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Slide 1: Compassion A Journal of Falun Dafa Around the World ISSUE 5: 2004 Lawsuits Around the World Take Aim at Genocide in China IN THIS EDITION: Jiang’s Gestapo Against Falun Gong and An American Detained in China
Slide 2: The campaign of persecution [against Falun Gong] has been... carried out by government officials and police at all levels, and has permeated every segment of society and every level of government in the People’s Republic of China. United States Congress (Resolution No. 188 Unanimously Passed 420-0) Jiang’s horrific form of genocide is a terror that does not just destroy lives, but [aims to] destroy faith… It is a terror that must be brought to justice. Georges-Henri Beauthier Renowned Human Rights Attorney who succesfully prosecuted Pinochet and Rwandan Genocide Perpetrators At least 43 psychiatric hospitals all over China are being used to detain and torture [Falun Gong] practitioners... We know some of the drugs the hospitals force on sane individuals in an attempt to destroy their will and spirit... we know of the widespread use of psychotropic drugs by ordinary police in jails, brainwashing centers, and labor camps. Abraham L. Halpern, M.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, New York Medical College; Former President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
Slide 3: ON THE COVER Australian citizen, Jane Dai with daughter Fadu. Jane’s husband was tortured to death by Chinese police because he practices Falun Gong. After months of effort and with the help of Australian Government officials, Jane was able to secure her husband’s ashes. Championed by some of the world’s leading human rights attorneys, Jane and others are now taking their case to the world’s court rooms. Compassion is a journal providing news and information about Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) around the world. It is produced entirely through the efforts of volunteers and paid for by donations to the Falun Dafa InfoCenter. Editorial Committee Peter Jauhal, England Levi Browde, U.S. John Nania, U.S. Jillian Ye, Canada Sophie Xiao, Hong Kong Caroline Lam, Australia Publisher Compassion is published and distributed by: Falun Dafa Information Center 331 West 57th Street, #409 New York, NY 10019 USA Toll Free: 888-842-4797 Website: www.faluninfo.net e-mail: contact@faluninfo.net ISBN: 1-931035-01-6 Falun Dafa InfoCenter (FDI) is a non-profit organization based in New York City dedicated to providing news and information about Falun Dafa around the world. All officers, board members and staff are strictly volunteers, offering their free time and skills to help provide accurate information about Falun Dafa. Contents 12 LAWSUITS AROUND THE WORLD Lawsuits in more than a dozen countries take aim at persecution of Falun Gong. IMMUNITY, GENOCIDE, AND THE RULE OF LAW An interview with Dr. Terri Marsh. JIANG’S PERSONAL CAMPAIGN A closer look at how and why Jiang sought to “eradicate Falun Gong.” A GESTAPO AGAINST FALUN GONG The anatomy of China’s illicit agency for persecuting Falun Gong. WHY DIDN’T I KNOW THIS? Behind the media black-out in China and diplomatic interference abroad. WHAT IS FALUN GONG? An introduction and history of Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual practice. CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE AND THE EDUCATION OF CHINA One of the largest grassroots campaigns of civil disobedience the world has ever known. AN AMERICAN DETAINED IN CHINA The story of Dr. Charles Lee from Menlo Park, California. FROM RAGS TO RICHES TO TORTURE A businesswoman from northeast China recounts her horrific ordeal. RECENT NEWS AND EVENTS A look at Falun Gong-related events around the world. 22 28 30 AP 36 40 44 48 50 52
Slide 4: Under Jiang’s personal direction, officials conducting the campaign of persecution against Falun Gong have committed substantial violations of the Conventions against Genocide and against Torture. The death toll is exceedingly high. Brutal torture is state-authorized and commonplace. In this lawsuit against Jiang we see humanity’s continuing effort to rise above our capacity for atrocity and to order our lives according to higher principles. Dr. Terri Marsh Lead attorney in class-action lawsuit charging Jiang Zemin and his Gestapo-like agency with genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore.... III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law. The Nuremberg Tribunals Charter and Judgment,(Principles I & II) of the Nuremberg Charter adopted shortly after World War II, addressing the issue of immunity with respect to heads of state who have violated international laws.
Slide 5: From the Editors For the last several years in China, participants in one of the largest grassroots campaigns of civil disobedience the world has ever known have quietly educated fellow citizens about the genocide unfolding in their own backyards. At great risk to themselves, Falun Gong practitioners in China have also continued to provide the outside world with another first: Daily, eyewitness reports from inside China’s forced labor camp system, prisons, and detention centers. These reports also illustrate how Jiang Zemin has tied the Falun Gong issue into virtually every aspect of society, from job applications to college examinations, from promotions in the military to elementary school “anti-Falun Gong sessions.” Throughout society, all must “show the correct attitude” towards Falun Gong before securing a job, getting a promotion, or advancing in school. Such information provides an in-depth look at how the persecution of Falun Gong affects the Chinese people, the Chinese nation, and the international community. Although Jiang has allocated significant resources to control the flow of such information, particularly outside China (in 2002, Reporters Without Borders ranked China second to last — edged out only by North Korea for the bottom spot — on its press freedom index), these reports give accounts of what is actually happening to Falun Gong practitioners. Utilizing emails, websites, faxes, payphones, and other means, individuals throughout China have courageously reported on a wide range of stories. They’ve collected facts on large-scale police actions, on secret government orders, on police who have tortured and killed, and even on local authorities in some regions who have come to understand Falun Gong and no longer carry out persecution orders. The Falun Dafa InfoCenter (FDI) endeavors to compile, cross-check, and publish these reports. They are provided to government officials, international media, human rights organizations, and the general public. We accomplish this through email alerts, weekly newsletters, press briefings, and print publications such as this one. Reports from FDI then feed into the international media and human rights bodies, who are frequently able to verify the factual details independently. FDI’s operations are carried out entirely by volunteers. FDI’s publications are available at cost to individuals who feel the need to expose the well-hidden truth of the persecution in China. These individuals contribute their time and their resources to make it possible. It is likely that whoever handed you this edition of Compassion paid for it him or herself. The editorial team, also consisting entirely of volunteers, includes professionals, students, business owners, and scientists. The work is done in a collaborative manner spanning multiple countries, with a close watch on adhering to the main goal: to expose, as accurately as possible, the persecution of Falun Gong and those responsible for it. In this edition of Compassion you will learn about the international efforts to bring Jiang Zemin and his cohorts to justice in courts of law around the world (see p. 14). We provide details and insights into the inner workings of Jiang’s regime, how he has commandeered the government apparatus to carry out genocide against Falun Gong (see p. 26), and how he has largely managed to hide the true extent of the atrocities not only from the outside world, but even from his own people (see p. 34). Many in China have undertaken great risks to provide this information to the world. We hope that we have organized and presented this information in a way that does justice to their courageous efforts. We also encourage you, our readers, to send us your suggestions or questions. Please contact us at contact@faluninfo.net, or see the mailing address on the previous page. – Editor Team, Compassion
Slide 7: Falun Gong in 60 Countries Many have called Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, the fastest-growing spiritual practice in history. In just over a decade since its public introduction in China, more than one hundred million people in over sixty countries have taken up the practice. Most learned of it through word of mouth. Falun Gong practitioners are found on six continents, in countries ranging from Canada to Argentina, from Sweden to South Africa, and from Turkey to the Phillipines. They are from all age groups, all walks of life and many diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The Falun Gong books have been translated into 32 languages, with more translations on the way.
Slide 8: Killed in China for Their Beliefs Killed for Their Beliefs... Women dressed in white – traditional Chinese funeral colors – carry photos of those who have been tortured to death in China. The procession has become a familiar sight in many of the world’s cities, as Falun Gong practitioners around the world make known the killings of fellow practitioners in China. For their commitment to a practice that has brought them better health and peace of mind, and for their faith in the principles of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance, Falun Gong practitioners in China are regularly killed by Chinese authorities. Among the dead are teenagers and the elderly, mothers and grandmothers, schoolteachers, farmers and judges. 36-year-old Ms. Zhengshu Cui was an ethnic Korean living in northeastern China. She died on August 12, 2003 from extended torture and abuse sustained while imprisoned for her beliefs in a forcedlabor camp. 37-year-old Li Wenrui died while in custody of Beijing Police after being arrested for peacefully demonstrating on Tiananmen Square. His family members observed many bruises and injuries on his body as a result of beatings and torture.
Slide 9: 64-year-old Ms. Mo Shujin was sent to a forced-labor camp because she practices Falun Gong where she was beaten until she coughed up blood. Afraid she would expose the abuse she faced, labor camp officials administered a fatal injection. She collapsed and died. After ten months of severe torture, 42-year-old Ms. Shiying Deng died in a prison camp on July 19, 2003. During her imprisonment, Ms. Deng was repeatedly subjected to electric shock torture, tied down to a metal bed for extended periods of time, beaten with rubber tubes, and violently force-fed.
Slide 10: Torture and Brainwashing Chinese police relentlessly employ both physical and mental torture to “brainwash” Falun Gong practitioners into renouncing their beliefs. Often surrounded by television or audio programs demonizing their faith, Falun Gong practitioners are beaten, shocked with cattle prods (often in sensitive areas, such as the genitals, anus and mouth), force-fed human feces and subjected to other forms of torture in order to “transform” them into renouncing Falun Gong. Police are often given quotas for the number of practitioners to “transform,” and free reign to employ any means necessary to do so. Ms. Lingxia Wu with her son in 1997 With festering scars on her body and severe edema in her abdomen (left), Ms. Lingxia Wu was near-death after almost a year of severe torture in a Heilongjiang Province detention center. Fearing she would die in custody, detention center officials released Ms. Wu. She died three weeks later from her injuries. She was 37 years old.
Slide 11: At a police station in western Beijing, Ouyang was stripped and interrogated for five hours. “If I responded incorrectly, that is if I didn’t say, ‘Yes,’ they shocked me with the electric truncheon,” he said. Then, he was transferred to a labor camp in Beijing’s western suburbs. There, the guards ordered him to stand facing a wall. If he moved, they shocked him. If he fell down from fatigue, they shocked him. Each morning, he had five minutes to eat and relieve himself. “If I didn’t make it, I went in my pants,” he said. “And they shocked me for that, too.” By the sixth day, Ouyang said, he couldn’t see straight from staring at plaster three inches from his face. His knees buckled, prompting more shocks and beatings. He gave in to the guards’ demands. For the next three days, Ouyang denounced [Falun Gong’s] teachings, shouting into the wall. Officers continued to shock him about the body and he soiled himself regularly. Finally, on the 10th day, Ouyang’s repudiation of the group was deemed sufficiently sincere. He was taken before a group of Falun Gong inmates and rejected the group one more time as a video camera rolled. Ouyang left jail and entered the brainwashing classes. Twenty days later after debating Falun Gong for 16 hours a day, he “graduated.” “The pressure on me was and is incredible,” he said. “In the past two years, I have seen the worst of what man can do. We really are the worst animals on Earth.” Washington Post Beijing Bureau; August 5, 2001
Slide 12: September, 2003: ICELAND October, 2002: CHICAGO February, 2002: SAN FRANCISCO February, 2002: SAN FRANCISCO July, 2001: NEW YORK CITY April, 2002: WASHINGTON DC September, 2003: BELGIUM December, 2002: FRANCE October, 2003: SPAIN As of Jan. 2004, 16 lawsuits have been filed around the world charging former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and a few senior officials with genocide, torture and crimes against humanity for their roles in the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Lawsuits around the World
Slide 13: September, 2003: FINLAND November, 2003: GERMANY September, 2003: MOLDOVA September, 2003: ARMENIA October, 2003: CYPRUS December, 2003: SOUTH KOREA November, 2003: TAIWAN s daily reports from China indicate, torture, killings and other grave human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners remain rampant. Falun Gong practitioners around the world have now taken their cases to the world’s courtrooms, seeking justice and an end to the genocide in China. A
Slide 14: Former Chinese Leader and Senior Officials Charged with Genocide, Torture in U.S., Europe, Australia, Asia G enocide is perhaps the gravest of legal terms. It is a word most often associated with the gas chambers of World War II, machetebearing militia in Rwanda or mass graves in the former Yugoslavia. As encoded in international law, however, genocide encompasses a broader range of crimes than the overt physical carnage these images convey, and necessarily so, for genocide has many faces. On December 11, 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted with unanimity Resolution 96 (i) in which it offered its definition of genocide: “Genocide is the negation of the right to existence of entire human groups, as is homicide the negation of the right to life of individual human beings…” As 16 lawsuits now filed around the world argue, the more than four-year campaign to “eradicate Falun Gong” in China launched by former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin falls squarely within the definition of genocide, torture and other crimes against humanity. In July 1999, Jiang launched a violent campaign against Falun Gong characterized by the United States Congress as a persecution “carried out by government officials and police at all levels, [that] has permeated every segment of society and every level of government” and is implemented through “organized brainwashing, torture, and murder.” (HCR 218) By the end of 2003, details of 852 deaths have been verified by the Falun Dafa InfoCenter (FDI). Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 sentenced to forced labor camps, typically without trial, according to the Center. There are over BY JOHN NANIA Jiang Zemin’s Campaign against Falun Gong Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese exercise and meditation – or self-cultivation – practice, which Chinese authorities embraced and supported during the early to mid-1990’s. In April 1999, Chinese government officials told the Associated Press and the New York Times that “at least 70 million” people were practicing Falun Gong in China. 14 Compassion • 2004
Slide 15: 30,000 documented cases of persecution, which are believed to be a small number of the total. Jiang Sued for Torture The torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China is both wide-spread and state-sanctioned, with orders coming directly from Jiang. According to a Wall Street Journal article from 2001 called "A Deadly Exercise" (part of a Pulitzer-prize winning series by Ian Johnson), orders passed down to Chinese police throughout the country were that "no means is too excessive" to force Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their beliefs. In a Washington Post article published later that year, the Chinese Communist Party is said to have "sanctioned the systematic use of violence against the [Falun Gong], established a network of brainwashing classes and embarked on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by neighborhood and workplace by workplace." In February 2002, an Amnesty International spokesperson added: "Falun Gong practitioners are now systematically subject to torture in prisons and re-education camps." According to thousands of testimonies from victims, this "systematic use of violence" has unleashed a barrage of torture methods on Falun Gong practitioners. The electric baton, or cattle prod as it is known in the West, appears to be the most common torture method. Practitioners are often tied down as police shock their bodies with electric batons that issue a 25,000 volt charge. Frequently the torturers target sensitive areas of the body such as the head, inside the mouth, the neck, genitals and anus. In many labor camps, the victims are first stripped naked and sometimes doused in water to intensify the electrical currents when the electric shock torture is administered. There have been hundreds of cases reported of practitioners being injected with psychotropic drugs or other "medications" that damage the nervous system, often rendering the person incoherent and plummeting them into horrific states of physical pain and mental anguish. This form of torture often results in permanent nerve damage or irreversible psychological damage. Many have died from such "medications." Other torture techniques include force-feeding practitioners with human feces, driving bamboo sticks through their hands and under their fingernails, stripping them naked and exposing them to freezing temperatures for prolonged periods of time and incarcerating them in "water dungeons" where they are submerged in filthy water – sometimes from local sewage drains – in pitch-black surroundings for days at a time. Female Falun Gong practitioners have suffered sexual abuse and rape, including gang rape, as well as the "hip splitting" torture: a technique where women are tied hanging from the ceiling spreadeagle, while the torturer violently shoves mops or toilet brushes into the vagina. The torture often causes extensive bleeding and infections. Sometimes hot pepper sauce is placed on the brushes resulting in severe burning in the vagina. Hundreds of testimonies from torture victims inside China quote police and prison guards saying that their or- Members of U.S. Congress Urge U.S. Court to Proceed with Lawsuit against Former Chinese Communist Leader Members of the United States Congress filed an Amicus brief with a U.S. District Court in Illinois on June 11, 2003, urging the court to proceed with a lawsuit that charges former Chinese Communist leader, Jiang Zemin, with genocide, crimes against humanity and other offenses. Congressman Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat Party member on the House Foreign Relations Committee, authored the brief, which 38 of his colleagues endorsed. “As members of the U.S. Congress... we have a significant and abiding interest in this lawsuit,” the brief begins. Among the “interests” Congress has in the court action against Jiang are issues of human rights, which “have long been considered a key aspect of U.S. through any sort of popular electoral process,” states the brief. “To the contrary, Mr. Jiang rose to power for his hard-line approach to crushing the democracy movement of 1989. Throughout his rule...reputable sources such as Amnesty International, Human Rights [continued on page 15] Watch and the State Department’s own Country Report on Human Rights have documented severe and systematic human rights abuses by Jiang’s government against his own people.” The brief continued, “This lawsuit was filed not to embarrass China, but to persuade the defendants to end their persecution of Falun Gong ... it is highly consistent with the goals set forth in [U.S. Department of State’s] annual review of human rights.” foreign policy.” The brief lists a number of Congressional laws – some of which are cited in this lawsuit – as vehicles to “protect citizens around the world from human rights abuses and violations.” “Mr. Jiang did not come to power www.faluninfo.net 15
Slide 16: Up Close: A Few Plaintiffs While many plaintiffs remain nameless, a few Falun Gong practitioners living overseas have risked pressure and threats against their families in China to step forward and present their cases. Ms. Wang Yuzhi Wang Yuzhi was detained in the Wanjia Labor Camp and tortured to the brink of death for refusing to give up her beliefs. “I chose my conscience because I knew that when people renounce good, wholesome beliefs under pressure from a dictatorship, something much greater than us dies.” [For Wang Yuzhi’s full story, go to p. 50.] Mr. Gang Chen Gang Chen survived eighteen months of severe torture in the notorious Tuanhe Labor Camp. The torture could easily have killed him, but he considers himself lucky, with efforts in the U.S. on his behalf eventually helping gain his release. He now uses his own case to help rally others to appeal for individual practitioners detained in the Labor Camps. “Because the guards knew they were being watched, what they did to me was not as bad as what they did to some others.” ders to use any means necessary to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs come straight from the top: Jiang Zemin. Jiang Sued for Genocide As defined by the United Nations Convention Against Genocide, “genocide includes, but is not limited to, the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…” The campaign Jiang has waged against Falun Gong in China fits multiple aspects of this genocide definition. First, there is the rapidly mounting death toll. While the verified death toll of Falun Gong practitioners in China reached 852 by the end of 2003, the true death toll is believed to be well into the thousands. The cases of verified deaths that are known have been uncovered by the persistent investigation of individuals in China at great risk to themselves. The treatment of Falun Gong practi- tioners within labor camps and detention centers has never been subject to international scrutiny, and all information remains tightly blocked by the Chinese state. Following on the heels of Jiang’s orders that no measure is too excessive to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their beliefs, numerous informed sources inside China say Jiang’s 6-10 Office has also instructed labor camps and detention centers to record all deaths in custody as suicides and cremate the bodies immediately. In Jiang’s attempt to eliminate Falun Gong in China, clearly torturing Falun Gong practitioners to death remains a 16 Compassion • 2004
Slide 17: Mr. Zhao Ming A graduate student in Computer Science at Trinity College, Dublin, Zhao Ming returned to China during Christmas break, 1999. Arrested for his practice of Falun Gong, Zhao Ming was imprisoned for 22 months. He survived numerous forced feedings, prolonged periods of sleep deprivation, severe beatings from inmates, and sessions of being shocked with cattle prods by several guards simultaneously. Two close friends of his have died in labor camps. Jane and Fadu Dai Jane and Fadu Dai have seen their family shattered. Jane’s husband Chengyong Chen was tortured to death in Guanzhou, China. Chengyong’s sister was called to identify the remains. When she did so, she herself was arrested for her practice of Falun Gong, and sentenced to a forced labor camp. Chengyong’s father, doubly bereft, died of grief shortly thereafter. Jane, who luckily had obtained Australian citizenship, was able to keep herself and Fadu safe. Jane now tells others their story, speaking up for all those in China who cannot speak for themselves. wide-spread means to that end when individuals refuse to renounce their beliefs. Second, the infliction of “serious… mental harm” and the imposition of “conditions of life calculated to bring about [the group’s] physical destruction” are both part of a horrific “transformation” process. A systematic and comprehensive effort is made to “transform” every single practitioner in China, and in doing so to eliminate the group Falun Gong entirely. Throughout the tumultuous reign of the Communist Party in China, complex, diverse and often violent methods of persecution were developed and refined. These methods aimed to isolate completely a segment of society and extinguish it by “transforming” individuals’ hearts and minds to the point where they are so broken, their spirits so raped, that they become but shadows of who they once were; reduced to an almost mindless state of obedience to the Party line. Since 1999, Jiang Zemin has commandeered the knowledge and methods for “transforming” people that the Chinese Communist Party has amassed over five decades, and unleashed them upon Falun Gong with a terrifying force. In addition to the more than 300 forced labor camps throughout China where Falun Gong practitioners are being held, brainwashing centers have been instituted through state-run companies, government offices and police stations throughout China. In the camps and centers, Falun Gong practitioners are engulfed in a barrage of psychological attacks on their beliefs. On top of the psychological attacks comes continuous physical torture. Thus, day in and day out, detained Falun Gong practitioners live in a world that vilifies their most fundamental beliefs, while putting them through a regiment of unbearable tor- www.faluninfo.net 17
Slide 18: Up Close: A Few Lawsuits By the end of 2003, 16 lawsuits were filed in different countries around the world against Jiang Zemin and a few senior officials. China has become a prison for these defendants as they face more lawsuits and legal actions when traveling abroad. Madrid, Spain Filed on October 15, 2003 against Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan on behalf of fifteen plaintiffs from United States, Argentina, Belgium and Spain. The complaint is based on Spain’s Organic Law, which grants Spanish courts universal jurisdiction to process complaints for severe crimes such as genocide, even though the crimes were not committed in Spain. Berlin, Germany Filed on November 21, 2003 on behalf of 40 plaintiffs at the Federal Court in Karlsruhe charging Jiang Zemin and other high-ranking Chinese officials responsible for the persecution with genocide, torture, and crimes against humanity. Falun Gong’s attorney, Wolfgang Kaleck, first gained notoriety for representing German victims of former Argentine President, Jorge Videla, who was charged with the torture and killing of thousands during his rule in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. ture aimed at breaking down the will utterly and completely. For those forcefully detained in mental institutions, psychotropic drugs, electric shock torture and nerve damaging drugs are often added to the transformation arsenal. The stated goal of this transformation process is two-fold: 1) To force Falun Gong practitioners to denounce their own faith and 2) enlist the practitioners to publicly denounce Falun Gong and help authorities “transform” others. Through this process of transformation, many are killed amid the violent methods used, many others are driven crazy or mentally collapse, while those who give in to the transformation live out their lives as agents of the persecution themselves. As one brainwashing center guard in Hebei Provincial Center regularly tells practitioners detained there: “It is when I see you beat and curse people that I will count you as totally transformed.” Thus, all people in China who are identified as Falun Gong practitioners (or even those believed to be “supporters”) are targets of a “transformation” process that – if they do not die or are not driven crazy amid the terrifying violence and degradation – aims to strip them of their conscience, their faith and their human spirit: everything that makes them a Falun Gong practitioner, and indeed, a human being. Thus, through a combined process of brainwashing, torture and killings, Jiang Zemin has sought to negate – or in his own words “eradicate” – the very existence of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Early Legal Victories for Falun Gong From 2001 to mid-2002, a number of civil lawsuits were filed in the U.S. against high-level Chinese officials known to be involved in the persecution 18 Compassion • 2004
Slide 19: Chicago, U.S.A. Filed on October 18, 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, suing Jiang Zemin and the 6-10 Office for genocide, torture and the denial to right-to-life, as well as a conspiracy to commit violations of civil rights against Falun Gong within the jurisdiction of the U.S. The complaint was served to Jiang’s security detail while hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners held a silent appeal for justice nearby. Taipei, Taiwan Filed on November 17, 2003 in Taiwan’s High Court, charging Jiang Zemin, Luo Gang, and Li Lanqing with genocide. This suit is the first use of Taiwan’s law for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, adopted in 1953 as a domestic version of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners and supporters rallied in downtown Taipei the next day to show support for the lawsuit. of Falun Gong. In July 2001, the Head of Public Security for Hubei Province, Mr. Zhao Zhifei, was charged with wrongful death, torture, crimes against humanity, and other gross violations of international human rights law against Falun Gong practitioners in his home province of Hubei. After Defendant Zhao Zhifei went back to China, a massive hunt for the plaintiff, Mr. Peng Liang, and other Falun Gong practitioners in Hubei Province began. Peng Liang was arrested on August 30, 2001 and was last seen in custody of police in Wuhan, the Capital of the Hubei Province. He has not been heard from or seen since. On February 7, 2002, the Center for Justice and Accountability along with attorneys Paul Hoffman and Dr. Terri Marsh filed a civil action in U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, against Liu Qi, Mayor of Beijing on behalf of six plaintiffs who are citizens of the People’s Republic of China, United States, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Canada, and France. The next day, Morty Sklar, Executive Director for Human Rights USA filed a lawsuit on behalf of individual plaintiffs and a designated class of injured par- ties, in the same U.S. Court against Xia Deren, Deputy Provincial Governor of Liao Ning Province, China for torture and genocide. These first three lawsuits proved to be early victories for Falun Gong. Judge Cote of the District Court of the Southern District of New York ruled against defendant Zhao Zhefei and issued a default judgment against him in November of 2001. The magistrate judge presiding over the cases of Liu Qi and Xia Deren issued a report recommending a default judgment against both defendants. [continued on page 60] 19 www.faluninfo.net
Slide 20: World-Renowned Human Rights Attorneys Take Aim at Persecution of Falun Gong T he legal actions against those who persecute Falun Gong in China have garnered the interest of human rights attorneys from around the world. Here are a few who are working on legal actions to bring Jiang to justice... Georges-Henri Beauthier, Esq. France/Belgium Mr. Georges-Henri Beauthier is probably best known for his role in bringing charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He also brought the first successful case under Belgium’s human rights laws against two individuals for their roles in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Mr. Beauthier is chief counsel in a Belgian lawsuit charging former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and two of his senior aides with genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. He is also co-counsel for a criminal lawsuit filed in France against former Chinese VicePremier, Li Lanqing, on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners. David Matas, Esq. Canada David Matas is Co-Chair and Senior Legal Advisor for the International Coalition against Torture. In January 2004, he joined efforts to prosecute Jiang Zemin using Canadian Law and to bar persecutors of Falun Gong from entering Canada. Mr. Matas has represented the Government of Canada in a number of delegations, such as the United Nations Conference on an International Criminal Court in 1998. He has lectured on law at both McGill University and the Univeristy of Manitoba and acted as Director of Canada’s Rights & Democracy organization from 1997 to 2003. Morton Sklar, Esq. United States Morton Sklar is Executive Director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, an organization that represents victims of grave human rights abuse and monitors U.S. compliance with the Torture and Race Conventions. Mr. Sklar has served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA, taught human rights law at Catholic University of America Law School, and participated in a year-long UN fact-finding mission to Burma to investigate forced labor there. Mr. Sklar’s organization filed related lawsuits against the Deputy Governor of Liaoning Province, Xia Deren, and the former Mayor of Beijing, Liu Qi. Wolfgang Kaleck, Esq. Germany Mr. Wolfgang Kaleck is a German lawyer based in Berlin. He first gained notoriety for representing German victims of former Argentine President Jorge Videla who was charged with the torture and killing of thousands during his rule in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. A Nuremberg Federal Court has recently issued an arrest warrant for Videla in connection with the lawsuit. On behalf of Falun Gong practitioners, Mr Kaleck filed a lawsuit with the German Supreme Court against Jiang Zemin and other Chinese leaders on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. 20 Compassion • 2004
Slide 21: Geoffrey Robertson, QC Australia/England Mr. Geoffrey Robertson is Chief Justice of the UN War Crimes Commission, President of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and one of the Queen’s Counsels. Mr. Robertson has argued human rights cases in Commonwealth courts, the Privy Council and the European Court in Strasbourg. He has conducted a number of missions on behalf of Amnesty International to South Africa and Vietnam. Mr. Robertson is assisting an effort to bring the case of traditional Chinese artist and Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Zhang Cuiying – an Australian citizen – before the UN and the International Court of Justice. Jordan Paust, Esq. United States Professor Jordan Paust is a University of Houston Law Foundation Professor of Law and Director of the International Law Institute. He has written several books and over 130 articles addressing a wide array of international legal issues. He is often asked to provide expert advice to various media and organizations on international legal matters and has served on the President’s Committee and Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and is currently Co-Chair of the ASIL’s International Criminal Law Interest Group. Professor Paust is working with other attorneys on the class-action lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and the “6-10 Office.” William Aceves, Esq. United States Professor Aceves is a Professor of Law and Director of the International Legal Studies Program at California Western School of Law. He frequently works with Amnesty International, the Center for Justice & Accountability, and the Center for Constitutional Rights on international law cases and human rights litigation. He has represented Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Advocates, the International Human Rights Law Group, and others as amicus curiae counsel in cases before the federal courts. Professor Aceves is working with other attorneys on the class-action lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and the “6-10 Office.” Carlos Iglesias Jiménez, Esq. Spain Carlos Iglesias Jiménez is a lawyer from Spain. During the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Iglesias held advisory posts for a number of Ministries in the Spanish Government. Mr. Iglesias has dedicated the last several years to prosecuting individuals for violations of human rights taking place in Mainland China against Falun Gong practitioners. On October 15th 2003 filed a criminal lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and the Vice-director of the 6/10 office Luo Gan, accusing them of heading and organizing genocide and for the illegal persecution of Falun Gong inside and outside of China. Jaykumar Menon, Esq. United States Mr. Jaykumar Menon, a former staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, studied law and international political economy at Columbia University, receiving his J.D. and a master’s in international affairs. Mr. Menon was an attorney in the landmark civil lawsuit against Li Peng – the former Premier of China who was sued for the massacre of Chinese students during the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989. Mr. Menon is working with other attorneys on the class-action lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and the “6-10 Office.” Theresa Chu, Esq. Taiwan Ms. Theresa Chu, a member of the New York Bar, is Taiwan’s spokesperson for the Attorney Group for Bring Jiang to Justice and Taiwan’s representative of Global Coalition Against Article 23 Legislation. She has been invited to be a member in a task force for Taiwan’s Admission to the International Criminal Court. She has worked as a Legal Specialist in the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan. Ms. Chu is now working with other attorneys on Taiwan’s first ever genocide lawsuit--the case against Jiang Zemin, Li Lanqing and Luo Gan--the heads of “6-10 Office.” www.faluninfo.net 21
Slide 22: Immunity, Genocide, and the Rule of Law An Interview with Dr. Terri Marsh T he lawsuits surrounding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China first gained international attention with the filing of a class-action lawsuit against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin during Jiang’s visit to the U.S. in October, 2002. Since that time, the suit has garnered the interest of the international legal community, rallying some of the world’s most renowned human rights lawyers around its cause. The suit has also rekindled debate concerning international human rights litigation, diplomatic influence over court Dr. Terri Marsh addresses the media about the rooms, immunity for former heads-of-state and lawsuit against China’s former leader, Jiang Zemin. other issues. In the following interview, Dr. Terri Marsh, who is the lead attorney on the U.S. class-action suit, and also a practitioner of Falun Gong, answers some of the key questions that have been raised by this landmark case. Q. Why does the lawsuit target Jiang Zemin? Jiang personally ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, and did so without the support of the Premier or of the Politburo Standing Committee [the committee of high ranking Communist Party members who effectively run the country], many of whom were supportive of Falun Gong before it became illegal to admit such support publicly. Letters and speeches by Jiang himself explicitly ordered the persecution of Falun Gong. We also have personal testimonies from hundreds of individuals in China, including some high-level Chinese officials, that tell exactly how and why Jiang did this. Of course, Jiang has gone to great lengths to blur the line between his personal will and the policies of the Chinese Government. To this day, many believe the “Falun Gong issue” to be a struggle between the Chinese Government and Falun Gong. This perception is no accident. It is the result of carefully calculated steps taken by Jiang to use the government for his own purposes, and to deceive others as to what he is doing. the Chinese Government nor Chinese Government officials overall. Many Chinese officials who travel abroad are not served with lawsuits filed by Falun Gong practitioners – we only sue those whom we know are responsible for the international crimes related to the persecution. Q. How has Jiang and/or the Chinese government responded to the lawsuit? Outside of the courtroom, the Chinese government on behalf of Jiang has threatened nothing less than an international crisis between the United States and China should this case be permitted Q. How about other Chinese officials? We have made clear from the beginning that these lawsuits are not targeting 22 Compassion • 2004
Slide 23: nized a necessary exception to any form states that “genocide includes, but is not of immunity when international law has limited to, the following acts committed been violated, stating: “The principle of with intent to destroy, in whole or in international law, which under certain part, a national, ethnical, racial or relicircumstances protects the representa- gious group, as such: Killing members tives of a state, cannot be applied to acts of the group; Causing serious bodily or which are condemned as criminal by mental harm to members of the group; international law. The authors of these Deliberately inflicting on the group acts cannot shelter themselves behind conditions of life calculated to bring their official position,” and one “cannot claim im“Jiang has gone to great lengths to blur munity while acting in pursuance the line between his personal will and the of the authority policies of the Chinese Government...these of the State if the lawsuits are not targeting the Chinese State in authorizing action moves Government nor Chinese Government outside its comofficials overall.” petence under international law.” (Opinion and Judgment, I.M.T. about its physical destruction in whole at Nuremberg (1946), reprinted in 41 or in part.” AM. J. INT’L L. 172, 221 (1947) ) As the Under Jiang’s personal direction, Nuremberg Opinion affirms, acts taken officials conducting the campaign of in violation of international law are bepersecution against Falun Gong have yond the lawful authority of any state, committed substantial violations of are ultra vires, and cannot be covered by the Conventions against Genocide immunity. and against Torture. The death toll Speaking more generally, I think the is exceedingly high. Brutal torture is argument on behalf of immunity should state-authorized and commonplace, be very troubling to us all. The princiincluding subjecting practitioners to ples of Nuremburg uphold a fundamensevere beatings, electric shocks, water tal moral principle: no one should be dungeons and sleep deprivation; brandpermitted to commit acts of torture and ing and burning them; horrific forms genocide, no matter what their position. of sodomy; and other forms of torture. The principles of Nuremburg assert that There are over 30,000 documented cases no man is above the of persecution. Furthermore, Jiang’s relaw. The argument gime has sent large numbers of perfectly on behalf of immuhealthy practitioners to mental hospitals, “We have all seen images of holocaust nity for someone like injecting them with mind-altering drugs Jiang stands opposed victims, half-starved skeletons gazing at and causing severe and often irreversible to these principles. psychological damage. us from behind barbed wire fences. ...The to go forward, pretending not to understand the integrity of the judicial process nor the separation of powers in this country. I am told there have been nearly daily phone calls and letters to the U.S. Department of State by PRC officials, pushing to have this case dismissed. In fact, Jiang has made this lawsuit a priority in U.S-China relations, attempting to coerce our country into violating one of our fundamental principles, the separation of powers. Inside the courtroom – actually, the Chinese government has yet to appear inside a U.S. courtroom to respond to this or any other lawsuit. The U.S. Justice Department has appeared in court at the behest of the U.S. State Department and argued on Jiang’s behalf that he is immune to the charges we have presented. U.S. District Court Judge Kennelly, however, correctly ruled that the U.S. government could not be a party to this lawsuit against Jiang. In fact, there is no head-of-state immunity for former heads of state with respect to the crimes of torture and genocide. Article IV of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which, by the way, both China and the United States have ratified, states “Persons committing genocide or other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials, or private individuals.” Precedent also precludes immunity images of the victims of the persecution of Falun Gong are no less horrifying.” Q. What crimes has Jiang committed? Q. How is this legal effort being funded? The costs of the case are being absorbed by individuals who believe in it. No funds whatsoever come from any government or commercial sector… for former (and sitting) heads of state as well as other public officials. For instance, the Nuremburg Court recog- Jiang has violated the Convention against Genocide and the Convention against Torture, among others. The Convention Against Genocide [continued on page 61] 23 www.faluninfo.net
Slide 24: What is the Persecution of
Slide 25: Falun Gong? Genocide. O n July 20, 1999, approximately 8% of the entire population in China became “illegal” persons by virtue of their beliefs. Thousands are believed dead, hundreds of thousands rendered homeless, tortured or thrown into forced-labor camps. Chinese police have standing orders to use any means necessary to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners as Jiang aims to - in his own words - “eradicate Falun Gong.”
Slide 26: Anatomy of Jiang’s Jiang Zemin The Genocide AR B MENTAL HOSPITA LS In 1999 Jiang Zemin held the Presidency, the Chair of the Communist Party, and the command of the armed forces of China. With unquestioned power he was able to order the creation of the “6-10 Office” and launch the persecution of Falun Gong, in spite of the objections of his Premier and the members of the Permanent Standing Committee of the Politburo. Today Jiang retains command of the armed forces, and remains the driving force behind the persecution. NT NME SO PRI IM RY A ITR The “6-10” Office Luo Gan Member of the Permanent Standing Committee of the Politburo, and vice-premier of the Government. In 1998 he gained favor with Jiang Zemin by ordering an illegal investigation of Falun Gong as a preliminary step to having Falun Gong banned. He has been the most enthusiastic of Jiang’s lieutenants in enforcing the persecution. EM E YM PLO NT N A D ED UC AT IO N Li Lanqing Former Vice Premier of China, Li Lanqing was in charge of the “Leadership Team to Deal with the Falun Gong Problem” when the persecution first began.
Slide 27: The 6-10 Office Named for the day it was created, June 10, 1999, Jiang established the 6-10 Office for a single purpose: to “eradicate” Falun Gong. The 6-10 Office leaders report directly to Jiang and have power over all levels of the government, particularly the Public Security Bureau, the Judiciary and the local police. ARBITRARY IMPRISONMENT TORT URE AN D KIL LIN S G Once identified as a Falun Gong practitioner, Chinese citizens are subject to immediate detention, and are often imprisoned in forced-labor camps for up to three years typically without trial. Sentences are frequently extended without cause if the practitioner has not renounced Falun Gong. TORTURE AND KILLINGS In detention centers, forced labor camps and brainwashing centers throughout China, Falun Gong practitioners are subject to severe beatings and torture as police strive to “transform” them. Police say their orders are “no method is too extreme” to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs, and those who are killed amidst the torture “should be reported as suicides.” REWARDS AND QUOTAS Police and labor camp authorities are often given quotas for the number of practitioners they must “transform,” while having free reign in the methods they use to do so. Those who make quotas get bonuses or promotions. FAMILIES AND HOUSING Practitioners and their families stand to lose apartments and homes, pitting husband against wife as the 6-10 Office often pressures family members of Falun Gong practitioners to force their kin to abandon the practice. Many practitioners wander China homeless, having been forced from their homes to avoid persecution or in an attempt to protect their families from persecution. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION In a Communist nation where the government can exercise significant control over employment and education, employees and students are often forced to “show a correct attitude” towards Falun Gong or face losing their jobs or pensions or being expelled from school. Promotions and college examinations are linked to the Falun Gong issue. Even elementary school students are indoctrinated — everyone must condemn Falun Gong before advancing in society. ARDS AND QUOTAS REW N SA I LI E AM F D HO MENTAL HOSPITALS At least 1,000 sane and healthy Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in mental hospitals, where psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses torture them with psychotropic drugs and electric shock treatment, as well as other means. The World Psychiatric Association voted in August, 2002 to investigate, but China repeatedly denied them access to any mental facilities. US IN G
Slide 28: Jiang’s Personal Campaign One Man’s Decision to “Eradicate” the Traditional Chinese Belief of 100 Million People The Communist Party must vanquish Falun Gong… How could it be possible that the Marxist theory we endorse and the materialism and atheism that we believe in can’t vanquish what Falun Gong propagates? If it were true, wouldn’t we become laughing stocks? Excerpt from an April 25, 1999 letter to senior Communist Party officials Jiang Zemin BY DR. MICHAEL PEARSON-SMITH O ver the last four years, China watchers have proposed a variety of socio-political reasons for why the Chinese regime moved to crush Falun Gong – a benign exercise and meditation practice with ancient Chinese roots. The answer, however, has proved to be simpler and far more disturbing than most initially guessed. When the nationwide persecution campaign against Falun Gong began in China in July 1999, many believed the campaign to be another mass movement orchestrated and backed by the Communist Party leadership as a whole. Over the last four years, however, facts have emerged to cast light on the maneuvers of then-Communist Party head Jiang Zemin. An abundance of evidence has emerged showing Jiang not only formulated the policy of eradicating Falun Gong himself, but also overrode the will of the Premier and the rest of the Politburo Standing Committee – who initially disagreed with Jiang’s stance on Falun Gong – to enact the campaign. Additionally, since 1999 Jiang has been the driving force behind the campaign and its rising intensity. Falun Gong Flourishes in China From its introduction to the public in May 1992 to the beginning of the persecution in July 1999, the number of practitioners grew into the tens of millions. In 1999, Chinese Government officials told the Associated Press and the New York Times their estimate was “at least 70 million.” (AP: “Growing group poses a dilemma for China,” 4/26/1999;
Slide 29: NYT: “In Beijing: A Roar of Silent Protestors,” 4/27/1999) Many attributed the rapid growth of Falun Gong to its effectiveness in improving the physical health of millions of Chinese citizens, while also uplifting mental and spiritual well-being. By early 1999, one could see Falun Gong practitioners everywhere among the morning exercisers in all the major cities of China. In a strictly controlled society such as China it would have been impossible for such a large mass organization and social phenomenon to exist, let alone thrive for seven years, without consent and support from all levels of government. At the time, not only were the masses learning Falun Gong, but also all seven of the Politburo Standing Committee members had read Zhuan Falun, the main text Falun Gong. Many of their relatives and friends were also practicing Falun Gong. Many high-ranking officials in the Communist Party, government and military had taken up the practice themselves after attending Mr. Li Hongzhi’s lectures personally or hearing about it by word-of-mouth. The Offensive Against Falun Gong Begins In the latter half of 1996 Falun Gong practitioners first began to report incidents of harassment by police. Luo Gan was already a high-ranking official. As the Chair of the Communist Party’s Political Legal Committee, Luo was in charge of the Public Security Bureau, the national intelligence agencies, and the judiciary. But Luo Gan saw in Falun Gong an opportunity for further political gain and put in motion a plan to put Falun Gong and the government at odds with each other. As part of this plan, Luo, looking for a pretext to ban the practice, ordered the police in China to conduct a secret investigation of Falun Gong across the country. In July 1998, through the Chinese Ministry of Public Security Bureau #1 (a.k.a. Political Security Bureau), Luo Gan issued Public Authority [1998] #555 “Notification about conducting investi- gation of Falun Gong.” This document first labeled Falun Gong a “cult,” then asked the police departments across the country to systematically plant agents to investigate and collect “evidence.” The investigation by the police, however, found no evidence of crimes related to Falun Gong. At the end of the summer a letter was written in response to Luo’s police investigation by 135 very highly respected members of society, including famous professors, actors, and high level government officials. The chief author of the letter was a famous law professor at Beijing University. In it he explained that the basis of Luo Gan’s investigation of Falun Gong in July, the above-mentioned “notification” from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security Bureau #1, violated the Chinese Constitution and was against the law. Premier Zhu Rongji quickly responded, saying that the Public Security Bureau should not harass Falun Gong practitioners, but should concentrate on security issues. Zhu’s response also mentioned that Falun Gong had helped to save large amounts of medical costs for the country. The response from Premier Zhu, however, was intercepted by Luo, and never forwarded to Falun Gong practitioners. It was not until April 25, 1999, that Pre- mier Zhu learned his response had been withheld by someone. It was also not until that time that Falun Gong practitioners first learned there had been such a positive response from Premier Zhu. Following the police investigation in July, a few retired Communist Party members of the National People’s Congress led by Qiao Shi, who had been in his own time been a very high-ranking official, conducted their own investigation of Falun Gong. They received a great deal of feedback from the population, and concluded that Falun Gong brought much benefit to China with no negative impact. They ended their report by saying “Winning the hearts of the people you gain the world. Losing the hearts of the people, you lose everything.” The report was submitted in October to the Permanent Standing Committee (the group of seven Communist Party members who run the country), which Jiang Zemin headed. Insiders at Zhongnanhai (the government compound in Beijing) reported that Jiang was very displeased with this report, and wrote a note to Luo Gang expressing his displeasure, a note that excited Luo’s desire to advance himself by opposing Falun Gong. [continued on page 62] Jiang Zemin individually made this decision … [he] went against many other people in his own politburo who did not want to do this to the Falun Gong, some of whom even practiced the Falun Gong or had relatives who practiced the Falun Gong. So we need to hold him accountable. Former U.S. Ambassador and 26-year veteran of the U.S. State Department explaining the role of China’s former leader, Jiang Zemin, in the genocide against Falun Gong. Ambassador Mark Palmer
Slide 30: The “6-10 Office” A Gestapo against Falun Gong Jiang Zemin’s regime has created notorious government ‘610’ offices throughout the People’s Republic of China with the special task of overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong members through organized brainwashing, torture, and murder […] United States Congress Resolution No. 188 Unanimously Passed 420-0
Slide 31: BY STEPHEN GREGORY L ike Hitler’s Gestapo, the 6-10 Office is an extra-constitutional body of unquestioned power whose business is terror. Created by former leader Jiang Zemin, the 6-10 Office has operated virtually unrestricted for over four years. The 6-10 Office aims to identify and isolate every single Falun Gong practitioner, and then bring to bear upon them the full weight of the state and society. The 6-10 Office’s singular capacity for terror depends, first of all, on the way it penetrates every aspect of Chinese society, from the top to the bottom. The CCP Central Committee 6-10 Office has ministerial rank. Every province, city, county, and township has its own 610 Office. Each university, government organization, and state-run corporation has its own 6-10 Office as well. At every level of administration, the 6-10 Offices have higher authority than normal government agencies. In particular, they have authority over the Chinese public security organizations, judicial system, and the media. The 6-10 Offices’ mandated responsibilities are to direct and coordinate “the struggle with Falun Gong.” These loosely defined responsibilities give the officials of the 6-10 Offices virtual free rein, so long as they can justify what they do as being against Falun Gong. The 6-10 Offices were given their pervasive place in China’s government and society, and their unchecked powers, for the sake of fulfilling this mandate of Jiang Zemin: to “eradicate Falun Gong” by “defaming their reputations, bankrupting them financially, destroying them physically.” The 6-10 Offices carry out this mandate with propaganda, and with a system of social control meant to compel all Chinese to join in this campaign. In particular, it aims to compel the security forces to do so with no restraint whatsoever. The following sections of this article will sketch out the various facets of the 6-10 Office that, when taken together, map out a schematic of the comprehensive terror machinery. – one can do anything to a rat. (For further discussion of the propaganda, see “Why Didn’t I Know?”, p. 36.) Defaming Their Reputations The 6-10 Office’s strategy in its use of propaganda is borrowed from that of fighting a guerrilla war. If the 6-10 Office can succeed in “defaming the reputations” of Falun Gong, then it can count on the people of China giving practitioners no support and no safe harbor. The 6-10 Office seeks to psychologically isolate the practitioners of Falun Gong, while turning the entire population of China into willing informants and collaborators in the effort to “eradicate” this peaceful practice. To do this, the 6-10 Office has concocted numerous stories meant to demonstrate that the practice of Falun Gong leads to psychosis, homicide, suicide, and alcohol and drug abuse. The nowdebunked “self-immolations” on Tiananmen Square is the most famous of these. These stories are then used to justify the claims that Falun Gong is “antiscience,” “anti-society,” “anti-humanity,” “anti-government,” and “anti-Party.” Falun Gong is meant to be viewed as something both contemptible and threatening. In particular, the propaganda tries to turn the great pride the Chinese people have in their homeland into a source of hatred, by presenting Falun Gong as a “tool of anti-Chinese forces.” But the depiction of Falun Gong attempts to touch even deeper instinctual sources of aversion. A recent commentary by Xinhua (BBC Monitoring Service, 9/24/03) refers to practitioners as being “chased by all, like rats running across the street.” The imagery of vermin removes all psychological barriers The Implication System – Society a Weapon of Persecution In Imperial China the “implication” or “responsibility” system was a means of collective responsibility. The family or village was responsible for the individual’s actions and would be punished if the individual stepped out of line, and so had a role in assuring the proper behavior of all members. The Communist Party has long found this Imperial relic useful, and one that fits very neatly Marxist-Leninist and Maoist teachings. The 6-10 Office has refined and extended the implication system. One acts responsibly by “showing the right attitude.” If the government has condemned Falun Gong, then all must condemn Falun Gong. The local 6-10 Offices organize “study sessions” in work units and schools in which everyone is required to denounce Falun Gong in mandatory signature campaigns that extend down even to elementary schools. Even tourists report being stopped by police and prompted to curse Falun Gong or spit on a picture of Li Hongzhi. The 6-10 Office wants everyone in China to express symbolically that they have joined the persecution. The orchestrated mass actions help complete the lessons imparted by the propaganda. If “everyone” is chasing the practitioners down the street, then surely the practitioners deserve to be chased. If a practitioner is caught putting up posters or handing out leaflets, all parts of society may be required by the local 6-10 Office to punish such an act of XYZ....
Slide 32: conscience: the practitioner may lose housing, job, pension, and places in school. But the punishment often does not end with the practitioner. The family also stands to lose housing, jobs, pensions, and place in school. For this reason, millions of practitioners wander China homeless today, trying to protect their families from punishment. In addition to the punishments visited on the family, the neighbors may be fined, the workplace may be fined, and the school may be penalized. The 6-10 Office uses these punishments to attempt to deprive the practitioner the means of life, and even the warmth of simple human contact. Beset by non-stop attacks in all the media, isolated from friends and family, without jobs or shelter, the 6-10 Office expects the practitioners to choose to abandon Falun Gong. For those practitioners who remain steadfast, the 6-10 Office and the implication system have more forceful methods. The Implication System and the Police The 6-10 Office holds all members of society responsible for any Falun Gong activity, but it especially holds the security forces responsible. One way it accomplishes this is through quotas. When the persecution first began in 1999, the first response of many practitioners was to go to Tiananmen Square to appeal. The response of the 6-10 Office was to hold the local government of the practitioner’s home responsible for any appeals. If the government met its quota in stamping out appeals, the police, the party officials and the government officials would be rewarded. If not, they would be fined, demoted, or even fired. This carrot-and-stick approach is applied across the board. For instance, in February 2002 in the town of Kaian in Nongan County, a journalist took a photo of many Falun Gong banners that were hanging in public. He then wrote an article attacking Falun Gong, which was published with his photo. The Chief of Police of Kaian was immediately fired, and all of the personnel in the police stations in Nongan Country were changed. Mingkai Hou was considered by the 6-10 Office in Changchun to be a leading figure in the March 5, 2002 broadcast by Falun Gong practitioners over the state-run cable TV, but somehow had escaped the police. So, a bonus of 50,000 yuan (equal to 8 years’ salary for the typical urban worker in China) and a promotion were offered for his capture, which then happened that August 21 (police hurriedly cremated his body two days later). And the 6-10 Office has another form of reward, one that has the advantage of costing the government nothing: it encourages police at all levels to steal from practitioners and their families. Huge “fines” are extracted, with no receipt given for the cash lifted. Police walk into homes and simply take anything of value. If the practitioners are farmers, they lose crops, equipment, even seed. In villages throughout China, the local police chiefs often have new houses, with shiny new cars parked out front. of all family members, friends and acquaintances who are practitioners. Wang Zhizhong suffered brainwashing in the Hebei Provincial Center, succumbing in the hope of sparing from abuse his nineteen year-old daughter, a promising classical pianist who is also a practitioner of Falun Gong. Practitioners who submit and agree to “transformation” describe this as the most painful experience in their lives. The guards know this, and know that merely writing the three statements is not enough. Wang Zhinzhong reports that a guard at the Hebei Center tells practitioners: “It is when I see you beat and curse people that I will count you as totally transformed.” In fact, forcing practitioners to engage in the “transformation” of their fellow practitioners is part of the regular routine. Transformation has finally been accomplished when the practitioner replaces truth, compassion, and tolerance with lies, brutality, and selfishness, when the practitioner is implicated in the persecution itself. For those who steadfastly resist brainwashing, the 6-10 Office has still other methods. Transformation and Brainwashing The Washington Post (August 5, 2001) reported that early in 2001 the 6-10 Office had begun the task of identifying every single practitioner of Falun Gong and brainwashing them. The 6-10 Offices had created “brainwashing centers” throughout China. Now, the 6-10 Office had a new set of quotas – every township, city, county, and province had to meet quotas for “transforming” their practitioners. This is what the brainwashing centers were for: they were judged the most cost-effective way to transform steadfast practitioners. The formal sign of transformation occurs when the practitioner agrees to write the “three statements” demanded by the 610 Office: a letter of repentance, a guarantee never again to practice Falun Gong, and a list of names and addresses “No Measures Are Too Extreme” “You talk about evil? I am evil.” So Director Zhang of the Dalian Re-Education Camp told practitioners in late summer 2003 who were about to receive the “hip-splitting torture”: practitioners were hung up spread-eagled from the ceiling, and sticks with hot pepper oil were forced into their vaginas. When these practitioners still did not recant Falun Gong, boiling water was poured on them. The 6-10 Office has created tens of thousands of Zhangs throughout China, individuals who routinely torture. Among them are those who, no doubt like Zhang, enjoy the torturing. Ian Johnson, in a Pulitzer-Prize winning series of articles for the Wall Street Journal on the death of Chen Zixiu in Weifang City, explained how the implication system has within it a logic that
Slide 33: promotes brutality (Wall Street Journal, 12/27/00). If a practitioner travels from Weifang City to Beijing to appeal, as Chen Zixiu did, the local officials stand to be fined or worse. But if the local officials beat her to death, there is no problem. The implication system only seeks to reach the goal – no appeals in Beijing – and puts no limitations on the means for reaching that goal. The 6-10 Office has made this logic explicit. “No measures are too extreme” to use on Falun Gong practitioners states a top-secret directive. The 6-10 Office makes sure of this directive by training police in more effective methods of torture. Force-feeding had been banned from the Chinese penal system as too dangerous and brutal. The 6-10 Office brought it back to use on practitioners, and many have died from it in the last four years. Early in the persecution, when the Hebei province brainwashing center showed how to use on practitioners the techniques of sleep deprivation and abuse originally perfected for shattering the minds of spies, the 6-10 Office gave them an award, and brought local officials from around China to Hebei to study the technique. In the summer of 2003, when the Gaoyang Labor forced-labor camp made an innovation in the torture of force-feeding by using human excrement, the 6-10 Office gave them an award, and brought others in from around China to learn this inhumane procedure. Policemen in jails will beat and kick practitioners for hours; using an electric club with a charge of 25,000 volts that burns and blisters the skin and damages the nervous system, guards will torture until the batteries die out; women face all forms of sexual abuse, including rape, gang rape, and forced, late-term abortions; in mental hospitals, doctors and nurses administer huge doses of psychotropic drugs and electric shock, with catastrophic results; pokers heated in stoves are used to burn down to the muscle; acupuncture needles are stuck in the most sensitive points and hooked up to high voltage generators; needles are jammed under nails; practitioners are hung by straitjackets, with the result sometimes of slowly snapping their necks as they hang. Those police who are hesitant to do these terrible things lose their jobs. Death is not the object of this regime of torture, but it is also no cause for regret. The 6-10 Office has a policy for that as well: “Cremate the body immediately, and count the death as suicide.” According to the 6-10 Office, there has never been a single case of the abuse of a Falun Gong practitioner. Fabricated News: Rat Poison at Xinhua News Agency Since the 6-10 Office was formed in 1999, it has used the state-controlled media in China to fabricate stories about Falun Gong aiming to bend public opinion against the practice. On a number of occasions, however, investigation has revealed the fraudulent nature of these stories. This past July 2, Xinhua published a sensational story “16 Beggars Poisoned: the Suspect is a Falun Gong Member.” Evidence revealing the fabricated nature of this story, however, had been published earlier that same day by the local newspaper in Zhenjiang, Cangan county; the site of the story. Seven hours before the Xinhua article was published, the Metropolitan Express (Du Shi Kuai Bao) reported the case had not yet been solved. The Xinhua report, however, said the case had been solved “last night” (i.e., July 1). According to Xinhua the alleged murderer was one Chen Fuzhao, said to be a practitioner. The Metropolitan News did not mention Falun Gong at all. The Xinhua account lacked details about the crimes, but said that the case was closed and that the murderer was a Falun Gong practitioner. The Metropolitan Express article had many details about the stillopen case, including the news that Chen Fuzhao was arrested on May 24, and that there had nonetheless been seven similar deaths since his arrest. The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) contacted individuals in Zhenjiang to investigate the story. A member of the Department of Propaganda for Cangnan County told WOIPFG “with great certainty” that this case had not been solved, and that in fact more than 500 policemen were still investigating the case. Furthermore, a member of the Radio and T.V. broadcasting bureau for Cangnan County confirmed that there had been no reports of this crime being solved, and no mention of Falun Gong in connection with it. An official of the Cangnan County government, when asked about Chen Fuzhao, said that he was known to be psychotic. Once Xinhua has set a “direction” for the way a story should be reported, state-run media throughout China toe the line. Thus, following the Xinhua account of these alleged murders, newspapers throughout the country carried the fabricated story. International wire services outside China then picked up the fabricated story, distributing it around the world. In response to these stories, the Falun Dafa InfoCenter published the facts about the Xinhua account in August. Nevertheless, on December 31, Xinhua returned to this story, announcing that “Falun Gong practitioner” Chen Fuzhao was to be executed, and wire services once more picked up the sensational story. The “beggar murder story” is a typical example of how Xinhua, in the guise of a news agency, has repeatedly fabricated and spread stories meant to incite hatred and distrust of Falun Gong in China and around the world. [continued on page 65]
Slide 34: Anatomy of Jiang’s Coverup In China Media Blockade State-Run Media Media in China is controlled by the government, and used largely as a means to control what people in China read, see and hear about the world around them. Journalists are required to study Communist Party edicts and tout them in their “news” stories. Jiang has commandeered the state-run media in China to saturate the Chinese people with defamatory and often fabricated stories about Falun Gong. Cover-Up Orders to Police, Government Officials “Report All Deaths as Suicides” The 6-10 Office issued police secret orders that any death of a Falun Gong practitioner should be recorded as a suicide. Amnesty International reported that, of the first 120 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners’ death in custody, 17 “jumped” to their deaths while being transported to interrogation, and 15 died from “falling” while in detention. Propaganda War Since 1999 Jiang has wielded state-run media to attack Falun Gong. Chinese TV, radio, and print media outlets have unleashed a non-stop barrage, defaming Falun Gong, its practitioners, and its founder. Subjected to this repetitious campaign, Chinese citizens often find it difficult to know the facts of the persecution carried out in their own homeland. “Cremate Bodies Immediately” The 6-10 Office also gave secret orders that police are required to cremate the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners immediately following their deaths in custody, thereby destroying evidence of torture. Autopsies are either secret or not performed, and in most cases the victim’s family is not allowed to view the body before cremation. The Internet Access to most outside news sources, including Falun Gong websites, is blocked from within China. As of last year, according to CNN’s Willy Lam, China employs some 100,000 Internet police to monitor access to restricted sites. Cyber cafes are required to install alarms that notify police whenever a customer attempts to access information about Falun Gong. “Shoot on Sight” In early 2002, a reliable source inside China revealed that Liu Jing, a leader of the national 6-10 Office convened a meeting where he angrily criticized Jilin Province’s inability to stamp out Falun Gong, and passed down the order: “shoot on sight.” The Falun Dafa Information Center has documented cases of practitioners being shot solely for distributing information.
Slide 35: Overseas Pressure on Embassies and Consulates Consular officials and agents with known ties to Chinese consulates have held meetings with local community leaders and business owners outside of China, urging them to join the campaign to stamp out Falun Gong outside of China. In one case, Falun Gong practitioners sued a local businessman for inciting assault against them during a peaceful appeal in New York City’s Chinatown. Leveraging Business Ties Chinese Embassies and Consulates have used the promise of continued business to force compliance with their attempt to suppress Falun Gong. For instance, Seattle, San Francisco, and Baltimore all do a significant amount of business carrying cargo from China through their ports. All three cities withdrew proclamations honoring Falun Gong, after protests from the Chinese government. International Media In late 2002, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked China second worst only to North Korea in its press freedom index. International media working in China are tightly restricted with respect to coverage of Falun Gong. Reporters stationed there tell stories of being followed, assaulted, and arrested by agents of the government, often having their film, tape, and materials confiscated. Some are stripped of their residence permits or fired under pressure from officials, forcing them to leave the country. Diplomatic Pressure Under orders from Jiang Zemin, Chinese embassy officials have contacted government officials around the world, attempting to justify and garner support for the persecution of Falun Gong. This has ranged from former leader Jiang handing former US President Clinton a 150-page book denouncing Falun Gong, to Chinese agents visiting Randy Voepel, Mayor of Santee, California, and urging him to retract a proclamation he issued in favor of Falun Gong (he refused).
Slide 36: ‘Why Didn’t I Know This?’ A media black-out in China, diplomatic interference abroad, and a global propaganda war keeps the true situation of Falun Gong in China largely unknown to the mainstream.... 36 Compassion • 2004
Slide 37: BY MATHEW KUTOLOWSKI “ W hy didn’t I know this?” It’s the single question I am asked most often. And most likely you will ask yourself it too, if you haven’t already, as you read the surrounding features and encounter, most likely for the first time, the brutality, the scope, and the horror of the persecution unfolding in China right now. It’s a question that’s been asked elsewhere—when General Patton’s troops liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, when the outside world finally learned the grim realities of Kolyma and Stalin’s gulag archipelago. And we asked this question collectively, with all due indignation, when the SARS cover-up in China was finally exposed. Each time we hoped, or even maybe assured ourselves, it would be the last. It’s a question we should all be asking more. To a great degree the horrors in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union were made possible by those in the outside world not asking, or not knowing. These systematic campaigns of inhumanity were kept alive by governments systematically hiding them from view. Today in Jiang’s China, we have a government attempting to hide its atrocities from the world at large and from its own people. Asking “why didn’t I know this?”, then, cuts to the heart of so much that is terrible about the calamity that has befallen China. And if there should be a hint of frustration, even disbelief, underlying the question, it is justified. The answer to that question is the shocking story of how the world’s largest authoritarian regime has vigorously sought to cover up a genocidal campaign it willingly engineered, and one whose web of complicity is stunningly vast. We, insofar as we have been fooled by the obfuscation, are also its victims. To make such a claim in the 21st century, the age of globalism and mass communication, a time when the suffering and plight of people thousands of miles away is made immediate and tangible through televised images or digitized voices, delivered right into our own homes—in such a day and age—is not easy. How could we not know, you might ask, about such a violent, drawnout, massive campaign that aims at nothing less than to “eradicate” 100 million people for their dedication to a popular meditation and exercise practice? Herein lies what is perhaps most insidious about the persecution of Falun Gong: its cover-up. 120 known Falun Gong practitioner deaths in custody, official reports from China claim that a full 17 “jumped” to their deaths while being transported to interrogation, with another 15 “falling” (such as by “slipping”) to their deaths while in detention. (“Torture – A Growing Scourge in China,” Amnesty International, 12/02/01) For those that survive their captivity to tell, there is little recourse, legal or otherwise, at their disposal. Practitioners of Falun Gong have been stripped of their legal rights and are not allowed to sue their captors, much less hire an attorney to defend themselves when incarcerated. Moreover, the very evidence of injustice they carry with them in their bodies—the scars, the torn out nails, the welts, and even missing limbs—is, in the most unlikely of twists, declared a “state secret” and as such “illegal” to disclose. Should such evidence be made known to foreign persons or rights groups, the “crime” (“leaking state secrets”) is punishable with execution. A number of individuals have disappeared after exposing such torture to foreign media, with many being feared dead. For a policeman or official aware of the torture, to disclose it would be almost to ensure the loss of his job, financial punishment, and imprisonment, if not death. What information we do have, then, has come to us at the greatest of personal risk. To date not one policeman or guard has been reprimanded in a court of law for torturing, beating, starving, or murdering the adherents of Falun Gong; some 852 deaths in custody have been documented by human rights groups at the end of 2003. A number of those responsible, however, are known to have At the Scene of the Crime: Complicity It begins at ground zero. A body is crippled from torture or beaten blue. The offenders—police, guards, prison wardens, and the like—know their crime and act decisively. Should the victim be dead the corpse is typically rushed off for cremation; in such cases the cause of death is labeled “suicide,” in keeping with formal orders from the extra-judicial 6-10 government body to “cremate bodies immediately” and “count Falun Gong deaths as suicides.” In at least one case the victim was still alive when cremated, while in another the corpse was thrown off the roof of a building so as to create “evidence” of a suicide. Family are not allowed to see the corpse save for in the rarest of circumstances, autopsies are almost unequivocally denied, and witnesses or those responsible must—under threat—toe the official line, attributing deaths to suicide or, as was done in earlier months of the persecution, “natural causes.” According to Amnesty International, of the first www.faluninfo.net 37
Slide 38: been promoted or given bonuses for their “effective” transformation of Falun Gong practitioners; for their willingness to use any means necessary to force Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their beliefs. On not a single incident has Chinese officialdom admitted to, or even acknowledged the possibility of, wrongdoing by any of its police, jailers, or other employees—even when found at fault by the U.N. Committee Against Torture and condemned by human rights organizations. (“Torture – A Growing Scourge in China”: “Reports continue of deaths of detained practitioners following torture and extreme ill-treatment… in all cases where the victims were Falun Gong practitioners, the government has denied any wrongdoing, even in the face of multiple eye witness testimonials.”) Willing Henchmen: State Media Apparatuses In the PRC, media is tightly controlled if not run by the communist state, complete with an official Ministry of Propaganda to oversee media affairs. Stories must espouse the Communist Party’s dictates, and Falun Gong is allowed no voice. But those in China hear plenty about Falun Gong. In just the first month of the persecution alone, one single paper, The People’s Daily, ran a staggering 347 articles denouncing Falun Gong. That’s over 10 articles a day. Similarly, hundreds of newspapers, magazines, journals, radio stations and television stations have been used to discredit and demonize Falun Gong. Early in the persecution it was not uncommon for television stations to run propaganda marathons, with special features attacking Falun Gong (e.g., for being “antihuman-civilization,” as it was claimed) being run sometimes—quite literally— days on end, 24-hours a day. All materials produced by Falun Gong practitioners or by Li Hongzhi are banned—be they books, videos or audio tapes, articles, posters, t-shirts, or even meditation mats. In a number of cities Chinese authorities have even held public book burning rallies. A mere seven days into the persecution Chinese authorities boasted of having confiscated over 2 million “illegal” Falun Gong books. (The People’s Daily, July 30, 1999) To question the regime’s agenda or tactics has been tantamount to political or social suicide. Much like in the cultural revolution the skeptic might be branded, as many have in the past four years, a “Falun Gong sympathizer” or even, by extension, an “enemy of the state” and face much more than ostracization: a student might be expelled from school, an official stripped of his post, a worker fired, a neighbor jailed. Overseas Chinese language media have for the most part departed little from official rhetoric, being either owned by PRC-run companies or, in the case of smaller entities, fearing reprisal. (For a startling look at the situation of overseas Chinese media, see “The Business of Misinformation: How China’s Government is Attempting to Control Chinese Media in the U.S.” China Brief, http://www.jamestown.org ) Many overseas media have admitted to direct pressure from the Chinese government. Several Chinese papers have been sued for libel for their propaganda pieces, taken verbatim from China’s state press. The Chinese Communist Party’s relentless barrage of propaganda has sought to create a climate of hostility toward Falun Gong, either by deluding people as to what Falun Gong is, or by making clear to everyone that on the Falun Gong issue, there was no choice but to “show the right attitude.” (for how Falun Gong have managed to counter this propaganda, see “Civil Disobedience and the Education of China” on During the 1999 APEC meeting in New Zealand, then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin met with U.S. President Bill Clinton. According to the Associated Press, Jiang handed Clinton a book assembled by Chinese propagandists that vilified Falun Gong. No-doubt Jiang asked the U.S. President to toe the line. Similar materials demonizing Falun Gong are regularly delivered to governments and media around THE GLOBAL REACH... the world in an attempt to paint Falun Gong as "dangerous" or a menace to society, claims that human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call, "Unproven," "Bogus" and part of a "Massive Propaganda Campaign." On March 9, 2001, the Washington Post reported that President Bush’s National Security Advisor came under fire from visiting Chinese diplomats: "former Ambassadors Zhu Chizhen, Li Daoyu and Zhang Wentu, were expected to hold discussions with Miss Rice on a variety of U.S.-China topics: arms sales to Taiwan, China's human rights record and U.S. missile defense plans. Instead, one of the diplomats pulled out a prepared speech and harangued Miss Rice for some 20 minutes about the Chinese religious group Falun Gong." Miss Rice ended the meeting. Members of the U.S. Congress often receive propaganda attacking Falun Gong from Chinese officials, but the letter in December 2001 was exceptional. Part of a package from former Chinese Ambassador to the United States Li Zhaoxing, it frankly stated that U.S. officials were expected to suppress Falun Gong, or invite troubles in U.S.China relations. 38 Compassion • 2004
Slide 39: page 44 of this issue.”) Harassed, Threatened, Beaten Down: Foreign Media Reporting the news in China is difficult business to begin with. For five consecutive years, Jiang Zemin was ranked one of the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press by The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ: http://www.cpj.org). In October 2002, among 139 countries, China was ranked second to last, behind only North Korea, for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders (http: //www.rsf.org). Reporting on the persecution of Falun Gong, however, has been especially costly for foreign media. According to Reporters Without Borders, in the short span of just two years some 20 AFP reporters were arrested in China for trying to investigate and cover Falun Gong. Scores of other journalists and cameramen have met with similar ends, often being harassed, interrogated and threatened, arrested, and even—as in the case of Spanish radio journalist Teresa Bergada—physically assaulted. Many reporters are stripped of their residence permits, forcing them to leave China. (For a gripping first hand account, see “The Dark Side of China,” by the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, published on 3/16/02). Film, equipment, and press cards are often seized on the spot, with what footage does remain in the end being blocked from transmission and broadcasting overseas by the Chinese government’s Central Television—the only station permitted to send pictures abroad by satellite. For the individual, to cover Falun Gong is to put one’s professional work on the line; for the media company, it is to put its enterprise in jeopardy. Foreign media companies wishing to report on Falun Gong face economic pressure and the imminent threat of major business losses; for instance, most such companies compete to sell footage to the Chinese government’s media apparatus. Two days after the publication of the April 10, 2002 Time, which had an article on Falun Gong demonstrations in Hong Kong, Time was withdrawn from sale in China, and told at that time there were no plans for allowing its sale in China again. The magazine was allowed in May to resume sales in China. Some media companies have already declined to cover Falun Gong-related stories for fear of exclusion from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Should foreign journalists seek to cover Falun Gong along “legal” channels in China, what awaits them is nothing short of a farce. “Normal” and “regular” channels consist of staged interviews with supposed Falun Gong practitioners who have “reformed” or “repented”— each eager to recite scripted denunciations—and carefully prepared tours of notorious labor camps. The labor camp tours are especially worth noting. The show tours take place at a time determined by the Chinese authorities, at a camp picked by the Chinese authorities, include interviews with detainees chosen by the Chinese authorities, and only allow access to a small scope of the camp, delineated, of course, by the Chinese authorities At the most recent tour, which took place in April, 2001 at the notorious Masanjia labor camp, foreign reporters found to their amusement that the inmates wore matching, brandnew, designer sport suits embroidered with—curiously—each detainee’s name in English. Fresh paint coated the walls, deer grazed happily on freshly manicured lawns, inmates praised the kind staff and good meals. The whole charade should have been eerily reminiscent of the 1944 Nazi show tours of the Terezin concentration camp in the Czech Republic. It was such farces that prompted the U.N.’s torture inspector, Sir Nigel Rodley, to decline to visit China year after year; Beijing continually refused to let Rodley meet privately with prisoners or tour police stations and prisons unannounced—normal conditions for a visit by someone of his position. (“Rights Group: China Blocking Visit Of UN Inspector On Torture” Associated Press, 11/9/01) Towards a More Transparent Tomorrow? Much hope has been put in the Internet, and not without reason. Indeed, the vast majority of what is known about the persecution has been communicated surreptitiously over email, while a number of Websites such as Minghui.net (Clearwisdom.net in English) provide detailed accounts daily. Chinese authorities, however, continue to make a fierce battlefield of cyberspace. As of last year CNN’s Willy Lam reported that China employs some 100,000 internet police. Such “police” are entrusted with the ignoble task of monitoring and restricting Web usage across the country. All sites related to Falun Gong are blocked, as are all foreign media reporting on the topic. While there have been rays of hope over the years—The Wall Street Journal’s Pulitzer-winning series on Falun Gong by Ian Johnson the most notable one— these have been more the exception. There is still an enormous distance to go, and if early indicators mean anything a 2008 Beijing Olympics is little occasion for optimism. Jiang has extended the misinformation campaign overseas, and with bravado. In the cover-up, the massive propaganda campaigns, the intimidation of foreign media, the blocking and monitoring of the internet, and the exporting of the lies overseas, there is a message: those responsible know they are doing something wrong, and they are afraid others will find out. Once the world sees clearly what is happening in China, will this horror be allowed to continue? Thousands in China are risking their lives so that others, like us, can know the truth. Let us be worthy of their courage. Matthew Kutolowski has been researching the persecution since July of 1999 when he studied in Beijing at Tsinghua University. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore College, Matthew now resides in Taiwan. www.faluninfo.net 39
Slide 40: What is Falun Gong? An Introduction to the Practice and How It Developed in China and around the World T BY NOAH PARKER he art of qigong, which is sometimes referred to as “Chinese yoga,” is the practice of mind and body refinement often done through slow-moving exercises and meditation. Throughout China’s history and, indeed, throughout the world, numerous schools of qigong have been handed down, each with its own characteristics and emphasis. Archaeological findings trace qigong to as far back as 3,000 or more years ago. Through the centuries, some schools of qigong have taken the form of religion, some have been passed down privately in monasteries or temples, and some have taken the form of popular exercises. Falun Gong – which is also referred to as Falun Dafa – is an ancient and advanced form of qigong. Falun Gong consists of gentle exercises combined with a meditation component. Aside from its popularity (100 million people in 60 countries), what is usually said to distinguish Falun Gong is its emphasis on the practice of refining one’s moral character in accordance with three principles—Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. These three principles form the backbone of Falun Gong’s philosophy and practitioners of the discipline aspire to live by them in their daily lives, striving to achieve, over time, a state of kindness, selflessness and inner balance. The principles of Falun Gong are captured in the two main books written by Mr. Li Hongzhi: Falun Gong (Law Wheel Qigong) and Zhuan Falun (Turning the Law Wheel). Falun Gong is a systematic, introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles of the practice, and provides illustrations and explanation of the exercises. Falun Gong is often recommended for beginners and those without a background in qigong. Organized in the form of nine lectures, Zhuan Falun is the most comprehensive and essential work of Falun Gong. Thorough study of Zhuan Falun 40 Compassion • 2004
Slide 41: is considered necessary for genuine practice of Falun Gong. Both books and instructional videos are available free on the Internet. Falun Gong is correctly identified as a spiritual practice. It does not have any religious forms – there are no temples, rituals, clergy, or initiation. Practitioners of Falun Gong practice according to their own lives and schedules, at home or with a group, as much as they like or as little. There is no membership, and no fees collected. All practice sites teach the exercises free of charge and are organized by volunteers. Practitioners of Falun Gong are found in all walks of life: Doctors, lawyers, housewives, parents, students, scientists, police officers – a broad cross-section of modern life that ranges from young to old. A Brief History The discipline of Falun Gong was first made public in May of 1992 in China by Mr. Li Hongzhi, who adherents regard as the practice’s founder or teacher; Falun Gong was previously taught only in private to a single student and passed down in a lineage manner. Months later, Mr. Li traveled with several students to Beijing to participate in the Oriental Health Expo where Falun Gong earned several awards, prompting organizers to invite Mr. Li to give several impromptu lectures on the principles of the practice. From 1992 to 1994, Mr. Li lectured on invitation in almost every major Chinese city, giving 54 lecture series in all. The number of attendees ranged as high as four thousand. All instruction at that time was overseen by the Chinese Government’s top qigong organization, the China Qigong Scientific Research Society. Since the exercises of Falun Gong were relatively simple and easy to learn, those who had learned could easily show others. Soon, people began establishing volunteer practice sites in parks and public recreation areas throughout China. Furthermore, news reports and word of mouth acclaimed Falun Gong’s health benefits and positive impact. Thus, within a few years, hundreds of thousands had taken up the practice. During the early-to-mid 90’s, Falun Gong was also widely embraced by the Chinese Government. Mr. Li was invited to speak at many government venues, such as the Hero’s Foundation in the government’s Public Security Department. Mr. Li and Falun Gong also received numerous awards from state-sponsored venues, such as the “Star Qigong” award given to Mr. Li at the 1993 Oriental Health Expo in Beijing. Although Mr. Li had stopped giving public lectures at the end of 1994, Falun Gong’s popularity in China continued to soar. By 1996 Falun Gong had established Mr. Li Hongzhi lectures in the city of Wuhan during a Falun Dafa Seminar - one of 54 lecture series Mr. Li gave in nearly 20 cities throughout China. Widely supported by the Chinese Government in the early 1990’s, Mr. Li lectures for the Hero Foundation in the government’s Public Security Department. Morning group practice in Chengdu City in 1996, by which time practice sites like this one were in every major city in China run by volunteers.
Slide 42: In the early 1990’s, Mr. Li Hongzhi and Falun Dafa earned numerous awards and recognitions from government bodies. itself as the fastest growing spiritual practice in China, and perhaps, the world. With Mr. Li’s third book, Zhuan Falun, landing on Beijing’s bestseller list, millions were said to be practicing by then as the practice continued to be passed on by word-of-mouth, and free of charge with volunteer practice sites being established throughout the country. Beginning in 1996, Mr. Li also began to teach the practice abroad, traveling to Sweden first, and later France, Germany, Australia, and the United States among other nations. As it did inside China, the practice began to grow outside China through word-of-mouth and volunteer practice sites. By the end of 1998, a Chinese Government survey concluded there were between 70 and 100 million people practicing Falun Gong in China – more than 8% of the entire population. All seven members of China’s Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee – the small circle of leaders who effectively run the country – had read the Falun Gong books, and some had family members who were practicing. In many areas, Falun Gong had become a household name, synonymous with good health and principled living. The Practice Grows Internationally Outside China, the practice continued to grow. In 1998, Falun Gong experience sharing conferences were held in different cities throughout the world, from Sydney to Frankfurt, from New York to Singapore. Mr. Li’s book Zhuan Falun was translated into English, and made available for free over the Internet. Over the next several years, Falun Gong books were translated into over 32 languages. By 1999, volunteer practice sites existed in more than 40 countries around the world as listed on Falun Gong’s website: www.falundafa.org. Furthermore, the persecution campaign in China that began in 1999, had an unwitting side-affect around the world: From 1999 to the present, many people outside China expressing interest in the practice said they first heard about it from news about the persecution. “I first heard about [Falun Gong] on 60 minutes when Mike Wallace was interviewing Jiang Zemin,” says Dr. Damon Noto, an orthopedics doctor working in Boston. “When Jiang Zemin began to explain why he was persecuting such a peaceful group he became very defensive … it was so obvious to me that he was hiding something, so I decided to look into it.” Today there are volunteer Falun Gong practice sites in over 60 different countries, including, Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Germany and Russia, to name a few. Since Falun Gong is not an organization, and has no membership roster, it is difficult to gauge accurately the By 1998, Falun Gong had spread, largely through word of mouth, to 70-100 million people in China. Volunteer practice sites were in every city. A Falun Gong conference in Geneva in 1998. Beginning in 1996, Mr. Li traveled to the U.S., Canada, Sweden and other countries to teach the practice.
Slide 43: number of practitioners in each country. Judging from the rising attendance at local and international experience sharing conferences around the world, however, it is clear that the practice continues to grow, with attendance at some conferences growing three-fold in the last four years. These conferences are coordinated by volunteers, are free of charge and open to the public. They provide a forum for practitioners to share their experiences in the practice, and to learn from each other. Held in major cities around the world where Falun Gong is practiced, their attendance ranges from a few hundred to over 6,000. Worldwide Appeals for Justice When the persecution campaign against Falun Gong was launched in 1999, the practice was thrust into headline news around the world. The event impacted Falun Gong practitioners everywhere as many began volunteering time and resources to appeal to relevant international bodies for help to end the crisis. In most large cities around the world (and many small ones), Falun Gong practitioners have held peaceful public appeals or processions memorializing those killed in China (see p. 8) – all aimed to help raise awareness about the persecution. They have also maintained peaceful appeals outside Chinese Embassies and Consulates around the world (see p. 56). In some cities, such as Vancouver, Canada, local practitioners have maintained a presence outside the Chinese consulate for more than two years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Across North America, government leaders have bestowed Falun Gong and Mr. Li with several hundred proclamations and recognitions for improving health, providing moral guidance, and for peacefully resisting the persecution in China. Mr. Li Hongzhi has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the past four years in a row, for his stance of peaceful resistance, and the millions in China who have upheld that teaching in the face of horrific violence. Throughout the past four years, Falun Gong practitioners in China continue an unprecedented, nation-wide campaign that has been strictly non-violent and nonpolitical. They retain a single objective: to restore the basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners to freely practice their beliefs. Noah Parker is a software engineer who studied Buddhism and Taoism for 20 years. He began practicing Falun Gong in 1999. Morning practice in Chicago. By 1999, volunteer Falun Gong practice sites were found in more than 40 countries around the world. With more than 300,000 practitioners, Falun Gong is widely popular in Taiwan where the President and other government leaders publically support it. Group practice in New York City’s Central Park. Despite a violent persecution in China, the practice continues to grow around the world.
Slide 44: Senior Chinese official, Luo Gan, seeks political gain by orchestrating anti-Falun Gong publicity and harrasment. The Premier orders that Falun Gong be left alone, but his orders are witheld. The following year, Jiang Zemin, attempts to destroy Falun Gong because it is so popular and respected. 1998 Falun Gong volunteers throughout China are taken from their homes in the middle of the night. Tens of thousands are detained over the next few days. On July 22, Jiang Zemin illegally bans Falun Gong. Within weeks, the first death in custody is reported by Falun Gong practitioners in China. July 20, 1999 Four Years of State Terror... BY LEVI BROWDE Civil Disobedience and the Education of China I n a remote region of China several Falun Gong practitioners live in a township at the base of a big mountain. The mother-in-law of one of them lives in a township on the opposite side of this mountain. She told her son-in-law that no one had distributed materials in her township telling the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong. At 4:00 p.m. one afternoon late in the summer of 2003 that son-in-law and the other practitioners from his township set out on foot over the mountain. Four Years of Non-Violent Appeal... April 1999 July-August 1999 After dozens of practitioners are detained and some beaten in a nearby city, over 10,000 practitioners appeal in Beijing. The gathering was peaceful and orderly. In the evening, everyone went home after the Premier met with Falun Gong representatives and ordered the release of those being detained. In the days following July 20, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners travel to Beijing to engage in nonviolent appeal against the recent “ban” issued by Jiang Zemin. After being released from custody, most Falun Gong practitioners go back to peacefully appeal and are repeatedly arrested.
Slide 45: To date, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are arbitrarily arrested and sent to forced labor camps without trial; lawyers are ordered by the Bureau of Justice not to represent Falun Gong practitioners; millions of Falun Gong books are confiscated and burned in public book burnings. Fall/Winter 1999 A healthy Army Lieutenant General is incarcerated in a mental hospital and tortured with drug injections. Hundreds more are undergoing similar torture in state-run mental facilities. Falun Gong practitioners are being held in every one of the nation’s 300 forced-labor camps. Fall 2000 That night they delivered 800 sets of fliers to a dozen villages, with almost every house getting a set, and put up posters on trees, telephone poles, and walls. They returned late the next afternoon, having walked over 100 miles. No journalist was there to witness their feat. Some western media have been reporting that the Chinese government has virtually succeeded in snuffing out all dissent by Falun Gong in China. These reports in fact parrot, unintentionally for sure, the claims in Chinese government propaganda. But a recent commentary by Xinhua, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, gives the lie to these very claims, and forces all to take a closer look at what the practitioners in China are doing. On September 14, 2003, Xinhua editorialized "We must fully see the protracted, arduous and complicated nature of this struggle [against Falun Gong]." "Protracted, arduous, and complicated" are not how one describes the attempt to deal with dissent that has already been snuffed out. What does Xinhua know that many in the West may not? Perhaps some western reporters have concentrated their gaze too much on the activity in Tiananmen Square. In the weeks following the beginning of the persecution in 1999, hundreds of practitioners were arrested every day in the square, while conducting peaceful appeals inevitably cut short by squads of police. These demonstrations made a deep impression for good reason. Mass, public, non-violent civil disobedience in the People’s Republic of China has only happened once before. That the public appeals continued for a year, then two years, and then longer was unheard of. The first impulse by practitioners in 1999 was simply to tell the government that a mistake had been made. And so they went to Tiananmen Square, to the State Appeals Offices, to local officials. They trusted in the rightness of their cause, but they learned there was no one in the government free to hear their story. Everyone in China, October 1999 Summer 2000 Falun Gong practitioners Falun Gong practitioners organize a secret press publicly appeal almost every conference with Western day in Tiananmen Square; media in Beijing. Their stories more than 1,200 are arrested in make the front page of the one-week’s time. Facing daily New York Times the next day. attacks in the state-run media, The reporters and practitioners practitioners in dozens of cities alike were later detained. Among them, at least one throughout China begin printing and distributing practitioner is tortured to death. flyers exposing the human rights violations.
Slide 46: 5 individuals set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. Chinese authorities flood the state-run media with grisly photos of the event, claiming the self-immolators were Falun Gong practitioners. Days later, a Washington Post article reveals that at least two of the selfimmolators were not practitioners. Further evidence later demonstrates the incident was staged. January 2001 On the evening of May 14 in Beijing, a female Falun Gong practitioner is beaten and raped on the street by a policeman. In June, police in Xingtai Public Security Bureau gang-rape many female Falun Gong practitioners. The total number of deaths verified by FDI increases 400% in less than one year. May-July 2001 not just the practitioners, was under compulsion to show the "correct attitude" toward Falun Gong or face persecution themselves. Meanwhile, the government launched a non-stop propaganda campaign that demonized Falun Gong, inciting the people against it. Practitioners discovered that even individuals who had known them their entire lives now suddenly had questions about Falun Gong; questions about them; questions the seeds of which were planted by the anti-Falun Gong propaganda. Even public demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that made big news in the West received no coverage in China’s state-run media. Except for the dozens of people on the Square to witness the appeals for themselves, for most Chinese, they never happened. Thus, practitioners had to find other ways to educate the people and the government, and do so despite a systematic and comprehensive effort to brainwash and brutalize the practitioners, despite relentless propaganda, and despite a blockade on all information from outside China. Practitioners did not stop going to Tiananmen Square because they had been defeated. Rather, they began a campaign extraordinary, audacious, and unprecedented: patiently and kindly to explain, without any access to conventional media, to everyone in China what Falun Gong is and why the persecution is wrong. §§§ Consider the events of October 12, 2000. It was just another morning in a Beijing park. The government’s propaganda had spent fifteen months giving a billion people a single, hatefilled message. At 7am, the regulars of Fragrant Hill Park, Temple of Heaven Park, and Yuyuantan Park heard a new voice. "Kind-hearted Beijing people, we are Falun Dafa practitioners...," sounded eighteen different loudspeakers across the city. The 12.5-watt loudspeakers echoed in the skies above the capital for two hours. November 2001 March 2002 36 Western Falun Gong practitioners appeal in Tiananmen Square and are immediately arrested. Released days later, many report physical abuse in custody. Falun Gong practitioners continue peaceful appeals in front of Chinese Embassies and Consulates around the world. Falun Gong practitioners tap into state-run cable T.V. signals and broadcast programs exposing human rights abuses and Jiang’s attempts to cover them up. Hundreds of thousands in China witness, for the first time, reports about the systematic campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong.
Slide 47: Authorities detain Dr. Charles After being tortured, 56-yearLee, an American citizen, accuse old Ms. Zhao Chunying wrote him of intending to expose about her ordeal and posted human rights violations over it on the Internet. Local police China’s state-run media, and discovered what Ms. Zhao sentence him to prison. Lee revealed, and arrested her endures beatings, forcedon April 15, 2003. Less than a feedings, daily brainwashing sessions, and other month later, Ms. Zhao is dead. Photographs taken by abuse as the authorities try to “transform” him. her family show her death was horrifyingly brutal. January 2003 May 2003 Citizens stopped and listened while policemen frantically searched for the carefully hidden loudspeakers. At noon, the broadcasts resonated in Purple Bamboo Park and the Beijing Zoo. The final loudspeaker was mounted at a detention center where practitioners were being tortured. §§§ On the morning of May 13, 2001, residents of towns across northeastern China woke up to find their streets filled with over 500 colorful banners. Red characters painted on a yellow fabric hanging from a tree spelled out the words: "Falun Dafa is good." The previous night, practitioners had left their houses and quietly placed little letters, fliers, and CDs on thousands of doorsteps. The little "Falun Dafa Day" gifts bore information their neighbors could hear nowhere else within China’s borders. It said Falun Gong is practiced freely around the world, that the so-called "self immolation" is a hoax, and that practi- tioners are being unjustly persecuted. What was done in a single night in May 2001 throughout northeastern China has been done continuously in a piecemeal fashion throughout the entire nation. The truthful words on the banners, fliers and CDs have been made illegal in China. Yet, with limited resources and risking their lives whenever they walk on the street, practitioners in China have delivered such "illegal" facts to households everywhere, in big cities and tiny villages, slowly countering the effects of the regime’s lies. §§§ Spring can be particularly cold in Changchun. The three-year campaign has been especially bitter in this city, the hometown of Falun Gong’s founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi. While many of the city’s people carry on with their lives, practitioners are still dying in Changchun’s jails and labor camps. [continued on page 65] October 2002 2003 Jiang Zemin visits the United States and is served with a class-action civil lawsuit, charging him and the “6-10 Office” with torture, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Jiang denies the existence of the lawsuit in China, and pressures the U.S. State Department to dismiss the case. Falun Gong practitioners in China operate thousands of home-based centers for printing flyers and posters exposing human rights abuses, and distribute these in cities and villages throughout China. Some villages report waking up to see Falun Gong flyers in every mailbox and posted in walkways.
Slide 48: An American Imprisoned in China for His Courage and Beliefs BY NATE ROSENBERG 30-year-old Ms. Yeong-ching Foo prepares for a candle-light vigil appeal to call for the release of her fiance, U.S. citizen, Dr. Charles Lee. D r. Charles Lee has been beaten, interrogated for days, deprived of sleep, put through a show trial, dragged to “reeducation classes,” tied to an iron bed, and had a hard plastic tube shoved up his nose. Ms. Yeong-Ching Foo has, for the past nine in southern China. months, been tirelessly attending press events, Foo, 30, is a University of California Davis visiting government offices, and collecting siggraduate who entered the software industry in natures trying to bring her fiancé back. the Silicon Valley. She met Lee, a graduate of University of Illinois who conducted research Lee is enduring a Chinese prison’s all-out at Harvard, at a social gathering at Stanford efforts to break his conviction. University. Foo has been to Capitol Hill. She has been Foo says that Lee went to China to defend to Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Chicago, the lives of others. “Charles had a very comand points in between. She has her Congressfortable life, a good life, here in America. But woman’s and the State Department’s phone he loves his fellow Chinese people so much, numbers memorized. She is hoping someone and he sees them suffer under this persecucan do something to help her fiancé and the tion,” she says. people of China. A Falun Gong practitioner and member of Worlds apart, they share courage, endurAmnesty International Group 466, Lee had ance, and hope. intended to assist in broadcasting evidence of Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Menlo the persecution of Falun Gong by overriding Park, California, traveled to China to expose Dr. Charles Lee, detained in China since Jan. 2003 the signal of a state-controlled TV broadcast. the human rights violations committed against Falun Gong practitioners in China have used Falun Gong practitioners. However, Lee never made it into China on his own. He was arrested on January 22, this method since February 2002 to try to break through China’s 2003 as soon as he got off the airplane at the Guangzhou Airport pervasive information blockade. Foo explains that the information
Slide 49: blockade is a key weapon in the hands of Jiang’s regime – it has hidden the bloody persecution from the world outside China, and even from China’s own people. In a 96-page letter Lee wrote while in jail, he explains that overriding China’s cable broadcast signals is justified and necessary given the state of emergency this persecution has created in China. “The whole persecution is based on lies, so all of the people in China are affected,” says Lee’s fiancée. She says by exposing the cover-up of the persecution, Lee sought to spare innocent people from being tortured to death. He also sought to give a chance to reconsider their actions to those who, misled by the propaganda, take part in persecuting their fellow countrymen. Perhaps if they knew the truth they would no longer commit these terrible crimes. Lee must have known the risks involved in his efforts. At least five Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who successfully broadcasted evidence of the persecution in China have been tortured to death, while others have been sentenced to long periods in jail and have been subject to life-threatening torture. “A lot of practitioners have been tortured to death, brainwashed, physically and mentally tortured,” says Foo. Yet, she says she believes Lee went to China knowing that whatever punishment he receives if caught will be less than what a Chinese citizen would have to suffer. Perhaps that is the case. Yet, in the 96page letter that Lee wrote while handcuffed in custody and managed to get to the U.S. consulate only after enduring an eight-day hunger strike, Lee reveals that he, too, has been abused all along. According to the letter, he was beaten upon arrest at the Guangzhou Airport, was interrogated and deprived of sleep for three days and nights, and was handcuffed and tied in agonizing positions for long periods of time. Between March 27 and April 2 he was handcuffed consecutively for 130 hours. In February, he was tied to the iron “death bed” for nine hours, with his four limbs painfully stretched out Most dangerous have been the several forced feedings that Lee has been subjected to. Many practitioners have died from this form of torture. Those who have suffered it say it is excruciatingly painful. On one occasion the feeding tube inserted into Charles nose was left there for 39 straight hours, simply to increase his suffering. The U.S. consular officials in Shanghai have repeatedly protested the abuses, and the Chinese government has repeatedly de- nied all allegations of torture of Falun Gong practitioners, and has maintained that Lee was arrested simply based on criminal charges of what he “intended to do.” Foo believes, however, that “the real reason they persecute him is because of his belief in Falun Gong. It really has nothing to do with their charges.” She says that the Chinese security authorities have tried to brainwash Lee from the very beginning. What they really want is to “transform” him and force him to renounce and slander the practice, she says. Meanwhile, the pressure on Lee only builds. The U.S. Consulate in Shanghai reported in November that the brainwashing sessions now go on daily, and are more intense. Foo has not been allowed to speak with her fiancé since his arrest. She says she would like to tell him to hold on. “We are going to get him out. We are working very hard, not only in the U.S., but worldwide, to get his release. I want him to hang on there; I really need him to hang on there.” Nate Rosenberg is an Israeli and American citizen. Nate served as his university’s Amnesty International coordinator and is currently researching Chinese concepts of rights in the 20th century. Unveiling Human Rights Abuses and Jiang’s Systematic Coverup on State-run TV Airwaves in China NEW YORK (FDI) -- According to a September 18 report by the BBC, 15 practitioners of Falun Gong were put on trial in the northeastern city of Changchun, China. Their crime? Tapping into cable TV signals to broadcast programs exposing human rights violations committed by Jiang Zemin’s regime. The broadcasts also included programs showing the practice and support of Falun Gong in over 50 countries around the world. For over three years, the Chinese state-run media has been saturated with programs and campaigns that distort the teachings of Falun Gong. This propaganda also accuses Falun Gong practitioners of horrendous crimes (without any third-party verification) and denies any existence of Jiang’s persecuting of practitioners -- all in an effort to align public opinion with Jiang’s campaign against Falun Gong. In the state- run media, Falun Gong, like other suppressed groups, has had no voice... until now. By broadcasting programs that expose what is really happening in China, practitioners of Falun Gong are exercising their right to freedom of speech, using peaceful means that harm no one. Throughout history, those who peacefully defy injustice and the persecution of the human spirit have been called heroes. Today in China such people are being labeled as “criminals.” With the show-trial of these 15 practitioners of Falun Gong, Jiang is lashing out, yet again, at those who seek to bring transparency to Jiang’s persecution. The broadcasting of programs by Falun Gong practitioners over cable TV networks is standing up for the right to freedom of conscience, expression, and association. It exposes the true picture of human rights in China and gives a voice to the millions of Chinese citizens who have none. It is truly serving the people.
Slide 50: From Rags to Riches... ...to Torture in a Chinese Labor Camp I have been tortured to the brink of death simply because I’m a Falun Gong practitioner and would not renounce my beliefs amidst the pressure and violence. Yet, my story is not uncommon. In fact, I am but one of millions with such a story to tell...
Slide 51: BY WANG YUZHI M y family came from the city of Harbin. I was 15 when the Great Cultural Revolution swept through China. My father was jailed for being an “anti-revolutionist” — Maoist jargon for anyone with an education, owning lands or holding traditional values. My mother was left to take care of eight children, with no source of income. Fortunately, two of my brothers were able to earn enough money washing cloth by the banks of the Songhua River to keep the family fed. My mother was too depressed and sick to cook, so I took over the cooking for the family. I used to take meals to my father in prison, and can still remember seeing him behind bars—dark and gaunt, but always passionate and positive. In spite of the extreme difficulties in my life, I was always encouraged by my father’s attitude. In 1976 the “Gang of Four” was removed from power and life began to change. My father was released from prison, and my two older boys were admitted to university, along with my younger sister. I was left to provide for the rest of the family, including my sick parents. I got a job making towel tassels, and was so efficient at my work that I could earn 200–300 Yuan a month. This was enough money to provide food for the whole family, and tuition for my younger brothers and sister. By this time, my family was doing well financially. My father had started his own factory and went on to become one of China’s first millionaires. Two of my brothers left China—one went to Philadelphia, and the other to the Middle East. My mother moved to the United Arab Emirates with my two younger sisters. All my brothers and sisters had prosperous businesses. Financially, life was good. My life underwent another incredible change in 1998 when one of my customers handed me a copy of Falun Gong—the introductory text of Falun Gong. When I first took the book, I had no idea how dramatically it would change my life. I began practicing Falun Gong and started to notice huge changes in my life. For years I had suffered from a debilitating illness that would occasionally cause me to suddenly lose control in my legs, and make walking impossible. I had visited countless doctors, both Chinese and western, but none of them could pinpoint the cause of the illness. Three months after starting Falun Gong, my illness totally disappeared. I began diligently studying the Falun Gong books, and did the Falun Gong exercises with friends at a local park. In the process of practicing Falun Gong I felt cleansed of many negative thoughts and emotions that I had collected throughout my life. I felt my body and soul gradually become healthy and harmonious like never before. My tiring life became happier and I was finally at peace. I felt so lucky to be able to learn a Chinese exercise and meditation practice that originated in the ancient traditions of my country. In Chinese history every dynasty was built on and governed by virtue and morality. The main focus in life was to think of others first and always look inside to see where you could do better. The main goal in life was to strengthen the spirit, to enlighten to truth and return the body and mind to the original true essence. The profound principles in Falun Gong empowered me to make purer choices in my life and helped me to bring the principles of Truth Compassion and Tolerance into my family. I feel I have truly found the meaning of my life and the answers to life’s mysteries by practicing Falun Gong. For me, it brought together all of the pieces of the puzzle. Crackdown on Falun Gong Falun Gong spread rapidly in China, and by 1999 statistics from China’s Physical Education Bureau showed that there were over 70 million people practicing Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin, the leader of the Communist Party at that time, was threatened by both the sheer numbers of people and their allegiance to something other than Communist Party ideology. On July 20, 1999 he ordered a brutal crackdown on Falun Gong. Overnight, those 70 million people, including myself, became the “enemy of the people” and “followers of an evil religion.” My life was about to take another dramatic turn—full of incredible hardships that I could never have imagined. As the crackdown on Falun Gong continued, the media was saturated with lies and propaganda. In order to justify the persecution, all kinds of bloody crimes (immolation, suicide, homicide) were used to frame up Falun Gong practitioners. The sensational propaganda demonizing Falun Gong permeated the entire country. It was like reliving My Life Improves In 1979, life slowly started to change for me. I was working in an electronics company, and the company decided to send me to university. After I graduated, I went back to the factory to work as an engineer. In 1989 the company went bankrupt and so my husband (whom I’d met at university) and I started up our own business importing office supplies. The business went so well that the company profits continually doubled. My hardships were finally over—I had a house, a car, a great business and a happy marriage. I also had a beautiful son. [continued on page 66] 51 www.faluninfo.net
Slide 52: Events and News from aro
Slide 53: und the World A s Jiang has waged the persecution campaign against Falun Gong in China, practitioners and supporters around the world have worked with their government leaders and communities to stop it. From Canada to Indonesia, from Germany to South Africa, practitioners have worked to expose the human rights abuses and bring Jiang to justice...
Slide 54: Citizens from 20 Nations Appeal in Geneva J oined by political figures and renowned human rights advocates from Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, more than 1,000 practitioners and supporters of Falun Gong from 20 nations around the world gathered in Geneva during the 59th annual United Nations Human Rights Commission. Falun Gong practitioners held press conferences announcing legal actions against Jiang Zemin, held public appeals outside the United Nations buildings and organized a procession through downtown Geneva to remember those who have been tortured to death in China.
Slide 55: Four-day Rally, Events in Washington DC F our years after former Chinese Communist leader, Jiang Zemin, launched the persecution of Falun Gong in China, over 5000 Falun Gong practitioners from around the world gathered in Washington DC to take part in a four-day event in the nation’s capital. In addition to an all-day concert near the Capitol Building and a procession through the streets of downtown Washington DC, practitioners held a conference at the DAR Constitution Hall. In a rally on Capitol Hill, U.S. Senators, Congresspersons and prominent non-governmental organizations joined a chorus of voices, condemning the Chinese regime’s four-year persecution of Falun Gong. Speakers also applauded the courage and non-violent nature of practitioners during the persecution.
Slide 56: Worldwide Appeals at Chinese Embassies and Consulates S ince July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners have held regular appeals in front of Chinese Embassies and Consulates throughout the world. Enduring rain, snow, and burning sun, their persistence and silent appeal have touched the world and drawn international recognition. Outside the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver, practitioners continue their non-stop, 24-hour vigil begun in August of 2001. Los Angeles, USA Kiev, Ukraine Tokyo, Japan Vienna, Austria London, England Jarkarta, Indonesia Melbourne, Australia Vancouver, Canada Hong Kong New York City, USA
Slide 57: Rescuing Loved–ones from “Living Hell” Labor Camps O ver the past 4 years, Falun Gong practitionesr have undertaken a campaign to rescue loved-ones detained in Chinese prisons, detention centers and forced labor camps because they practice Falun Gong. Practitioners outside China have walked, cycled and driven thousands of miles through sun, snow and rain, across America, Australia, Canada, Europe, Taiwan and many other countries around the world. The response has been positive – 14 family members have been released with many more telling of improved conditions because of international attention to their cases.
Slide 58: Practitioners’ Conferences around the World A t local and international experience sharing conferences held in major cities around the world, attendance has risen each year, ranging from a few hundred up to over 6,000. These conferences are coordinated by local volunteers, and are always free of charge and open to anyone. They provide a forum for practitioners to share their experiences in the practice of Falun Gong, and to learn from each other. Mr. Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong’s founder, occasionally attends and answers questions from local practitioners for a few hours at a time. Washington DC, USA Berlin, Germany Taipei, Taiwan Chicago, USA Tokyo, Japan
Slide 59: World Falun Dafa Day 2003 W hat began four years ago as a simple idea to celebrate a popular exercise and meditation practice from China has blossomed into a worldwide event, ushering in a comprehensive revival of traditional Chinese culture. Between May 11 and May 13, practitioners and supporters of Falun Gong joined their communities in over 30 cities around the world to celebrate the fourth annual World Falun Dafa Day – an event marking the day Falun Dafa was first taught publicly by founder Mr. Li Hongzhi on May 13, 1992.
Slide 60: Articles continued... Former Chinese Leader and Senior Officials Charged... [continued from page 19] A Wave of Lawsuits around the World The lawsuits filed on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners, however, first gained international media attention in October 2002, when individual plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in Chicago against Jiang and the "6-10 Office" (aka Falun Gong Control Office). At the time, Jiang was visiting the U.S. just prior to stepping down as Chair of Chinese Communist Party. Like previous cases, specific causes of action pleaded in the complaint included torture, genocide, and denial of the right to life. Also cited in the complaint, however, was conspiracy to commit violations of civil rights against Falun Gong within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Since 1999, Chinese officials in the U.S. – usually associated with the Embassy or consulates – have engaged in a coordinated attack on Falun Gong practitioners in the U.S. and official documents secured by Freedom House suggested the attacks were part of Jiang’s larger campaign against the practice. Two days after the lawsuit was served in Chicago, China’s foreign ministry tried to deny the lawsuit even existed, but was forced into a retreat when pressed by Associated Press reporters in Beijing. Meanwhile, Jiang’s supporters began mounting a campaign to pressure the U.S. State Department in an effort to block the court process. In September 2003, the District Court judge dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, indicating Jiang enjoys immunity and cannot be tried for genocide and torture in U.S. Courts. "The decision contradicts case law in the U.S.," says Falun Gong attorney, Dr. Marsh, "and ignores international treaty law and customary international law that stipulates heads-of-state and former heads-of-state may not enjoy immunity with respect to crimes against humanity." The case is currently on appeal with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Significantly, however, the Chicago lawsuit put the persecution of Falun Gong on the map of the international legal community. Since the filing of the 6-10 Office and oversees the persecution. “ Luo played a pivotal role in turning the government apparatus against Falun Gong in the late 1990’s, and has been Jiang’s most virulent supporter of the persecution. 4) Li Lanqing, Former Director of the “Leadership Team to Deal with the Falun Gong Problem” and former Vice-Premier of China. Following the Chicago suit, in December 2002, William Bourdon and Georges-Henri Beauthier, two human rights lawyers renowned for their prosecution of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, filed a suit for crimes of torture at the Court of Nice, France against Li Lanqing. The Chinese Vice-Premier was then on an unofficial visit in France. The plaintiffs were four Falun Gong practitioners, including two French women. The complaint was based on the UN Convention against Torture, which France signed in 1984 and which allows it to arrest and prosecute any person guilty of torture. It is the first time in Europe that a Chinese leader has faced such a complaint. In July 2002, the case was accepted by the criminal court in Paris, a magistrate was assigned and legal proceedings began against the former Vice-Premier. Over the next year, 10 lawsuits were filed in Belgium, Iceland, Finland, Spain, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries against Jiang and other senior Chinese leaders for their roles in the persecution of Falun Gong. Chicago suit, human rights attorneys have been using genocide, torture and other relevant international and national laws to file 13 more lawsuits in 11 countries around the world on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners. Defendants in these lawsuits are one or more of the following: 1) Jiang Zemin, former Chinese leader widely known to be the architect and driving force behind the persecution of Falun Gong. 2) The "6-10 Office," a gestapo-like agency established by Jiang specifically to “eradicate Falun Gong.” 3) Luo Gan, now Director of the “Leadership Team to Deal with the Falun Gong Problem,” which created the Tribunals and the International Criminal Court Lawyers in the U.S. and European cases have indicated they are also preparing a petition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and are investigating the establishment of an ad-hoc 60 Compassion • 2004
Slide 61: tribunal. Letters were also submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Commission requesting assistance with legal initiatives against Jiang. With China sitting on the security council of the U.N., many feel a U.N.backed initiative for redress is unlikely. Dr. Marsh, the lead attorney in the U.S. lawsuit against Jiang disagrees, saying a U.N. option is not so far-fetched given Jiang’s rapidly deteriorating hold on power in China. "In May, the Washington Post was the first media outlet to expose the fact that Jiang’s faction in the Chinese Government backed the cover up of SARS," says Dr. Marsh. "In that article, a China expert was quoted as saying that the ‘growing disdain and hatred for Jiang is stunning’ and that ‘Jiang is being chastised as a narcissistic freak obsessed with his own alleged charm.’" Dr. Marsh continued, "This is exactly in-line with the stories I hear coming out of China…Jiang has committed so many crimes against the people of China, that many in China are weary of him. When we first filed this lawsuit, some were concerned that it might appear to go against the Chinese Government and offend the Chinese people, but what I’m hearing is the exact opposite…it is bringing hope to people throughout China that Jiang might be brought to justice for his crimes. For the Chinese people, this lawsuit and related legal initiatives around the world are really about hope for justice." John Nania is a communications consultant and freelance writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Immunity, Genocide and the Rule of Law... [continued from page 23] it’s all just people who know about the persecution and want the case to go forward. The costs, however, are very low thanks to a lot of pro-bono work on the part of many attorneys. Q. Are other legal channels being pursued, such as the ICC, the UN, tribunals, etc.? The moral and legal issues raised by this case are of paramount importance to the future of human rights litigation here in the United States. How we resolve these issues will affect our proud tradition of defending the universal principles necessary for justice and freedom, as well as determine the place of the United States in the world. We will present a strong case to the Seventh Circuit panel of Judges. The law is on our side. We can only hope that they will accept the challenge of history and do the right thing. Yes, there are five attorneys who “The principles of truthfulness, compaspractice Falun sion and tolerance are constitutive of Gong involved in our very humanity. No persecution could these lawsuits. Two others have submitsucceed against those principles without ted lawsuits against extinguishing who we are. By suing Jiang Jiang Zemin, Thewe are affirming what is best in all of us.” resa Chu of Taiwan, and Carlos Iglesias of Spain. The five of us have visited the ICC and shared Q. What are Falun Gong with them the severity of the persecu- practitioners hoping to tion. We also discussed the possibility of accomplish with these lawsuits? filing a petition to the ICC and we are investigating the establishment of an adThe lawsuits help educate people hoc tribunal and/or some other already around the globe about the religious established channel for redress. Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong in China. crimes against practitioners of Falun These lawsuits also tell those who are Gong are of the most serious order and responsible for the persecution that highest magnitude. Until he pays for his they cannot commit genocide and torcrimes in a court of law, we will continue ture with impunity, and in doing so we to sue him in civil, criminal and inter- believe they will help contribute to the national courts around the globe. That end of the persecution of Falun Gong is my personal promise to Jiang and in China and abroad. Indeed, we have those who help him in his ill-conceived heard encouraging stories of officials in campaign. China who are now beginning to walk away from involvement with the perseQ. The case you filed in Chicago cution because their previous notions of was dismissed at the District level impunity has been shattered by the reality of lawsuits filed against them around and is now on appeal. Do you the world. think the outcome of the appeal We have all seen images of holocaust will be different? victims, half-starved skeletons gazing The Judge’s ruling is of course not at us from behind barbed wire fences. what we had hoped for or anticipated. Those images moved the world in the However, this case is far from over. In- wake of World War II to vow "never again." deed it is just beginning. www.faluninfo.net 61
Slide 62: The images of the victims of the persecution of Falun Gong are no less horrifying. I have two photographs. In the first is a professor smiling happily and picking flowers in her garden and then in the second just months later she has been tortured to death … these photos still bring tears to my eyes when I look at them. A mother is forced to observe police officers hang her eight month old son upside down and torture him to death before her very eyes. Women are raped, forced to abort their babies, hung from ceilings, tortured with devices that ravage the human body to the point where they are driven insane or "transformed" into dark shadows of their former selves. The very old, the very young – no one is immune from the daily torture and brutal killings. In this lawsuit we see humanity’s continuing effort to rise above our capacity for atrocity and to order our lives according to higher principles. I believe this desire to live according to higher principles is ineradicable in humanity. History will show that the persecution of Falun Gong was not only a persecution of one hundred million individuals in China, it was also a persecution of the universal, moral principles of Falun Gong. The principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance are constitutive of our very humanity. No persecution could succeed against those principles without extinguishing who we are. By suing Jiang we are affirming what is best in all of us. Jiang’s Personal Campaign... [continued from page 29] April 25th: Jiang Zemin’s Excuse to Declare War The acts of harassment against Falun Gong came to a head in the city of Tianjin, not far from Beijing. Luo Gan’s brother-in-law, a man with a Ph.D. in physics named He Zuoxiu, who has regularly written propaganda articles for the Communist Party, had written a magazine article attacking Falun Gong. That article included a previously discredited story about an individual said to have committed suicide due to practicing Falun Gong (in fact that young man had neither practiced Falun Gong nor committed suicide). When the magazine refused to retract the article, practitioners held a peaceful appeal outside its office. Police arrested and beat them. When local practitioners appealed to the police in Tianjin for the release of those arrested, they were told all appeals on this issue must go to Beijing. In all previous incidents in which practitioners had been harassed, this had never been said before. The stakes had risen. In Mainland China, Appeal Bureaus are set up by the government to receive grievances from the people. All levels of the Party and administrative departments have Appeal Offices. For example, the Appeal Bureau for the State Council is located about two to three hundred meters down Fuyou Street from Zhongnanhai, the central government’s compound in Beijing. On the morning of April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners – following the instructions they were given by officials in Tianjin – came to the Appeal Bureau for the State Council from different areas. They had heard of the situation through word of mouth, and came to appeal of their own individual will, hoping to appeal directly to the officials in the central government. Police were waiting for them in force. Rather than directing them away from the sensitive government compound of Zhongnanhai toward the Appeals Office, police did the opposite. They refused to let practitioners approach the Appeals Office, and instead directed them opposite Zhongnanhai until the group wound entirely around the complex in neat, orderly rows. On that day, then-Premier Zhu Rongji came out of the Zhongnanhai government compound and talked to the Falun Gong practitioners. According to witnesses, Premier Zhu asked why the practitioners had come, saying “Didn’t I already issue comments on your practice?” The Falun Gong practitioners responded that they never received Zhu’s correspondence. They proceeded to explain that police in Tianjin had beaten and illegally arrested over 30 Falun Gong practitioners. “We were told this could not be resolved locally, and that we should appeal to the central government,” the practitioners told Premier Zhu. After listening to the report of the situation, Zhu issued an order to release the arrested practitioners that same day. After confirming that the practitioners in Tianjin would be released, the 10,000 then quietly dispersed. Not knowing practitioners were instructed to go to Beijing and then arranged around Zhongnanhai by the police awaiting them, many observers understood the appearance of practitioners there to be a direct challenge to the Communist Party’s authority, and, when the persecution began, assumed the events of April 25th to be the cause. Jiang Overrides Government Leaders and Orders Persecution Eyewitnesses report that when the news of the Falun Gong appeal was brought to Jiang during the day, he responded with a vehemence that shocked all present, “Crush Falun Gong! Crush it! Crush it completely!” That evening, Jiang wrote a letter to the other members of the Permanent 62 Compassion • 2004
Slide 63: Standing Committee and other top Party officials, calling for an emergency meeting regarding this incident. “The Communist Party must vanquish Falun Gong,” Jiang stated in the letter. “How could it be possible that the Marxist theory we endorse and the materialism and atheism that we believe in can’t vanquish what Falun Gong propagates? If it were true, wouldn’t we become laughing stocks?” During the meeting, Jiang openly reprimanded Zhu calling him “Muddleheaded! Muddle-headed!” He repudiated the Premier’s decision that was in the process of being implemented, and forced the Party to accept his personal goal to “eradicate” Falun Gong. At the end of the meeting, Zhu Rongji, who had been accused under Mao of being a “rightist,” stopped and shook hands with every staff member present, saying his goodbyes. He is not known to have uttered a word about Falun Gong since. Acting on Jiang’s instructions the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council then issued a circular to the Party Committees of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. This demanded that all departments ascertain whether any of their personnel were Falun Gong practitioners and whether they had been to Zhongnanhai on April 25th. Jiang also ensured that the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army issue a directive demanding that all military personnel, including support workers and even retirees, cease participation in Falun Gong exercises. The order stated: “The people’s armed forces must never allow any qigong organizations of a religious nature; and must firmly and decisively dismiss those servicemen and dependents who are Falun Gong exercisers. Whoever disobeys this shall be strictly disciplined.” Yet, Jiang still faced considerable opposition within the Communist Party. His policy was viewed by most of the top Party members as irrational, unnecessary, and one that violated China’s own Constitution. Jiang, however, was the head of the Communist Party, the government, and the military. Thus, in the face of Jiang’s intimidation, over the next few months all highranking officials of the Chinese government gradually grew silent on the Falun Gong issue. Between April 25 and July 20, 1999, Jiang and Luo began to make use of all meetings and public occasions to force everyone to express their attitudes and pledge their allegiance. Chinese government sources say the situation during this time was also very chaotic as Jiang’s followers attempted to find incriminating details that they could use to justify the persecution and silence any objections. The State Appeals offices still held policies that announced a “freedom to practice” qigong, and “no ban on spiritual practices.” These announcements were on the walls of the Appeals offices directly alongside the new policies posted by Jiang, making the discord about Falun Gong at the highest levels of the Party visible for all to see. At a Politburo meeting on June 7 Jiang announced the decision to form a leadership team “to deal with the Falun Gong problem.” The Director of that team would be former vice-premier Li Lanqing, and his assistant directors would be Luo Gan and the Propaganda Minister Ding Guangen. On June 10, the Central Committee obediently formed the “Leadership Team to Deal with the Falun Gong Problem,” headed by Li, with Luo and Ding as assistants. This team in turn formed an office they called the “6-10 Office,” named after the date of its institution. The 6-10 Office would carry out the policies of Jiang and his “Leadership Team” in eradicating Falun Gong. (see “The 6-10 Office,” page 30) In the early morning hours of July 20, 1999, Falun Gong practice site volunteers around the country were pulled from their beds and detained by police. On the same day, Jiang ordered the Central Civil Affairs Department, which is responsible for the registration of groups and organizations, to issue a notice banning Falun Gong. An estimated 35,000 practitioners were detained over the next several weeks. Within a few months, the first reports of severe abuse, torture and killings began to emerge from inside China. Four Years of Jiang-sponsored Terror According to sources in China and thousands of testimonies from victims over the last four years, Jiang implemented the persecution through a three-pronged directive to all levels of government: Destroy [Falun Gong] practitioners physically; destroy their reputations; destroy them financially. Numerous edicts handed down by Jiang, which the security and propaganda machines had no choice but to obey, were illegal and unconstitutional. In July 1999, Jiang, through the Bureau of Civil Affairs (an Administrative branch), declared Falun Gong to be an “illegal organization.” According to Articles 2, 80, and 81 of the Constitution www.faluninfo.net 63
Slide 64: labor camps, typically without trial, according to the InfoCenter. Jiang’s Motives CNN’s China expert Willy Wo-Lap Lam has reported that the persecution of Falun Gong was in fact an attempt by Jiang to secure his own power. Lam quoted a Party insider on February 6, 2001 as saying “by unleashing a Mao-style movement, Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line. This will boost Jiang’s authority — and may give him enough momentum to enable him to dictate events at the pivotal 16th Communist Party Congress next year.” Others who have been investigating the human rights abuses against Falun Gong in China, however, put forth a more mundane cause: Jealousy. Consider events in the spring of 1998. The Yangtze River was flooding. Jiang visited the city of Wuhan on an inspection tour of the endangered areas. According to eyewitnesses, a particular group working on the dikes caught his eye. They worked very well together and with great enthusiasm. Their section of the dike had stayed ahead of the flood. Jiang was very pleased. He asked who these workers were. When told they were local Falun Gong practitioners who had volunteered for this duty, he flew into a rage, turned on his heel, and stalked off. “Jiang was jealous of Falun Gong’s wide-spread popularity among the people,” says Dr. Shiyu Zhou, a Falun Dafa InfoCenter (FDI) spokesman. “Falun Gong had captured the nation’s attention and seemed to truly bring about changes in the communities. After so many years of turmoil, people in China were returning to a more traditional Chinese way of life, working together, thinking of others before themselves and putting an emphasis on kindness. It may sound petty at first, but the admiration people held for Falun Gong made him furious. That’s the main reason he did this.” Dr. Michael Pearson-Smith lives in Melbourne, Australia, and works in educational publishing and sales. of the People’s Republic of China, only the National People’s Congress has the ability to declare an organization illegal. The President does not possess such power. Yet, this executive order initiated the persecution campaign. In October 1999, the National People’s Congress passed a series of laws basically targeting Falun Gong. Regarding these laws, a November 2, 1999, article from the Washington Post stated: “When [China’s Communist leaders] found themselves without the laws they need to rigorously persecute a peaceful meditation society, the Party simply ordered up some new laws. Now these will be applied – retroactively.” These laws were dictated by Jiang, using the National People’s Congress merely as a rubber stamp. Doing so oversteps the authority granted to the President by the Chinese constitution. Applying these laws retroactively to prosecute Falun Gong practitioners and sentence them to prison terms was likewise an illegal action. Although many provinces were quick to enact Jiang’s policy on Falun Gong, some southern provinces, such as Guandong, were not pursuing the persecution with the vigor Jiang demanded. Thus, in February 2000, Jiang went on a tour of those southern provinces to spur them on and ensure that they toed the line. In particular, he criticized Guandong for not “doing its best in the persecution of Falun Gong,” and for being “too soft” on Falun Gong. He also asked Guandong Province Governor, Li Changchun, to make a statement at the conference of the Political Bureau to “express regret” with respect to his lack of efforts in this area. Under pressure from Jiang, Guandong Province as well as other southern provinces eventually began to incarcerate Falun Gong practitioners and send them to labor camps en masse. Among the first from Guandong to be sent to a labor camp was a university classmate of Hu Jintao, the vice-president of China (and the man who would succeed Jiang as President and Chair of the Communist Party). Hu had been very passive in carrying out Jiang’s campaign against Falun Gong. In forcing Hu to accept this, Jiang sent a powerful double message: no one may be granted exception from the persecution, and none of China’s leadership may try to avoid the responsibility for enforcing it. By the end of 2003, details of 852 deaths have been verified by the Falun Dafa InfoCenter (FDI), with informed sources putting the true death toll well in the thousands. Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced 64 Compassion • 2004
Slide 65: The 6-10 Office... [continued from page 33] Civil Disobedience... [continued from page 47] Families huddle around their TV sets on the evening of Tuesday, March 5, 2002. At 8 pm the state-run broadcast is suddenly interrupted. There is a brief blackout. Then, unexpectedly, images appear of Falun Gong practitioners in large groups practicing in parks around the world, footage of the persecution, a slow-motion analysis proving that the so-called self-immolation is a hoax… Families in approximately 300,000 homes watched the 50 minute broadcast, and the airing is the talk of the town for days. Enraged, Jiang Zemin orders Falun Gong practitioners shot on sight. Overnight, Changchun is turned into a police state. Policemen raid the city’s houses as 5,000 practitioners are arrested in three days. Witnesses see bodies being thrown out of high-rise windows. Others hear screaming from beyond prison walls. At least six people who helped carry out the broadcasts have been tortured to death, others have been sentenced to long jail periods. Nonetheless, over a dozen such broadcasts that have since taken place in major cities throughout China, including Beijing and Shanghai, have been reported. §§§ "We don't know how much you know about your husband, and we don't know how much you are aware of his actions," reads a letter sent to Ms. Zhao, the wife of the Chaoyang County Detention Center’s deputy director. "We don't know, as a woman and a wife, how you feel about his actions. We also don't know how much you know about Falun Gong. However, we do know that people should live with kindness." The letter is also sent to the deputy director’s high-school son, to the workers in his work unit and his wife’s work The 6-10 Office Tries to Hide by Changing Its Name The 6-10 Office has come under increasing international pressure as knowledge of its existence has been reported in the international press and details of its mission have gradually been unveiled. The shady office was fingered in news articles by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post as well as statements from concerned government leaders around the world. Additionally, in 2002 and 2003 the 6-10 Office or its leadership was named in nine lawsuits filed around the world, alleging genocide, torture, and crimes against humanity. In response, in October 2003 provincial governments in China announced that the 6-10 Office had been “disbanded.” Its name was removed from most Chinese official web sites. An official document from CCP Rongchang County Committee, however, revealed the true situation: the Communist Party has done what it has often done in the past, changing the façade of an agency or policy that violates domestic and international laws, while in reality maintaining the status quo with little or no change. The 6-10 Office has simply changed its name. “The name of ‘6-10 Office’ is not allowed to be used. In public activities, the use of ‘the County 6-10 Office’ is absolutely forbidden,” states the Rongchang County letter. Since the 6-10 Office went underground in 2003, daily reports of extortion, loss of job or housing, beatings, torture and killings of Falun Gong practitioners have continued uninterrupted. The mission of the 6-10 Office lives on. Stephen Gregory is a doctoral candidate in the Committee on Social Thought, and an administrator, at the University of Chicago. unit, and to his neighbors. "He put Dafa practitioners in chains, poured cold water on them, and shocked them with electric batons," the letter reveals. "He has personally beaten every practitioner who has been detained in the county detention center." Soon after this letter is sent, news surfaces that all of the Falun Gong practitioners detained at the county detention center were released. One of the deputy’s former classmates tells practitioners the deputy said he would never participate in this persecution again. Across the country, Falun Gong practitioners are now directly seeking out the perpetrators. They tell them to stop torturing people since the world has an ancient moral principle: good is rewarded with good and evil with evil. §§§ When the persecution began, the practitioners could easily have stayed at home to do their exercises, patiently waiting for perhaps a decade or more for this latest spasm of violence by the Communist Party against the Chinese people to end. Certainly, this is what Jiang Zemin expected. But the practitioners chose civil disobedience, not as a tactic, but as a natural expression of the principles of Falun Gong, of truthfulness-compassion-tolerance. The practitioners use non-violence, because according to their beliefs, they cannot harm others. They seek to educate, because in telling others the truth, practitioners allow the people of China to choose what is good. They risk their all, because the meaning of life is found in living according to what is best in each of us. With their words and their actions, the practitioners of Falun Gong simply appeal to the Chinese people not to do harm, but to consult the truth available to each inside them. And so, in the teeth of Jiang Zemin’s frenzied efforts to deny their right to appeal, tens of millions of practitioners of Falun Gong have continued to exercise www.faluninfo.net 65
Slide 66: it, appealing to the hearts and souls of the Chinese people everyday. They do so by putting posters up on village walls, by hanging banners from buildings or bridges, by slipping fliers under apartment doors or passing them out on crowded city buses, by mailing VCDs to government officials, by sending e-mail messages, by faxing busy offices, by calling officials on the phone, by text messaging, by broadcasting TV signals, by whatever peaceful and non-violent means they can find to reach others. Most importantly, the practitioners of China calmly tell others their stories, one on one, explaining that Falun Gong is good, and the persecution must end. And each time they change a heart, the persecution does end…one person at a time. Levi Browde is a project management consultant in New York City who has researched and written dozens of articles on the persecution of Falun Gong in China. From Rags to Riches... [continued from page 51] the Great Cultural Revolution—only worse. Arrested Three Times The sudden persecution of Falun Gong stunned me and all my friends, and so I went to the local Appeals Office—following the legal rights guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution to register appeals with the government. But I quickly found out that these rights no longer applied to Falun Gong practitioners. Ironically, the Appeals Office became the detention center, where all practitioners who went to appeal against the vicious persecution were arrested instead. I was arrested three times. The first time was in January 2000 in Beijing—I was ordered to sign a pledge promising not to return to Beijing to organize support for Falun Gong. I refused to sign it, so the guards ordered other inmates to beat me. The second arrest was in July 2000, for photocopying Falun Gong flyers. The police officers beat me repeatedly, trying to find out whom the flyers were for. In spite of the vicious slander against Falun Gong, I stood firmly by my beliefs and decided to help reveal the facts of the persecution to people who had been deceived by the government’s propaganda. In October 2000 I and a few other practitioners prepared over 100,000 leaflets explaining the truth about Falun Gong. With the help of other practitioners, we distributed the leaflets throughout the entire Province. People who had previously believed the propaganda suddenly understood the facts of the persecution. Revealing the facts was what the authorities feared most, particularly Luo Gan (the highest leader in the central government in charge of the 6-10 Office—a Gestapo-like entity of the government in charge of persecuting Falun Gong). I was placed on the “most wanted list,” and my name and photo were posted everywhere with a reward of 50,000 Yuan offered for information leading to my arrest. On July 16, 2001 I went to the bank to withdraw my money and was arrested for the third time. The police confiscated US $50,000 from my savings and froze my bank accounts. Memories of my father’s time in prison came back to me like a bad dream. Here I was, 46 years old, being jailed for my beliefs, just as he had been. Wanjia Forced Labor Camp In November 2001, I was transferred from the Second Detention Center to the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp of Harbin—infamous for its brutality towards Falun Gong practitioners. All practitioners detained in the detention center or the forced Labor camp had to endure brainwashing. Every day, we had to sit in one position and watch anti-Falun Gong propaganda on TV or listen to the guards for over 8 hours. No one was allowed to move. Sometimes, a brainwashing session would last for days and we weren’t allowed to sleep the entire time. Often, we were not even allowed to use the toilet. In addition to the intense brainwashing and sleep deprivation, Falun Gong practitioners were routinely beaten or whipped, tied with ropes and hanged from the ceiling, given electric shocks, forced to sit naked on iron chairs, or raped by male criminals Most Falun Gong practitioners refused to give up their beliefs. Some of them, including me, went on hunger strikes to protest our unlawful arrests and the inhumane torture and persecution. Brutal Force-Feedings I vividly remember my first hunger strike at the Harbin City Detention Center. In order to force feed me, the doctors at the Harbin City Detention Center used a metal clamp to pry open my teeth and then pushed a thick rubber tube down to my stomach. My mouth Practitioners throughout China use many means to appeal for justice. This banner reads “Return the Innocence Back to Falun Dafa” 66 Compassion • 2004
Slide 67: was filled with blood and my body was covered in bruises after every force-feeding. Several people were there to beat and subdue me for these force-feedings. They would pour two big bowls of cold water mixed with corn flour into me, saying that it was for “stretching the stomach.” When I screamed, the police were afraid of others hearing me. They ordered inmates to gag and beat me even more. The force-feeding at the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp was even more violent and cruel. The doctors there used force-feeding as a torture method and didn’t care whether practitioners survived it or not. Before force-feeding me for the first time, I saw them grab a female Falun Gong practitioner named Shang by the hair and knock her head against the wall and floor. When she was finally unconscious, they forced the tube into her nose to force-feed her. There was no sterilization—they simply brushed the tube around in a basin then forced it through her nose and down into her stomach. Then they injected ground corn grain mixed with cold water. After they’d finished with her, the two prison doctors turned around and looked at me. They stood there with their forceps and tools in their hands and said, “You see that? You’re next.” After that, I was subjected to this kind of force-feeding every day in jail. They would beat us to the point where we were almost unconscious before tying our arms and legs down and forcing the tubes through our noses and down into our stomachs. We were tied up to prevent us from pulling the tubes out because of the excruciating pain. On one occasion I witnessed a female practitioner named Minxia Guo being force-fed. The nurses grabbed Minxia’s hair and pinched her face and body. She was black and blue everywhere. Her whole body began to twitch. When I condemned the guards and doctors for what they were doing, they turned on me and beat me up as well. One day I heard the desperate cry of a man in the woman’s ward. It was the husband of a Falun Gong practitioner named Yanhong Ding. He had begged to be able to visit her, and when he finally was allowed to come in, they force-fed her right in front of him. This man cried terribly while his wife struggled in Artist rendering of force-feeding torture. The artist, Amy Lee, herself pain. was subject to this torture while detained in Beijing. I always knew that if I would simply write a letter denouncing Fa- metal spoons to scratch the pus cysts. lun Gong, denouncing its teachings They would scrape the spoons back and and promise to never practice again, I forth through the flesh and blood, while would be released immediately. But if the practitioner on the ground would be it is wrong to believe in “Truthfulness- screaming in pain. When they finished Compassion-Tolerance,’”what hope does with the digging, they would force the humanity have? This persecution was practitioner to stand against the wall so forcing people to choose between their that they could clean the blood from lives and their conscience. I knew that their bodies. The water from the faucets I was being forced to make that choice, was not normal tap water; it was filthy, and I chose my conscience because I freezing cold and full of rust. I remember a new prison doctor who knew that when good men and women renounce good, wholesome beliefs under came—a university graduate. Whenever pressure from a dictatorship, something he treated a practitioner, he would follow the correct medical procedure to much greater than us dies. prick open and wash each of the vesicles. When the chief of the Wanjia Hospital Torture at the Labor Camp saw what he was doing, he pushed the Hospital doctor aside, picked up a steel spoon and Due to the filthy conditions in the La- started using the spoon to dig into the bor camp, many practitioners developed pus cysts. This kind of murderous “medical purulent scabies. They had pus cysts and treatment” would be repeated every few blood all over their skin. The worst ones were as big as a peach. During the day days along with daily beatings and forcethe sores were continually discharging feeding through the nose. pus and mucus. During the night they became so itchy that it was impossible to fall asleep. Every practitioner that developed scabies would be sent to the hospital run by the forced Labor camp—but it wasn’t for medical treatment. When practitioners arrived at the hospital, they were dragged into a small closed room, and forced onto the ground. The doctors would violently remove their clothes, and use sharp steel knives or Any Practitioner Tortured to Death will be Counted as a Suicide After enduring such torture, many practitioners ended up on the verge of death. I know of at least 8 Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured to death in Wanjia Forced Labor Camp since the persecution began. The guards told all the practitioners that if they were beaten to death, it would be counted www.faluninfo.net 67
Slide 68: as a suicide and their bodies would be cremated immediately—before informing the families, so there would be no evidence of any torture. Although I lived in this extreme horror every day, I was determined to survive without compromising my beliefs. my sisters saw how emaciated I was, they began crying loudly in the corridor. I was crying too. I told them, “You need to contact international organizations and let the world know what is happening to me!” In March, 2002, I started writing letters on tissue paper within the Labor Camp to the Harbin Justice Bureau, the Harbin Public Security Department and to the Province’s Public Security Ministry. The letters I wrote were each five feet long. On several occasions they were almost taken away by the warden. The day after I finished the letters some people from the Justice Bureau came to inspect the Labor camp. When they came to my ward I personally handed the letters to them. seemed like an eternity...I felt as though I had just emerged from hell. After my release, I immediately began practicing the Falun Gong exercises again. My body and eyes quickly recovered. When the police realized I was healthy once again, they wanted to send me back to the Labor camp. In June 2002, to avoid further persecution, I went to visit my family in the United Arab Emirates. On the way, I used every opportunity to tell the Chinese people at the airports the truth about the persecution. Eventually, someone from the Chinese Embassy saw me and persuaded the local police to arrest me, telling them that I was a dangerous criminal. The Chinese Embassy asked the United Arab Emirates to deport me back to China. Miraculously, through Finally Released After nine months in prison, my health had deteriorated so much that I couldn’t even stand up. My eyes and nose were festering with blood and pus from the force feedings and my eyesight was almost gone. My hunger strike lasted more than 100 days. Towards the end of it, my nose was so swollen that the doctors could no longer force a tube into it. I was on the verge of death, and the doctors knew it. They called my relatives and gave them the responsibility of nursing me back to health. When I was finally released in May 2002, I had been in After around-the-clock efforts by Falun Gong practitioners jail for nine months. in Canada, Wang Yuzhi avoids being sent back to China Nine months that and arrives in Canada. A Struggle to Let the Outside World Know About the Persecution My husband and children cried and begged the guards to be allowed to visit me on many occasions, but to no avail. Family members of Falun Gong practitioners were not allowed any visitation rights. On one occasion during my hunger strike, I was lying in bed in the Labor Camp Hospital. Through the window by the side of the street, I could see my relatives standing at the door, begging the guards to be allowed in. On another occasion, my two younger sisters came from overseas to visit me. They stood at the door, crying and begging to be let in, and they refused to leave. Suddenly it started raining. They covered their faces with their raincoats and went straight past the security guard, and quickly ran inside the hospital. By then I had been on hunger strike for over 50 days. When I saw them I somehow found the strength to get out of bed. I got outside the door and grabbed the guardrail in the corridor with all my strength. I stared at my two younger sisters. When 68 Compassion • 2004
Slide 69: around-the-clock efforts by Canadian Falun Gong practitioners and the Canadian Government, I was given special permission to move to Vancouver, Canada in November 2002, to be with my son. The rescue efforts of the Canadians probably saved my life. What I have been through in the past three years is a nightmare. Although the nightmare is over for me, there are still hundreds of thousands of bloody nightmares like mine on-going in China. I hope that by publishing my story, I can help end these nightmares as well. I attribute my ability to survive the horrific torture to the principles of Falun Gong: “Truthfulness-Compassion- Tolerance” exist deep in my heart, far beyond the reach of any electric baton, far beyond the reach of a prison guard’s fist. Lies and slanderous propaganda dissolve when faced with the truth. Brutality and torture is no match for compassion. Violence and hatred cannot penetrate tolerance. For nine months, they tried to make me believe these principles are not true. They failed. I feel real freedom is not obtained externally, but internally within the realm of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.” Even when faced with extreme torture and persecution, true Falun Gong practitioners can withstand the unimaginable—even to the end of their life—in order to defend a common good greater than ourselves: the universal principles of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.” Yuzhi Wang is currently living with her son in Vancouver with a Minister’s Permit for Canada. She spends her time letting people know about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Law and the Legal Profession on Trial in China Qingyun Hu, former Judge of the Jiangxi Province Supreme Court, was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997. Medical treatment did not help, and in February, 1998, doctors gave him only three days to live. He then learned Falun Gong and began to practice. Miraculously, he recovered. In July of 1999, after the persecution of Falun Gong had begun, he wrote letters to state leaders telling how his health had been restored after he began practicing Falun Gong. For this innocent act he was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. He died in prison on March 22, 2001. On November 15, 2000 Jinchun Huang, a civil court judge of the Behai Intermediate Court in China was picked up at his home. The 34 year-old judge was then detained at the Long Qianshan mental hospital, where he was tortured with the forced injection of tranquilizers, simply because he refused to give up the practice of Falun Gong. In similar cases, such torture has resulted in severe, irreversible brain damage. According to recent reports from China, the whereabouts of Jinchun Huang are no longer known – he has “disappeared.” What happened to Judges Hu and Huang – arrest and detention without trial, followed by abuse and torture – may happen to any of China’s legal professionals who fail to give up their practice of Falun Gong. Their fates are emblematic, not only of conscience in the legal profession in Jiang’s China, but of the law itself. As a condition for membership in the World Trade Organization, the People’s Republic of China promised to develop an independent legal system. But the dictator Jiang Zemin has in his persecution of Falun Gong taken the country sharply in the opposite direction. This persecution goes against guarantees in the Chinese Constitution of the freedom of belief. Moreover, no law has been passed that makes the practice of Falun Gong illegal. Due process does not exist. Typically, practitioners of Falun Gong are arrested and sentenced without any formal legal procedures at all. When trials do occur, they are usually closed, and lawyers are explicitly forbidden from defending practitioners. Police and other security personnel are rewarded for torturing and stealing from practitioners, with the result that the entire law enforcement system now breeds brutality and corruption. www.faluninfo.net 69
Slide 70: Meet a Few Practitioners I started practicing Falun Gong in late 2000. Many people who know me ask me why a medical doctor would practice Falun Gong. Modern medicine has known for a long time that mental health is directly related to physical health. There is an increasing amount of research showing that decreasing stress, decreasing anger and calming one’s mind improves one’s overall health. In light of that, there is a growing trend to focus more on Dr. Damon Noto stress reduction, anger management and relaxation techniques and less on pharmaceutical drugs. These are all the things that Falun Gong is able to accomplish. I first learned about Falun Gong in June of 1999. At a Chinese Arts Festival in Long Island, the three principles of the practice “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance” on the front of a flier caught my attention. A little over one month later, I learned of the inhumane persecution of Falun Gong and its practitioners in Mainland China. As an attorney admitted to the bar in New York, I have since participated in the local Lana Han, Esq. and worldwide pro bono legal efforts to end such atrocious treatment, the torture and killing of individuals who practice Falun Gong, and the dire violations by Jiang Zemin’s regime. I am an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s Statistics Department. I’m on the tenure track and am very dedicated to my work. Academia today is very competitive. Yet Falun Gong has taught me to not be so preoccupied by the outcome, and to just do my best at each step in the process. Now I am emotionally much more relaxed when doing my research, and the overall result is better than before. The Books The principles of Falun Gong are captured in the two main books written by Mr. Li Hongzhi: Falun Gong (Law Wheel Qigong) and Zhuan Falun (Turning the Law Wheel). Falun Gong is a systematic, introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles, and provides illustrations and explanation of the exercises. Falun Gong is often recommended for beginners and those without a background in qigong. Organized in the form of nine lectures, Zhuan Falun is the most comprehensive and essential work of Falun Gong. Thorough study of Zhuan Falun is necessary for genuine practice of Falun Gong Both books are available for free on-line at www.falundafa.org or they can be purchased from bookstores. The Exercises Exercise 1 Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands Exercise 2 Falun Standing Stance Wen Weibiao Ph.D I am the vice-president of a bank in Chicago. For many years, I suffered from a bleeding peptic ulcer, visiting hospitals and doctors time and again over the years. Soon after starting to practice Falun Gong, I slept better, was calmer, with less acid on my stomach. Six months later I no longer needed any medication — my ulcer was gone. Through Falun Gong, I have been learning to put everything in perspective. By trying to understand that the only true gain lies in thinking of Warrent Tai others first, every business deal has less emotional stress. I find that looking inward for the answer, instead of blaming others, is a sure way to resolve conflicts.
Slide 71: Falun Gong Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance An Introduction Falun Gong – which is also referred to as Falun Dafa – is an ancient practice of mind and body refinement done through slow-moving exercises, meditation and cultivating the values of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance in oneself. These three values form the backbone of Falun Gong’s philosophy. Practitioners of the discipline aspire to live by them in their daily lives, striving to achieve, over time, a state of kindness, selflessness and inner balance. The discipline of Falun Gong was first made public in May of 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi, whom practitioners regard as the practice’s founder or teacher; Falun Gong was previously taught in private and passed down over millennia from a single teacher to a single student. From 1992 to 1994, Mr. Li lectured on invitation in almost every major Chinese city, giving 54 lecture series in all. Since the exercises of Falun Gong were relatively simple and easy to learn, those who had learned could easily show others. Soon, volunteers began establishing exercise practice sites in parks and public recreation areas throughout China. [For more, turn to p. 40] Exercise 3 Penetrating the Two Cosmic Extremes Exercise 4 Falun Heavenly Circuit Exercise 5 Strengthening Higher Abilities
Slide 72: Taking Action... Numerous organizations around the world are taking action to end the persecution of Falun Gong. Below are two examples: Friends of Falun Gong USA is a U.S.-based nonprofit human rights organization concerned about the persecution of Falun Gong. There are similar FoFG organizations throughout the world. FoFG’s mission is to support the freedom of belief of persons who practice Falun Gong. Case Study: One project FoFG sponsors is called “TOP,” which employs a pre-recorded phone message to provide Chinese citizens with documentary information exposing the persecution, in contrast to the anti-Falun Gong propaganda of the state-run media. Nearly 2 million calls were made in September and October of 2003. Visit FOFG on the web at www.fofg.org or call 1-866-FG-FRIEND. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) is an international organization established to investigate the criminal conduct of all institutions, organizations, and individuals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong. Case Study: Since 1999, Jiang Zemin has used the state-run media to bend public opinion against Falun Gong, often employing fabricated stories. In July 2003, Xinhua (China’s state-run news agency) claimed that a series of murders in southeast China were committed by a Falun Gong practitioner. WOIPFG conducted an investigation during which county government officials in China admitted the murders were still under investigation and that the prime suspect was known to be psychotic with no connection to Falun Gong. Visit WOIPFG on the web at www.upholdjustice.org Falun Dafa Information Center 331 West 57th Street, #409 New York, NY 10019 USA Toll Free: 888-842-4797 Website: www.faluninfo.net e-mail: contact@faluninfo.net ...for Justice