Between Heaven and Earth

Falun Gong Seeks Help from PM to End Persecution

2012-02-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

A young woman practices Falun Gong on Parliament Hill Tuesday at a rally to raise awareness of the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in China and to ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper, during his upcoming trip to China, to urge the Chinese ...

More at The Epoch Times

Harper should stand against Chinese slave labour

2012-02-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

Most of the population of Chinese slave labour camps are practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that the Communist Party banned in 1999 out of fear that the ideological supremacy of the Party was threatened by its popularity. The U.S. State Department has concluded that “Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in [China’s] re-education‑through‑labour camps.” (Unofficial estimates suggest that there are actually 1,200 forced labour camps, with 2 million inmates.)

We concluded, in two reports in 2006 and 2007 and a book published in 2009 under the title Bloody Harvest, that Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in the tens of thousands, and their organs sold for transplants. Chinese arbitrary detention facilities are not just forced labour camps, in other words: They also are vast forced organ-donor banks.

Goods imported into Canada should withstand scrutiny on both economic and ethical terms. A trade mission to a communist state exporting the products of slave labour around the world at rock bottom prices should do more than seek favourable terms of trade for Canada. Its leaders, including the Prime Minister himself, should do what they can to end the abhorrent practice of slave labour in China.

SanFran: Protest Against Chinese Consul’s Interference in US Affairs; Seattle's Shen Yun Show

2012-01-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

Over a hundred people gathered in front of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on Friday, united by a message: "Chinese consul, immediately stop interfering with Shen Yun [...]

Ms. Wang quoted a defected former Chinese Consulate official, Chen Yonglin, who testified in front of US Congress on July 21, 2005. Mr. Chen said that the Chinese regime’s ‘struggle’ against Falun Gong “is one of the main tasks of the Chinese missions overseas,” adding that there is a special group focused on Falun Gong in every overseas consulate.

More at The Epoch Times

Falun Gong says NY parade pressured to ban group

2012-01-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (AP) — A Buddhism-inspired spiritual group suppressed in China says it's been barred from New York's Chinese New Year parade for years because organizers buckled under pressure from Chinese officials.

More at Greenwich Time

Persecution Imported to NYC From China

The Falun Dafa Association are excluded from the Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown on Sunday, Jan. 29. Organizers cite security concerns as the reason, but others say it's [...]
The Epoch Times - Jan 25 11:08pm

Chinese State Security Demanded NASDAQ Eject Network, Cable Says

2012-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

A diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks late last year may shed light on what lay behind NTD Television's ejection from NASDAQ.

More at The Epoch Times

Chinese Regime's Persecution of Falun Gong 2011 Death Toll

2012-01-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

The Chinese Communist Party's ongoing persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice continued to take away lives in 2011. Rights groups have documented ... More at NTDTVcom

Vancouver: Shen Yun Feb. 3-5 2012 - Be there!

2012-01-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

REVIVING 5,000 YEARS
OF CIVILIZATION

Shen Yun. For Chinese, the words evoke a sense of wonder, magic, and the divine. To audiences who have seen it, they recall the experience of a lifetime—a moment so powerfully beautiful it touches the soul.

Discover the glory of a fantastically rich culture, that of classical China, brought to life through brilliantly choreographed dance and mesmerizing, all-original orchestral compositions. Magnificently costumed dancers—the world's elite—move in poetic arrangements that evoke pastoral beauty, imperial drama, and the glory of an ancient civilization.

This season, discover what art was meant to be. Discover Shen Yun.

• Go behind the scenes
• Watch video profiles of principal dancers

Buy Tickets

"So inspiring, I think I may have found some ideas for the next Avatar movie."

—Robert Stromberg, Academy Award-winning production designer for Avatar

"An extraordinary experience...exquisitely beautiful."

—Cate Blanchett, Academy Award-winning actress

"A dazzling show... A spectacle"

—Globe and Mail

What audiences are saying...
Read more reviews on Shen Yun's website:

Disclaimer: This email is being sent to you by a local organization(s), which is presenting Shen Yun Performing Arts in your locale and which assumes all responsibility for all promotions, information, and ticketing specific to the said performances. All individuals' quotes were originally published by The Epoch Times and NTD Television.

Presented by:

FALUN DAFA ASSOCIATION OF VANCOUVER,

Shen Yun's Display of Traditional Chinese Culture Scares Chinese Regime

2012-01-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Chinese consular officials continue to attempt to thwart the performances and success of Shen Yun around the world. This time government officials in Seattle have been targeted. In a letter dated Jan. 18 Gao Zhangshang, the Chinese Consul-General in San Francisco, asked a Seattle City Council member not to provide a proclamation or letter of support for Shen Yun, not to attend the performance, nor give interviews to media about Shen Yun. The name of the council member who provided the letter is being withheld at the member’s request. (Letter published below)Shen Yun is scheduled to perform in Seattle’s Marion Oliver McGraw Hall on Feb. 7 and 8.

Since Shen Yun first began performing in 2006, the Chinese regime has sought to interfere. On a blog titled “Who’s Afraid of Shen Yun?” Leeshai Lemish, an emcee for the performance, has documented 46 cases of interference in 20 countries that have taken place since 2008. The incidents run the gamut from the slashing of bus tires in Ottawa to the threat to withhold loans promised by the Chinese regime to the Moldovan government.

Lemish believes that the Chinese regime seeks to block the performance because Shen Yun typically includes one or two acts that depict the persecution of Falun Gong in modern-day China.

More at The Epoch Times

Related:

Access Atlanta: Chinese performing arts group returns to Cobb

Gao Zhisheng May Already Have Died From Torture, Says Wife

2012-01-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

Gao Zhisheng is known as the “Conscience of China” for his defense of persecuted religious groups, including practitioners of Falun Gong and house church Christians. Beginning in late 2006 Gao was regularly kidnapped, beaten and severely tortured by ...

More at The Epoch Times

Baird blasts China on religion

2012-01-25T18:17:00.000-08:00

Canada's foreign minister launched an outspoken attack on China's "abhorrent" treatment of religious minorities on Monday, just weeks before Prime Minister Stephen Harper goes to Beijing in a bid to sell more oil. John Baird's comments came as a major surprise...

...boundaries, who are continually subject to raids, arrests, and detention," he said in his prepared remarks. "We see Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetan Buddhists, and Uyghur Muslims face harassment and physical intimidation. These abhorrent acts fly in the face

More at The Windsor Star

Spying veiled in secrecy

2012-01-24T19:12:00.000-08:00

Foreign spies have always found something worth stealing or buying in Canada, but the arrest of a Canadian naval officer for espionage is somewhat rare. At least, it's hard to recall a similar incident involving someone in the military. In fact, very few...

In addition to seeking corporate secrets, the agents were reportedly in Canada to intimidate members of the Falun Gong, a dissident religious group banned in China.

More at Winnipeg Free Press

Chinese New Year--Celebrate or not

2012-01-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

However, January 23 is a black day in the memory of more than 100 million Falun Gong practitioners in all countries of the world and for all Chinese people who were deceived in China.

On January 23, 2001, the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece-newspaper stated that five Falun Gong practitioners set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. The then CCP leader, Jiang Zemin, immediately delivered videos of those poor people in flames to every head of state in the world and media to promote his orders to persecute and eradicate practitioners of Falun Gong saying that they were criminals among other things.

Reporters later proved that the people involved never practiced Falun Gong. This incident became known as "False Fire". It is chilling to watch www.falsefire.com and more chilling to realize that it was a set up by the CCP who controls the Chinese government and media.

More at MWC

Shen Yun Stages Its Own Chinese Cultural Revolution on a Grand Scale

2012-01-06T18:51:00.000-08:00

China is living through an intellectual and creative dark age. While the nation's economy booms and consumer culture thrives, the totalitarian government has "overhauled" the nation's arts communities to bring them in line with its political dogma. Historical relics and traditions have been destroyed or suppressed because they are seen as obstacles to progress. Yet 5-millennia-old tradition in a country of more than 1 billion people dies hard, and there is an active resistance. This week its name is Shen Yun. The New York-based arts group, whose name translates to "the beauty of divine beings dancing," was formed in 2006 to preserve and present traditional Chinese dance and music. It now has more than 200 performers, including dancers, vocalists, and an orchestra. It performs at the War Memorial Opera House through Sunday.

Among the instruments used is the two-stringed erhu, sometimes called the Chinese violin.

Shen Yun employs stunning costumes, sets, and dance moves, and uses bilingual hosts and subtitles to explain the content of the pieces. Its online FAQ answers questions such as "What should I wear?" and "Why would I enjoy a Chinese show?"

Some people have criticized the group for covertly promoting the dissident Buddhist spiritual practice known as Falun Gong. But based on what we know about this sect, the worst that might happen is you begin to pursue better health and spiritual enlightenment after seeing an amazing show. Sounds like a good start to 2012 to us.

Shen Yun performs through Jan. 8 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness (at Grove), S.F. Admission is $60-$220.

Shen Yun will play at the Vancouver Queen Elizabeth Theatre Feb.3-5.

More at SFWeekly

Letters Re: "Chinese consulate urged mayor to boycott (Falun Gong) show"

2012-01-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

Letters of the week

Vancouver Courier - Apart from the flagrant attempts to influence Canadian politicians by the Chinese Communist Party, I'd like to draw attention to another aspect of the article.

Using artistic expression to share spiritual belief has been common since the dawn of history. Christianity inspired most of the great art of the West, such as the world famous painting of the Sistine Chapel to give one example. I am sure many of us enjoyed the masterpieces of Handel (The Messiah) and Schubert (Ave Maria). Such are the riches bequeathed to a multifaceted society that offers freedom of belief.

Before the Chinese Communist Party violently enforced its own state religion of atheism upon the Chinese people, there was a rich spiritual environment of Buddhism and Taoism. The CCP's Cultural Revolution saw the mass destruction of monasteries and temples, and the public humiliation, torture and murder of monks, nuns and other spiritual believers. Unfortunately, these barbaric practises have not gotten any better in the 21st century as witnessed by the violent suppression of Falun Gong practitioners, Christian house leader Uyghurs and Tibetans, plus any Chinese people of conscience who would support them. Using the power of art to expose persecution has been used by many valiant causes, many of which have been supported by Amnesty International.

The mission of Shen Yun is to revive 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture. After more than 60 years of Communist rule in China, however, Shen Yun is showing that the deeper spiritual core of the ancient Chinese culture, with its values of benevolence, honour, propriety, wisdom and sincerity, as well as a reverence for the gods and the heavens, cannot be destroyed.

Sophia Bronwen, Vancouver

Letters of the week

Vancouver Courier (Canada) - Why am I not surprised. A Chinese official again tries to interfere in Canadian affairs, this time by asking Mayor Robertson not to attend the Shen Yun Performing Arts show. This is par for the course for Chinese consulates around the world when it comes to anything related to Falun Gong. They don't like Shen Yun because, in part at least, it uses art to expose the repression of Falun Gong and the horror Falun Gong practitioners go through in Chinese jails. Through the Cultural Revolution and other violent campaigns, the Chinese government gutted the traditional culture of China, and Shen Yun is reviving it. Beijing doesn't like that either, so they try to interfere with the show and bad-mouth it. The good news is, nobody really listens. From what I know, many government officials have gone to the show even though they received letters similar to Robertson's. Good for them for not allowing themselves to be bullied by a dictatorial regime.

Joan Quain, Victoria

Misconception 2: Shen Yun Dances about Falun Gong are “Political”

2012-01-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Shen Yun uses performing arts to present stories that bring to life the inner essence of China’s divinely inspired culture. This includes ancient legends, characters and tales from history, and representative events from the modern world, including Falun Gong cultivation stories.

Since 1999, the regime has focused its powers and resources on a ruthless and systematic campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in an attempt to eradicate the group. But Falun Gong practitioners have held firm to their beliefs and have continued to expose countless injustices through peaceful means. Their spirit of compassion and tolerance manifest the very essence of China’s 5,000-year-old divine culture. Thus, it is not that Falun Gong itself is political, but rather the communist regime is utilizing political means to persecute Falun Gong and silence anyone who wishes to speak about it.

More at Shen Yun website

Missing Rights Lawyer Turns Up in Remote Chinese Prison

2012-01-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

BEIJING — The United States government has called on China to release Mr. Gao, who once defended practitioners of Falun Gong, a banned spiritual group.The brother of a prominent dissident and rights lawyer who had been missing for 20 months said Sunday that the lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, was being held in a prison in the remote western region of Xinjiang. The brother, Gao Zhiyi, told two news ...

More at the New York Times

Russian Court Bans Falun Gong Books, Human Rights Report

2011-12-31T14:57:00.000-08:00

The main text of the spiritual practice Falun Gong is studied in 114 countries around the world, has been translated into 30 languages, and was a runaway best seller in Beijing, but last week a regional appeals court in Russia banned it. Human rights activists and Falun Gong practitioners say the ban is due to pressure on Russia from the Chinese regime.

The main Falun Gong text, “Zhuan Falun,” along with two Falun Gong leaflets, and human rights investigations—two reports and one book—detailing the forced, live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China were banned nationwide by a court in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar in October. On Dec. 22, an appeals court decision upheld the ban.

In a report on Monday, Human Rights Without Frontiers International (HRWF), a nonprofit based in Brussels, Belgium, suggested that the court decision was influenced by China. The report said that Moscow has been helping Beijing in its fight against Falun Gong on the basis of two treaties: the 2001 Treaty of Friendship between Russia and China, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a mutual-security organization founded in 2001.

The harassment of Falun Gong practitioners in Russia has included the forced repatriation to China of Chinese nationals who practice Falun Gong, banning public activities by Falun Gong practitioners, and the refusal by authorities to register new Falun Gong organizations.

More at the Epoch Times

China's crackdown

2011-12-30T21:49:00.000-08:00

This editorial ran in Wednesday’s Washington Post:

China's Communist rulers are ringing out December in a flurry of paranoia and repression, a fitting coda to a year of steadily decreasing tolerance for open dissent and discussion.

On Friday, authorities sentenced Chen Wei to nine years in prison. Chen's “crime was heinous, and influence vile,” the judge declared. And what was his crime? Writing essays. Because he advocated democracy — and has done so since he was first imprisoned for his role in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 — a judge found Chen guilty of “inciting subversion.”

On Monday another dissident writer, Chen Xi, was sentenced to 10 years, also for “incitement.” His crime: 36 essays that he wrote and posted online.

These sentences would have been considered unusually long until recently, but in the current crackdown the regime has sentenced Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo to 11 years and Liu Xianbin to 10 years. Their crimes also consisted of writing.

China's Communist rulers do not feel compelled to account for their actions, so the motivation for the crackdown is a subject of speculation. Most China-watchers believe the authorities have been spooked by the popular uprisings in the Middle East. They may also be more nervous than usual as they prepare for an equally opaque leadership change next year. A top security official reportedly said that crackdowns on “hostile forces” (government code for peaceful advocates of democracy) and “illegal religious organizations” (code for Christians, Falun Gong followers and others who choose to worship without government approval) will be a priority in the coming year.

The human rights crackdown has drawn relatively little attention or condemnation from the West. Perhaps this is because the allure of Chinese investment and the Chinese market is too strong. Perhaps the crackdown seems so out of keeping with popular images of bustling, modern, capitalist Shanghai that outsiders have a hard time believing it is going on.

But those who think the anxieties of China's rulers are irrelevant to its foreign relations would do well to read a Dec. 25 account by Washington Post correspondent Andrew Higgins about official attacks against U.S. ambassadors to China and, most recently and most personally, against the U.S. consul to Hong Kong, Stephen Young, whose transgression was to ignore “solemn warnings” to keep mum about democracy. The gibes are a reminder that China's rulers, to bolster their position without the legitimacy of popular election, are quick not only to imprison their countrymen and censor their press but also, when convenient, to stoke the fires of nationalism.

'Extremist' writings of ex-Canadian MP, lawyer banned in Russia because of book on organ harvesting of Falun Gong

2011-12-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

Train Riders in China Must Identify Themselves

2011-12-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

China’s Ministry of Railways will enforce a real-name authentication system for train tickets, starting on the first day of next year, according to an announcement last week.

More at The Epoch Times

A 'Real' War on Christmas? Police Across China Attack Christians for Celebrating Christmas (VIDEO)

2011-12-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day, police across China tear gassed and beat down Christians for worshiping at "unofficial" Christmas services, according to an American aid group in the region. However, according to Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, the Chinese government prefers religions that “sustain social stability,” like Confucianism, over Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, and sects like Falun Gong, which try to operate independently of authorities and end up causing “social disintegration.”

Why isn't the West reacting to China's crackdown?

2011-12-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

A top security official reportedly said that crackdowns on “hostile forces”(government code for peaceful advocates of democracy) and “illegal religious organizations” (code for Christians, Falun Gong followers and others who choose to worship without government approval) will be a priority in the coming year.

Vietnam's Falungong under pressure

2011-12-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

Hanoi (AFP) Dec 23, 2011 - In silent meditation, the Falungong members did not flinch when a shirtless, tattooed man slapped them on the head, ...

More at:
www.sinodaily.com/.../Vietnams_Falungong_under_pressure_...

China-Based Hacking of 760 Companies Shows Cyber Cold War

2011-12-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

In one of the earliest attacks on a company, cyberspies hacked into the computer networks of POSCO, the South Korean steel giant, in July 2006, Alperovitch said. The intrusion took place the same month that the steelmaker, the third largest in the world, initiated a takeover of a large steel mill in eastern China, according to the U.S.-based Epoch Times, founded by supporters of the dissident Falun Gong spiritual sect, which first noted a link between the two events.

More at BusinessWeek

Cambridge University Disbands Chinese Students and Scholars Association

2011-12-17T10:32:00.000-08:00

He is a Falun Gong practitioner, and learned that his emails about Falun Gong were not permitted on the CSSA-CAM email list.

More at The Epoch Times

Protester dies in jail. Riots over confiscated land on the rise

2011-12-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Falun Gong members, bishops and priests die in prison for torture. "Mass incidents" that see clashes between police and demonstrators grew to 180 thousand in 2010.

More at AsiaNews.it

Gao Zhisheng To Serve Three Year Prison Sentence

2011-12-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

The high-profile and galvanizing Chinese human rights figure Gao Zhisheng, held by Chinese security forces almost continually since late 2006, has been officially sentenced to [...]

More at The Epoch Times

The town that dared to defy Beijing

2011-12-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

The last time the government really marshalled its forces against opposing forces was in the 1990s when the Falun Gong spiritual movement began to organise millions of opponents, and it cracked down harshly on what it sees as an ...

More at The Independent

Report: Systematic Psychiatric Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners in Hospitals

2011-12-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

New Report and Call for Action
For Immediate Release

Alarming evidence is summarized in a new report released by Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (FGHRWG) on the eve of the globally celebrated Human Rights Day on 10 December. The report "China: Systematic Psychiatric Torture of Falun Gong practitioners in hospitals" and listing of over 150 Chinese hospitals known to use this torture against Falun Gong practitioners can be obtained here and here.

"One of the most inhuman and notorious torture methods used in China in the attempt to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners is psychiatric torture," according to the FGHRWG report. "This form of torture is used routinely by staff of detention centers, labor camps and jails to coerce Falun Gong practitioners to give up their beliefs."

"These horrifying acts are also regularly occurring in modern, reputable hospitals, by or overseen by, professional and skilled staffs who are trained to heal - not to hurt."

Evidence demonstrates the systematic and horrifying use of psychiatric torture on mentally and physically healthy Falun Gong practitioners in hospitals in China.

The overall outcomes of psychiatric torture, on 1,089 Falun Gong confirmed victims, often resulted in irreparable mental and physical states and even death. Many are reduced to insanity, a semi-comatose, "zombie," lifeless state, or cannot walk, talk, or care for themselves along with other mental and physical health problems not present prior to torture.

This form of torture was once prevalent in communist Russia and created global outrage from psychiatric and mental healthcare fields in the 1980's. Current evidence indicates these practices are even more widespread in China than the former Soviet Union.

"This evidence is basically being ignored," Dr. Shizhong Chen, spokesperson of FGHRWG, said. "In the past few years, 80% of all reported persecution cases of Falun Gong practitioners in China that we have received included some form of psychiatric torture."

According to the report, in order to break the free will of the practitioners, "the Chinese authorities have conducted on Falun Gong practitioners extensive psychiatric torture, including a combination of forced ingestion or injection with massive amounts of psychiatric drugs, unknown drugs or toxic substances; undergoing a massive number of electroshock procedures (also known as electro-convulsive shock); or the use of electric needles at the temples to shock the brain and produce seizures."

"The time is now not later to call attention to and to stop these atrocities," Dr. Chen said. "We are asking concerned individuals, professional associations, agencies and organizations in the health fields, human rights organizations and world governments to get informed, take actions and issue sanctions."

See the report for details on possible actions recommended by FGHRWG.

www.falunhr.org

Report offers evidence for massive organ-harvesting program in China

2011-12-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

Many of the victims were alive when their organs were harvested for domestic and foreign transplantation. “Up to three million Falun Gong practitioners ...

More at Catholic Culture

CSIS right to worry about Chinese spies

2011-11-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

by John Ivison: While China is preoccupied with organizations that might foster internal dissent such as Falun Gong and the Free Tibet movement, Mr. Li made clear that the tentacles of its secret services reach far into civil society — from academia to non-governmental organizations. “China is interested in anything, everything that China is not very good at, either military or civilian,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the conference heard from former diplomat Brian McAdam, who detailed how the Chinese government recruits many of its informants — sexpionage. He said “virtually all” hotels in China are rigged with microphones and video cameras and many brothels, karaoke bars and massage parlours are owned by Triads who co-operate with Chinese intelligence services.

The aim is to trap unwary Westerners in “honey pot traps.” Mr. McAdam said men of influence are often targeted and face trumped up charges of rape or attempted rape and are forced to co-operate or face jail time.

The Xinjiang Procedure: organ harvesting of Uighurs and the Falun Gong

2011-11-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

Beijing’s ‘New Frontier’ is ground zero for the organ harvesting of political prisoners by Ethan Gutmann

Yet the Xinjiang procedure spread. By the end of 1999, the Uighur crackdown would be eclipsed by Chinese security’s largest-scale action since Mao: the elimination of Falun Gong. By my estimate up to three million Falun Gong practitioners would pass through the Chinese corrections system. Approximately 65,000 would be harvested, hearts still beating, before the 2008 Olympics. An unspecified, significantly smaller, number of House Christians and Tibetans likely met the same fate.

By Holocaust standards these are piddling numbers, so let’s be clear: China is not the land of the final solution. But it is the land of the expedient solution. Some will point to recent statements from the Chinese medical establishment admitting the obvious—China’s medical environment is not fully ethical—and see progress. Foreign investors suspect that eventually the Chinese might someday—or perhaps have already—abandon organ harvesting in favor of the much more lucrative pharmaceutical and clinical testing industries. The problem with these soothing narratives is that reports, some as recent as one year ago, suggest that the Chinese have not abandoned the Xinjiang procedure.

In July 2009, Urumqi exploded in bloody street riots between Uighurs and Han Chinese. The authorities massed troops in the regional capital, kicked out the Western journalists, shut down the Internet, and, over the next six months, quietly, mostly at night, rounded up Uighur males by the thousands. According to information leaked by Uighurs held in captivity, some prisoners were given physical examinations aimed solely at assessing the health of their retail organs. The signals may be faint, but they are consistent, and the conclusion is inescapable: China, a state rapidly approaching superpower status, has not just committed human rights abuses—that’s old news—but has, for over a decade, perverted the most trusted area of human expertise into performing what is, in the legal parlance of human rights, targeted elimination of a specific group.

More at The Weekly Standard

Rumors of Gao Zhisheng's Death

2011-11-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

One important difference is Gao Zhisheng's defense of practitioners of the Falun Gong meditation practice, which the Chinese regime has persecuted since 1999. Another is the Tuidang movement. Tuidang is a term for “quitting the Chinese Communist Party” ...

More at NTDTV

Harvest of horror

2011-11-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Leo Tolstoy began the novel Anna Karenina by writing "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

One can say the same about human rights. Respect for human rights everywhere is alike. That is what the universality of human rights means.

(AP) Falun Gong practitioners hold portraits of victims of China's crackdown during a vigil in Taiwan.

Violations of human rights occur each in their own way.

Human rights standards and mechanisms teach us the same lesson everywhere about how to respond to atrocities. Each atrocity, though, teaches us something different about how to develop human rights.

Atrocities have a place in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, but not as histories or memorials. Rather they serve the purpose of teaching us how human rights have developed and should develop. The Holocaust has to be central to the museum not because it was a particularly awful tragedy, though it certainly was that, but because of its importance for the development of human rights standards and mechanisms, the breadth and depth of the lessons we have learned and can learn by focusing upon it.

On Nov. 28, I, alongside Maria Cheung, a professor in social work, and Terry Russell, a professor of Asian studies, will explain why we think the persecution of Falun Gong belongs in the museum. Our presentation is part of the University of Manitoba seminar series Critical Conversations, which is free, open to the public and held in the Faculty of Law (www.chrr.info).

What does the persecution of Falun Gong in China teach us about human rights that we did not already know? Falun Gong is a set of meditation exercises with a spiritual foundation, a Chinese yoga, begun in 1992 and banned in 1999 out of Chinese Communist Party jealousy of its increasing popularity. Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in the hundreds of thousands and, if they recanted, released. Those who refused to recant, even under torture, disappeared.

David Kilgour and I have concluded in two reports and a book, Bloody Harvest, that these disappeared individuals have been killed in the tens of thousands for their organs, which are sold to transplant patients, often transplant tourists. I suggest we can draw these lessons from this experience.

-- International human rights mechanisms work ineffectively in confronting human rights violations of a major power, particularly where that power has a veto in the Security Council, as China does.

-- Governments, which juggle a wide variety of interests, have difficulty effectively pursuing a human rights agenda against a major economic and political power such as China, because pursuing that agenda may compromise their other interests.

-- New technology developed for human benefit -- in this case, transplant technology -- can all too easily become a tool of repression and human rights abuse. Technology can change, but the human capacity for good and evil remains constant.

-- The safeguards that need to be in place to prevent abuse of transplant technology are largely absent and need to be implemented in China and abroad.

-- Preventing abuse of transplant technology engages a wide range of actors, many of whom historically have not had exposure to preventing human rights violations. For instance, transplant professionals, insurance companies providing coverage for transplantation abroad or pharmaceutical companies engaged in clinical trials of anti-rejection drugs in China.

-- Allowing the military to engage in commercial enterprise in a country without the rule of law is a licence for human rights abuse. In China, the military is a conglomerate business that sells transplants to the public.

-- Denial of access to statistical information can cover up human rights abuses. The release of death penalty statistics and transplant volumes, statistics that China now covers up, would make obvious what estimates now tell us: the volume of transplants far exceeds the volume of identified sources, primarily prisoners sentenced to death and then executed.

-- Slave labour camps lead to other abuses besides slave labour. These camps are vast forced organ donor banks.

-- Sourcing organs from prisoners sentenced to death is an abuse in itself and leads to other abuses, the killing of other prisoners for their organs who are not sentenced to death -- in China, the Falun Gong.

-- The Chinese capitalist variation of communist rule generates its own particular forms of human rights violations. The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, which are then sold for huge sums is the direct result of the communist repression and demonization of spiritual belief systems they cannot control plus the unbridled drive for profit without the rule of law.

Some of these lessons are not completely new. Yet, the repression of Falun Gong, even for the old lessons, gives new insights.

The list here, though not exhaustive, teaches us that by focusing on the repression of Falun Gong we can do more than help to end that abuse, as important as that is. We can learn how to improve human rights generally.

David Matas is an instructor in the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Law and an international human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg.

More at Winnipeg Free Press

Occupy protests & the Falun Gong precedent

2011-11-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

Macleans.ca: As Occupy Toronto gets a slightly bumpy ride in court from Superior Court Justice David Brown, I’ve been waiting for just one legal analyst, amateur or professional, to stumble across what appears to me to be the best, highest-level judicial treatment of the Charter issues that the Occupy movements raise. The case, Vancouver v. Zhang, is all of a year old, and involved a unanimous decision of the B.C. Court of Appeal.

I’m no lawyer, but Zhang seems awfully instructive. The BCCA was presented with a question of crucial importance to the Occupy situations: can a non-artistic structure, in itself, have protected expressive content? Falun Gong protesters had erected a “meditation hut” and a billboard in front of the Chinese consulate on Granville Street. The City Engineer ordered it torn down as an admittedly minor, hypothetical sort of traffic “obstruction”, and the city argued that removing a structure didn’t unduly restrict the protesters’ free-expression rights. City officials weren’t making a political distinction between types of speech, the lawyers contended; they simply had an inflexible mandate to smash any structure that was on city property without a permit.

By the time the case reached the Court of Appeal, the structures were long gone. But the city’s argument got bulldozed by the Court. Its key Occupy-relevant finding was that a structure can, in fact, be Charter-protected content in itself:

[T]he billboard and meditation hut were “part and parcel of the manner” in which the Falun Gong participants chose to express themselves and as deserving of protection. …The structures at issue support the values of democratic discourse and self-fulfillment. The messages posted on the structures express the practitioners’ opposition to some actions of the Chinese government, and the hut expresses their commitment to the practice of meditation as part of their religious identity. The messages have a political nature. “Political expression is at the very heart of the values sought to be protected by the freedom of expression guaranteed by s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter”…

We have heard many commentators, including lawyers (albeit, I think, ones who don’t specialize in the constitution), assert as a matter of fact that the state, in exercising its right to regulate the use of public property, can force Occupy protesters to seek forms of expression other than tents and billboards and other Occupational paraphernalia. Like it or not, this just isn’t so. Within reason, forms as well as content enjoy the extremely formidable protection that the “fundamental freedoms” in the Charter guarantee. (Further warning: if tents are “expressive” in themselves, it may not matter whether anybody’s actually sleeping in them.)

This protection, as any well-bred schoolchild knows, can disintegrate if the protesters are breaking a law—but the government has a duty to show that the law in question is intended to fulfill an important objective, and that it does so in a rational way that impinges minimally upon the rights of the protesters. The City of Vancouver did not, as it turned out, score 100% on the good old Oakes test.

Yes, said the Court of Appeal, protecting the general usability and attractiveness of the streets of Vancouver is a pressing and substantial objective for government. Yes, the bylaw is a rational way of pursuing that objective. But the city’s policy was unnecessarily arbitrary, said the judges. The law precluded any use of public space for protest, subject only to City Council’s right to make exemptions: the result was an ad-hoc system with no stated standards or guidelines.

Had the Council instituted what might be called a “Political Structure Policy,” as it did policies for commercial and artistic expression, as part of its regulatory scheme, my conclusion might well be different. But they chose to maintain a complete ban and, effectively, to rely on prosecutorial discretion and Council’s power to direct the use of that discretion, to ensure the right to freedom of political expression was not infringed in an individual case. In so doing, I am persuaded, they rendered s. 71 [the structure bylaw] unconstitutional and of no force or effect. They reached beyond that which is permitted to them when political speech is the right sought to be exercised.

Zhang isn’t binding outside B.C., but it does show how senior judges anywhere in Confederation, armed with the full panoply of constitutional precedent, are likely to think through the Occupations. Obviously the BCCA has created a pretty strict test. (Our municipalities have to have “political structure policies” now?) Most city governments are moving slowly against the Occupy protesters: I would suggest it is because they fear they could not pass a test like this, should they choose to break their local Occupy butterflies on the wheel of the law. Moreover, even constructing a policy of the sort the court demanded here would probably be a pretty huge, expensive hassle.

This, in turn, probably provides a hint at why middle-class Canadians might sense an insalubrious slothfulness in their elected representatives when it comes to Occupiers. “The protesters are breaking the law!”, our instincts tell us. “Why can’t we just clear them out?” It’s because there is really more legal peril in the clearing-out than there is in the protests. And, by the way, you and I can agree that this is in general a good thing about Canada, even if we don’t particularly like hippies.

[UPDATE, afternoon of Nov. 19: a reader points out that Occupy Vancouver is citing Zhang in current arguments before the B.C. Supreme Court.]

by Colby Cosh

Hate Crime Attacks on Falun Gong in Hong Kong Cause to Reflect

2011-11-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

The assault took place in broad daylight in the bustling center of Hong Kong's Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mong Kokis, where the tables of the Service Center for Quitting the Party–“Tuidang,” in Chinese–were set up by Falun Gong volunteers to help mainland ...

More at The Epoch Times

China - 3,000 residents petition for Falun Gong release: AI

2011-11-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

The Chinese authorities must immediately release two Falun Gong practitioners jailed for their beliefs in Hebei province, Amnesty International said today, as petitions by local residents calling for an end to their imprisonment reportedly reached ...

More at Amnesty International UK

Rights group condemns Vietnam's Falun Gong jailing

2011-11-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

"Vietnam should not violate human rights and punish its own citizens merely because their activism displeased China," Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director said in a statement.

Trung and brother-in-law Thanh were arrested in June 2010 for broadcasting information through radio transmitters from a farm outside Hanoi, the court officer said. State media have reported the two broadcast 18 hours a day for more than a year.

Earlier this week, Amnesty International accused Vietnamese police of roughing up and least 30 Falun Gong practitioners meditating on the sidewalk outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi to protest the pending trial.

More at Yahoo! News

Chinese, Japanese journos in Hawaii pressured not to cover Falun Gong protests

2011-11-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

A reporter for Honolulu’s Civil Beat website, which has won journalism awards, says that journalists working for Chinese and Japanese media from New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco won’t report on protests by worshipers of the Falun Gong sect at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu. Apparently some are fearful of retaliation by their censors in China.

Thanks to San Francisco Peninsula Press Club for this post.

APEC Summit Host to Falun Gong Protest

2011-11-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

“We want everyone to step up,” said Falun Gong practitioner Chen Yingting from Taiwan “We’d like to use this opportunity during the APEC to let the world leaders know the terrible things the Chinese communists are doing.”

On Nov. 10, they got the point across pretty well.

A couple of Falun Gong protestors spotted Shui Junyi, a well-known host of the Communist Party’s mouthpiece broadcaster CCTV, walking around inside the Sheraton hotel. They followed him to the Moana Surfrider, where the Communist Party’s news center is set up for its APEC coverage. They waited. Soon, Wang Jun, China’s managing deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance, showed up. Wang sat down with Shui for a news conference, surrounded by reporters from AP, Reuters, and Chinese media.

As Wang Jun was giving his opening speech, a Falun Gong practitioner standing behind him unfurled a large banner protesting the persecution of Falun Gong. Then, Ge Lifang, a petitioner from Shanghai, unfurled another banner that read: “Chinese Communist Party: please return the property that you have snatched.” Two more Falun Gong practitioners pulled out a banner saying “Falun Dafa is good.”

Chinese officials at the scene appeared to be mortified. Shui quickly wrapped up the interview and took off. Wang, abashed, was not far behind.

Banners erected by members of spiritual discipline Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) line a street near the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel where Chinese President Hu Jintao made a speech during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ...

More at The Epoch Times

Obama's betrayal to China: Kuhner

2011-11-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

This is the disturbing theme of “Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening America’s Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination,” by Brett M. Decker, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, and William C. Triplett II, a best-selling author and renowned China analyst. Lucid, concise and comprehensively researched, the book is a fire bell in the night. It is a dire warning that China has become what America once was to Great Britain: the ambitious upstart determined to eclipse the global colossus. The result will be not only the end of the American moment, but the triumph of a belligerent authoritarian communism hostile to democracy and the West.

The country's Christians, Falun Gong and Muslims face state-sanctioned persecution. Tens of millions are in gulags, being used as slave labor to drive China's booming economy. Mr. Hu staunchly supports Beijing's genocidal one-child policy, ...

More at Washington Times

The 610 Office: Policing the Chinese Spirit and the Falun Gong

2011-11-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

The Jamestown Foundation (USA) Publication: China Brief Volume: 11 Issue: 17

By: Sarah Cook, Leeshai Lemish...The 610 Office is Born

This office's story begins on June 7, 1999, when then-Party Secretary General Jiang Zemin called a special Politburo meeting. Jiang was determined to resolve what he perceived as a serious challenge to the regime’s authority, “something unprecedented in the country since its founding 50 years ago” that “did not occur even during the Cultural Revolution”—a group of meditators who practice Falun Gong [1].

According to government sources, Western media reports, and Falun Gong witnesses, tens of millions of Chinese—from peasants to young professionals to military officers—were practicing the discipline at the time. With so many individuals dedicated to spiritual self-fulfillment independent of Party control or ideology, several top cadres began viewing Falun Gong as a threat (Associated Press, April 26, 1999; New York Times, April 27, 1999).

This translated into repression that showed first signs in 1996, and escalated to beatings and arrests in Tianjin in April 1999. On April 25, over 10,000 adherents of the meditative religious movement gathered outside the national petitions office in Beijing, adjacent to the Zhongnanhai government compound, asking for an end to abuses. According to the memoirs collection, Zhu Rongji in 1999, Premier Zhu took an appeasing stance toward Falun Gong and was prepared to resolve the grievances before Jiang intervened [2].

In a June 7 directive, Jiang ordered the creation of a special leading group within the Party’s Central Committee to “swiftly handle and solve the ‘Falun Gong problem’.” He ordered that the team, placed under the responsibility of Politburo Standing Committee member Li Lanqing, “should immediately organize forces” and “get fully prepared for the work of disintegrating [Falun Gong]” [3].

A few days later, the CCP also established an office to handle day-to-day operations. This office was internally named 610, or "liu yao ling" for its June 10 creation. No legislation was passed establishing it. No provisions formally outlined its mandate. This extralegal flexibility has proved critical in recent years, as its responsibilities have expanded.

Given that the CCP already had control over a range of security agencies and military forces, forming yet another entity seems unnecessary. Several factors may have contributed to Jiang’s decision: • Numbering in the tens of millions, Falun Gong practitioners included many individuals within the military and security establishment. This contributed to a sense that Falun Gong had quietly infiltrated the CCP and state apparatus. Jiang may have felt the need to create a trusted network of security agents to counter Falun Gong’s influence.

• Given the task’s scale, Jiang needed an entity that would act quickly and forcefully with no holds barred. He may not have envisioned that twelve years later millions would still be practicing with new believers joining and the 610 Office seemingly permanent.

• The creation of a new leading group quickly sent a signal down CCP ranks that countering Falun Gong was a new priority.

• Given that the entire anti-Falun Gong campaign functioned outside Chinese law, Jiang needed a security force that could operate outside the existing legal system and its potential restrictions [4].

Over the following months, 610 Office branches were created throughout China and a chain of command emerged, closely linked to the Political-Legal Committee (PLC) structure. Hao Fengjun, a former 610 Office official selected from the Tianjin Public Security Bureau, stated that the office's orders come directly from the Party’s top echelons, then trickle down to cities and neighborhoods [5]. Much of this structure overlaps with the CCP’s Political-Legal Committee (PLC). For example, after Li Lanqing retired in 2003, Jiang’s confidant and politburo member Luo Gan took over the leading group overseeing the 610 Office, while also heading the PLC. In 2007, Zhou Yongkang replaced him as head of both the leading group and the PLC.

Hao’s description of a nationwide network of 610 Office branches closely linked to the PLC apparatus is corroborated by a range of official sources. An online search reveals scores of recent references, pointing to the existence of active branches even in small cities and districts of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Shandong. A website of the Leiyang Municipal Party Committee in Hunan Province states its local 610 branch “reports to and is under the supervision of the municipal Party Committee’s Political-Legal Committee,” and is located in the Party Committee’s office building (Leiyang.gov.cn, December 12, 2008).

Functions of the 610 Office

The 610 Office has two main functions: coordinating personnel at state institutions to assist in fulfilling the office's mandate and directly conducting operations against Falun Gong and other forbidden spiritual groups. The first coordination role can involve pressuring staff from state bodies to act according to the 610 Office’s wishes, even when these run counter to their legal authority. Several lawyers who have defended Falun Gong practitioners report 610 Office personnel subverting the ability of judges and prison wardens to carry out their duties as outlined by Chinese law. Attorney Jiang Tianyong says compromised judges decide Falun Gong cases without recourse to Chinese legal standards but, instead, based on extrajudicial intervention from the 610 Office (Radio Free Asia, April 13, 2010). Meanwhile, Gao Zhisheng, Guo Guoting, and Wang Yajun have reported 610 Office interference in their efforts to meet with clients held in labor camps, prisons and detention centers (“Lawyer Barred from Representing Client by “6-10” Agents,” Human Rights in China, September 10. 2010).

Second, the 610 Office also has an immediate role in executing the leading group's policies. In the process, the 610 Office appears largely exempt from even the basics of China's judicial and legal reforms, often employing methods that are technically illegal under Chinese law. Various credible sources describe 610 Office agents directly participating in extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual assault, and illegal confiscation of property. For example, the 2009 report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings cited 610 Office involvement in pre-Olympic cases of Falun Gong deaths in custody [6]. Other Chinese dissidents and activists have detailed extra-legal detentions and torture on a scale and severity that appear to go beyond commonly-cited abuses in the law enforcement system. [7].

Reviving Thought Reform

610 Office activities also differ from those carried out under other leading groups in that its mandate does not relate to policy areas, like foreign affairs or economic reform. Rather, it targets Chinese citizens for thought reform.

Millions of Falun Gong practitioners place their moral teachings, revolving around Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, as their spiritual compass. CCP leaders arbitrarily deemed these beliefs “heretical” in 1999 and “transformation” quickly became a key aim of 610 Office operations. Like “patriotic education” tactics used in Tibet, the purpose of this ideological reprogramming is to break the will of subjects by coercing them—reportedly including physical and psychiatric torture, sleep deprivation and manipulation of family members—to renounce Falun Gong, profess loyalty to the CCP, and ultimately participate in the forced conversion of others (Washington Post, August 5, 2001) [8].

Today, this objective remains fundamental to 610 operations, a testament to the Party’s difficulty crushing a decentralized groups of dedicated believers. In March, an analysis of local 610 Office-related references on official websites indicated that the Central 610 Office launched a renewed campaign to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners nationwide scheduled to last from 2010 to 2012 (Congressional-Executive Commission on China, March 22).

The 610 Office’s transformation work—like other aspects of the campaign against Falun Gong, such as the extensive use of labor camps and nationwide propaganda—is a throwback to Maoist-era practices. In the 1980s, reformers pushed for entities like the Ministry of Public Security to get out of the business of “resolving ideological questions” (People's Daily, April 5, 1979). The rise of the 610 Office however suggests a retrogression of the security apparatus to address thought crimes.

Conclusion

The 610 Office’s operations long ago expanded beyond its core task of wiping out Falun Gong. Testifying before the European Parliament, Hao Fengjun said that in April 2003 Party leaders ordered the 610 Office to dispose of 28 other “heretical organizations” and “harmful qigong organizations” [9]. The broadened functions remain in effect today as local government websites detail 610 Office investigations of other spiritual groups (See, for example, Hlong.gov.cn, May 2009).

The expanded mandate points to the entrenchment of the 610 Office in the CCP apparatus. What began as a temporary leading small group and task force has become a permanent fixture. It also highlights how 610 Office’s existence undermines rule of law—whatever official state policy towards religion might be, this entity operates at the direction of a small group of CCP leaders with no official standing.

Such conclusions take on even greater significance at a time when the 610 Office may be serving as a model for new CCP initiatives. Since 2008, official reports, speeches and circulars have referenced a novel set of CCP “leading groups” maintaining stability. Reportedly, branches of the Office of Maintaining Stability “are being set up in every district and major street” in rich coastal cities. They are charged with “ferreting out ‘anti-CCP elements’" (Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2009).

Multiple official sources indicate that these new entities and the 610 Office are working closely together. In at least one district in Guangdong’s Foshan City, for example, the 610 Office and the “leading group office for maintaining stability” were listed side-by-side in an online description of the local PLC’s internal functioning and staff (Chongchuan.gov.cn, June 7, 2010). In some localities, staff and even the leadership of the two entities seem to overlap. A March 2010 notice from Zhejiang’s Pingyang County government states that the same person was appointed to direct both 610 Office and the local stability maintenance office.

The rise of the 610 Office and stability maintenance offices suggests a sense among CCP leaders that existing internal security services, like the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security, are not satisfactorily effective. That these officials are increasingly relying on more arbitrary, extra-legal, and personalized security forces to protect their hold on power does not only bode badly for China’s human rights record. It also threatens the stability of internal CCP politics should 610 Office work become politicized—just as counterespionage was corrupted prior to Reform and Opening—amid the jockeying for power ahead of and beyond the upcoming 18th Party Congress.

More at The Jamestown Foundation (USA)

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