. While she was detained at the First Detention Center in Chibi City on December 6, 2002, nineteen police officers and inmates pulled her in five different directions simultaneously; the muscles in her vagina were torn from the brutal force, and all her joints became dislocated. Others took turns beating her with 55-pound shackles while she was being pulled apart. Ms. Liu suffered many broken bones and other severe injuries over the course of the day and fell unconscious due to the intense pain. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture sent an urgent appeal on her behalf on February 4, 2004, yet the Party did not release her until August 2008, when she was on the brink of death and suffering from whole-body edema. She passed away on October 26, 2008.

Unfortunately, her case is not an exception. The CCP has used different violent methods against Falun Gong practitioners. Besides routine beatings, they also use electric shock batons; handcuffs; shackles; handcuffing behind the back; handcuffing the hands and feet together so that the person cannot walk, eat, or even use the toilet; "smoke pole handcuffs;" "wolves-teeth handcuffs;" imprisonment in hell;" "water dungeon;" manure pit; Death Bed; "sitting board;" confinement in a solitary confinement; iron chair; "tiger chair;" ultra-long time in squatting position; tying with ropes; nailing through fingernails; twisting flesh with pliers; pulling out nails with pliers; using needles to stab fingers; and putting concentrated acid into the nose.

The abusers also employ force-feeding with hot pepper-laced water, highly concentrated saline solutions, drugs or human/animal feces. In the winter they pour cold water on the inmates' heads and let them freeze outside, naked. In the heat of summer they expose them to the blazing sun. They restrain practitioners in mental hospitals or drug-rehab centers. Then they inject them with large doses of drugs destructive to the central nervous system, or torture them with ultra-high powered electric needles. Promising reduced sentences to lure non-practitioner inmates, they recruit criminals to tyrannize Falun Gong practitioners. This is only part of a list of over 100 different kinds of tortures known to have been used on Falun Gong practitioners over the ten-year persecution.

Sexual Assault

The protection of women's rights is an important gauge of a society's civilization. Over the past decade, Communist regime officials have forced female Falun Gong practitioners to undergo abortions. They have also committed gang rape and other sexual abuses.

In October 2000, eighteen women were thrown into male cells and gang-raped at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. A Beijing police officer raped and brutally assaulted a woman in public in May 2001, and numerous women were raped in Xingtai City, Hebei Province that same year. A Chongqing police officer publicly raped Wei Xingyan, a graduate student at Chongqing University in May 2003, and thirty-two-year-old Ms. Zhu Xia suffered a nervous breakdown after being repeatedly raped at a brainwashing center in 2004. Guards at the Dalian Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province stripped some women naked, handcuffed them in a spread-eagle position, and shoved peppers, filthy mops, or coarse brushes into the victims' vaginas, which caused profuse bleeding and excruciating pain, and leaving them with severe trauma.

The CCP's persecution policy is behind all crimes against Falun Gong practitioners

So far at least 3,251 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of the persecution, 55 percent of them women. The persecution is a systematic and widespread crime. The police officers and guards who commit the actual crimes are beyond forgiveness, but the CCP itself is the actual instigator of the crimes.

Jiang Zemin and his regime issued secret orders stipulating that police officers can do anything to Falun Gong practitioners without legal consequences: "Beaten to death is counted as suicide," "Do not identify the body and cremate immediately." These policies brought out the officers' evil natures and served as a green light for them to rape women and commit other crimes at will. These policies produced criminals and rapists in police uniforms.

United Nations Human Rights Report Condemns the CCP Persecution

Several United Nations Special Rapporteurs have pointed out and condemned the severe human rights violations targeting Falun Gong practitioners in many reports for eight years running. As the authority on international law and human rights monitoring agency, the UN Commission on Human Rights presents its annual report to its 53 member nations, 146 observer nations, and many NGOs (non-governmental organizations).

Manfred Nowak, a UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, stated in his March 2006 report that 66 percent of torture victims in China are Falun Gong practitioners.

The US State Department submits an annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to the US Congress, and China has received lots of criticism for its deplorable human rights record. The report mentioned the contiuning severe deterioration of human rights in China, and that the Chinese government has monitored, harassed, and detained religious adherents and Falun Gong practitioners. The report states, "Other serious human rights abuses included extra-judicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor."

Human rights are universal values. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, 61 years ago. According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon: "The Declaration was the first global statement of what we now take for granted--the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings."

The CCP's persecution of Falun Gong, however, has constituted the most egregious violation of this Declaration.

More than 50 million people have publicly withdrawn from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. As more people see through and abandon the evil CCP, the Party will disintegrate in a peaceful manner. The author calls on the world to help stop the persecution of Falun Gong, and bring head perpetrators Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, and Zhou Yongkang to justice.