July 20th: 11 Years of Persecution

News from Inside China

News from Outside China

FDIC Press Statement: Eleven Years of Persecution and Peaceful Activism

July 20: Eleven years ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party launched a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong—a peaceful and popular spiritual practice embraced by tens of millions of Chinese citizens.  But the practitioners of Falun Gong are not the only victims, and the lives destroyed and lost are not the only costs. [...]

The Communist Party’s campaign of suppression is not merely about the physical security of Falun Gong adherents. Rather, it represents a threat to something far more fundamental and lasting:  the rights of individuals to seek to better themselves, and the collective values and integrity of an entire nation.[...] In a sense, the goal of persecution is to turn law-abiding people who aspire to kindness into people who inform on and torture their friends.[...]

Falun Gong practitioners are not the only victims of persecution in China.  The suppression of Falun Gong has been directed by the Communist Party and its security forces, but it has been executed with the help and acquiescence of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens. [...]

These are the other victims of the suppression of Falun Gong. True, they are not behind bars, nor denied educations and jobs because of their beliefs.  But they have been denied something even more important than physical freedoms—a clean conscience. They have been robbed of their integrity, blinded from truth. And it is for these people for whom Falun Gong adherents in China continue to risk their lives. 

To read more: http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1067/?cid=84

The Epoch Times: Congressmen Call for End to 11-Year Persecution of Falun Gong 

July 22: "On the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol at high noon on Thursday, about 500 Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) practitioners from around the world gathered in protest of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of the meditation practice for the past 11 years. Members of Congress, human rights activists, and Christian organizations joined offering their support for a new dawn of religious freedom in China.

'That is absolutely despicable,' shouted Rep. [Chris]  Smith [(R-NJ)]. '[Those who] cherish freedom must speak out against the brutality and hate that everyday manifests by the dictatorship of Beijing.'

Rep. [Ileana] Ros-Lehtenin [(R-FL)] said that the 'Chinese communist regime’s obsessive and relentless hunting down of practitioners of Falun Gong' is 'one of the most flagrant examples of systematic persecution in the 21st Century.'[...] 'The persecution of Falun Gong is barbaric, bloody, and brutal, and it must come to an end at once!' [...]

If anything the trend has been that the persecution is getting worse, observed Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.), in a statement read at the rally. 'Over the last 11 years of the ban against practicing Falun Gong in China, we have seen persecution against Falun Gong intensify, including an increase in censorship of websites, television stations, and other forms of media sympathetic to Falun Gong.'[...]

Appreciation was also expressed by many for the work that some Falun Gong practitioners have done to defeat China’s Firewall. Clothilde Le Coz, Washington Director of Reporters Without Borders, said, 'The Falun Gong's struggle has given a gift worldwide: circumvention software for internet users. Tired of being censored and harassed, the Falun Gong petitioners created one famous tool that is used all around the world. Thank you.'

To read more: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/39684/

See also: New Tang Dynasty TV:  "U.S. Congressmen Rally in Support of Falun Gong": http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_europe/2010-07-23/120607967755.html;
The Epoch Times: "Falun Gong Vigil Touches the Heart": http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/39924/

The Washington Times: Media mum on Falun Gong - as persecution escalates

July 27: "Last week The Epoch Times reported that hundreds of Falun Gong adherents and their supporters rallied on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington to mark 11 years of persecution at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – but very few news outlets mentioned much about the event. When it comes to human rights violations, the Falun Gong – regularly beaten, tortured, starved, imprisoned in labor camps and killed for the value their organs will bring on the black market – simply don’t seem newsworthy.

In an analysis of more than 1,800 Western news articles spanning eight years, writer Leeshai Lemish found that while 'the documented number of Falun Gong practitioners' deaths from torture in custody increased, the number of articles in the Western press … rapidly decreased.'

Why? Mr. Lemish posits several theories, among them the possibility that some media groups are concerned about being censored or removed entirely by the CCP in a growing and promising Chinese marketplace if they detail Falun Gong persecution; another theory is the difficulty of access Western media have to Chinese labor camps and prisons.[...]

But it is precisely because China's Communist regime does not allow for such critique or transparency that the Western press ought to publicize the CCP's heinous malfeasance – particularly when, according to Mr. Lemish, doing so seems to have a real impact on the treatment Falun Gong prisoners receive.

To read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/jul/27/media-mum-falun-gong-persecution-escalates/ 

For Lemish's full study, "Media and New Religious Movements: The Case of Falun Gong," see: http://www.cesnur.org/2009/slc_lemish.htm

FDIC: Elderly Falun Gong Practitioner Killed in Beijing Labor Camp

July 7: A 64-year-old woman has died from torture-related injuries while being held in a Beijing labor camp, the Falun Dafa Information Center has learned.

According to reports from China, Ms. Geng Jin E (耿金娥) was tortured to death at the Women's Forced Labor Camp in Beijing's Daxing district on June 10, 2010. Family members say they last saw Geng alive in April 2010 when visiting her at the camp. According to family members, Geng was very frail at the time, requiring two people to support her as she walked. Requests for medical parole made by her family both before and during the April visit were denied.

Geng was picked up by police on November 28, 2008 while she was talking to others about Falun Gong on a public bus. Police subsequently ransacked her home, but reportedly found no Falun Gong materials. Geng was then given a two-year term of forced labor without any judicial process.  

To read more: http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1065/?cid=84

FDIC: Urgent Appeal: Father of Washington DC Resident Faces Trial in China for Defending Falun Gong

June 28: The father of 26-year-old Washington DC resident Pang Jin is at risk of being sent to a prison camp because of his attempts to help his wife, a Falun Gong practitioner, avoid abduction and torture at the hands of Chinese police, the Falun Dafa Information Center has recently learned.

According to reports from China, Mr. Pang Xiaoqian will be put through a sham trial in Weifang city, Shandong province on July 14th where authorities intend to charge him with "harboring a criminal" for his efforts to protect his wife from abuse. In October 2009, a local judge "sentenced" his wife, Ms. Cao Junping, to ten years in a prison camp following similarly problematic proceedings.

"I never thought this could happen," says Pang Jin. "My dad just tried to protect my mom from being hurt."

To read more: http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1058/?cid=84

Tibetan Review: Rights lawyers' licenses not renewed

July 20: "China has refused to renew the professional licenses of several prominent rights lawyers during the recent annual inspection for the renewal of lawyers’ licenses, reported Radio Free Asia online Jul 18. [...]

The report quoted Jiang Tianyong, whose license was not renewed for the second time, as saying, 'Now some new conditions are appearing.  It seems that … before allowing them to pass they requested many lawyers to write various guarantees—not to take on certain cases, not to receive interviews, etc.'

The inspection process, conducted by the government controlled local lawyers associations, examines individual lawyers’ work over the past year and requires lawyers to register, pay a fee, and receive approval for renewal of their licenses.  This year’s inspection ended on Jul 15.[...]

The authorities’ grouse against Jiang is said to be that he had represented several sensitive cases, including the defence of Tibet protesters and Falun Gong members. He had also testified in the US Congress on rule of law issues in China. The Chinese Justice Bureau authorities were reported to have refused to even accept his application materials for the annual inspection."

To read more: http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=6747

The Epoch Times: Uyghur Organ Harvesting Witness Faces Deportation to China

Aug 4: "A former member of the Chinese security forces, with highly sensitive information on the state’s practice of harvesting organs from prisoners, is currently stuck in immigration limbo in Switzerland and faces deportation to China.

While Swiss authorities seek to apply the European Union’s recondite and stiff laws on asylum seekers, advocates say the witness has valuable information and should be granted asylum and an audience with the United Nations.

From 1993-1998, Nijat Abudureyimu, himself a Uyghur, was stationed in the prison of Liuwandao in the Northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang. His job was to lead prisoners from their cells to their execution. But often they weren’t normal executions. Police would shoot the prisoner in the head in such a way as not to kill them, so that organs harvested from the body would be in the best condition.

'This is the tip of a very large iceberg. In my opinion Uyghurs were used as a testing ground for organ harvesting in the same way they were used as a testing ground for nuclear weapons in the 1960s,' [said think tank researcher and author Ethan Gutmann who is advocating for Nijat to be granted asylum.] 'The flowering of the organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience did not occur in my opinion until the persecution of Falun Gong, in the years 2001 to the present. What this is suggesting is that in Xinjiang no controls were resident—the inhibitions were very low,' Mr. Gutmann said.

Testimony obtained from Uyghurs, including from Mr. Abuduremiyu, confirms earlier allegations from Falun Gong refugees of a massive prison camp in Xinjiang Province that holds hard-core criminals, and Uyghur and Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. 'This could be the locus of major organ harvesting activity,' he said."

To read more: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/40330/

Category: Falun Dafa in the Media