China's 'socialist road' to misery

By Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist / June 3, 2009

IT IS 20 YEARS since the Tiananmen Square massacre, and China's communist regime hasn't budged an inch.

The government has no reason to regret its murderous crackdown during "the political storm at the end of the 1980s," a foreign-ministry spokesman in Beijing told reporters last month. "China has scored remarkable success in its social and economic development. Facts have proven that the socialist road with Chinese characteristics that we pursue is in the fundamental interests of our people."

As a euphemism for dictatorial savagery, "the socialist road with Chinese characteristics" may not rise to the level of, say, "Great Leap Forward" or "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." And certainly the material riches and capitalist bustle that characterize much of China in the 21st century are a far cry from the mass starvation and unspeakable chaos that devastated the country in the 20th. But make no mistake: The junta in Beijing is no kinder or gentler today than it was at Tiananmen 20 years ago, and no less prepared to crush anyone who resists its grip on power.

Perhaps nothing today so exemplifies the totalitarian implacability of China's rulers as their ruthless persecution of Falun Gong, a quasi-religious discipline of meditation and breathing exercises, combined with moral teachings about truth, compassion, and forbearance. By civilized standards, it is incomprehensible that anything so innocuous and peaceable could provoke bloody repression. But China's uncivilized government fears any movement it does not control, and Falun Gong - with its uplifting values so different from the regime's Stalinist ethic - has attracted

tens of millions of adherents, independent of the Communist Party.

There is nothing subtle about Beijing's decade-long campaign to suppress Falun Gong. At www.faluninfo.net/gallery/12, the Falun Dafa Information Center describes several of the torture techniques the government uses to break Falun Gong practitioners. Burning, for example. In hundreds of reported cases, police or labor camp authorities have used cigarettes, car lighters, or red-hot irons to sear Falun Gong believers on their faces, torsos, and genitals .

Other victims have been forced into water dungeons - locked cages immersed in filthy water. "Some water dungeons . . . have sharp spikes protruding on the inside of cramped cages," the center reports. "Usually, the water dungeons are well-hidden rooms or cells where practitioners are forced to stay for days and nights on end in total darkness. The water is most often extremely filthy, containing garbage and sewage that leaves the victim with festering skin." Other torture methods include electric shock, brutal forced "feeding" with concentrated salt water or hot pepper oil, and injection of nerve-damaging psychotropic drugs capable of inducing "horrific states of physical pain and mental anguish."

Independent and third parties have raised numerous alarms about China's inhumane war on Falun Gong.

The UN's Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions has cited reports of "harrowing scenes" of Falun Gong prisoners dying from their treatment in government custody, and noting that "the cruelty and brutality of these alleged acts of torture defy description." Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly highlighted the agonies inflicted on Falun Gong practitioners. So have a handful of supremely courageous Chinese lawyers, among them Gao Zhisheng and Li Heping. In 2007, Canadian attorney David Kilgour, a former prosecutor and member of Parliament, co-authored a detailed report documenting the systematic harvesting of vital organs from imprisoned Falun Gong believers, in order to supply China's lucrative transplant industry.

All these atrocities, of course, account for only one narrow lane on that "socialist road with Chinese characteristics" that Beijing so adamantly defends. The government of China is no less vicious in its persecution of devout house Christians, of Tibetan Buddhists, of democratic dissidents who seek greater liberty, of journalists who fail to toe the Communist Party line, of the countless inmates enslaved in "re-education through labor" camps, or of women who wish to decide for themselves how many children to have.

Twenty years after the screams and blood and slaughter at Tiananmen Square, the People's Republic of China is still a great dungeon. "China is first and foremost a repressive regime," the noted China scholar Ross Terrill has written. "The unchanging key to all Beijing's policies is that the nation is ruled by a Leninist dictatorship that intends to remain such." That was the truth in 1989. It remains the truth today.

Beijing hasn’t changed

Taipei Times: This year marks two anniversaries that are testimony to the brutality and ruthlessness of China’s despotic one-party state: the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the persecution of Falun Gong.

Twenty years ago on June 4, the world watched in horror as troops with tanks and machine guns stormed Tiananmen Square and crushed unarmed students who had gathered to demand democratic reform. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed.

On July 20, 1999, the regime launched the persecution of Falun Gong, complete with its own Krystallnacht-type middle-of-the-night mass arrests. Ten years later, the torturing and killing continue, with Falun Gong practitioners composing half of the quarter million labor-camp prisoners in China, US State Department figures show.

The June 1989 protests, which took place in many cities across China and involved millions, was a courageous bid to escape the repressive yoke of communism.

But alas, it wasn’t to be. While China’s economy has surged ahead, human rights and freedom of opinion for the Chinese people is still a pipe dream.

The nature of the Beijing regime is repression and killing. It’s a pattern begun by chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) that has not let up — it’s just done more covertly these days. The Tiananmen Square Massacre and the crackdown on Falun Gong, a non-political spiritual discipline, are proof of that. This particular leopard has not changed its spots.

I just hope that those who want to see China become the next great world power remember this.

JOAN QUAIN

Victoria, Canada

Regime Autocracy the Cause of Violence Against Attorneys

By Fu Ming & Yu Lin
Sound of Hope Radio Jun 1, 2009 via Epoch Times

Beijing lawyers Zhang Kai and Li Chunfu were beaten by Chongqing police because they defended a Falun Gong adherent. (The Epoch Times)

Mr. Du Guang, former Deputy Director of Theory Research of the Party School under the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, recently spoke to Sound of Hope Radio International about the latest incident involving attorneys being beaten by police. He said, “These two lawyers were beaten by the police because of their responsibility to pursue justice. It fully reflects the atrocious nature of the authoritarian regime.”

Beijing attorneys, Li Chunfu and Zhang Kai, were illegally arrested and beaten by Chungqing police on May 13. They were handling the mysterious death case of Jiang Xiqing, a Falun Gong practitioner.

Mr. Du indicated, “The two lawyers went to Chungqing to investigate the case. It was a normal legal procedure. But instead, they were met with violent beating from police. This is unbelievable.”

On May 17, 60 lawyers and legal experts held a forum to support the two lawyers involved in the case. Mr. Du also commented that the Bar Association had failed to represent the lawyers and conduct legal business according to law.

He said, “The Bar Association is an organization for the lawyers to reflect attorneys’ needs and rights. In fact, rather than to protect the profession, many Bar Associations have become the regime’s tools to suppress the lawyers and ignore lawyers’ rights. I disagree with this phenomenon.”

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Mr. Du also blamed the regime’s autocracy for numerous attorneys’ troubles during applications for Bar examination and licensing registration. He said, “This is exactly the atrocious nature of the regime.”

Falun Gong practitioner Jiang Xiqing died in Chungqing Labor Camp. The medical report concluded the cause of death as acute heart attack. However, the autopsy identified breakages in the left 4th, 5th, and 6th ribs. Family members found injuries all over Jiang’s head, chest and legs. Jiang’s organs were removed without his family’s consent. Upon the request of Jiang’s families, Beijing lawyers Li Chungu and Zhang Kai arrived in Chungqing on May 13 to discuss details with the families. More than 20 police showed up and violently beat the two lawyers. Lawyer Zhang was hung by handcuffs in a metal cage. Both his hands were swollen. He was beaten till unconscious, and suffered a bleeding ear. Both lawyers were detained illegally for near 10 hours.

Read this article in Chinese: http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/5/29/n2541320.htm

Forced Labour and Organ Harvesting

Epoch Times: By David Matas May 31, 2009

Chinese doctor Wang Wenyi speaks at a press conference in Arlington, Virginia, 26 April 2006 about forced organ harvesting by Chinese authorities on live Falun Gong practitioners. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

China engages systematically in forced labour in all forms of detention facilities - prisons which house sentenced criminals, administrative detention for those not yet charged, and re-education through labour camps. A 1998 declaration of the International Labour Organization (ILO) commits all member states, including China, to eliminate forced labour. The Government of China reported to the ILO that its constitution prohibits forced labour and that there is a national policy of eliminating all forms of forced labour.

China is not a country with an independent judiciary and the rule of law. There is no means in China of enforcing the promises in the Constitution. What the Constitution of China says is not a reliable indicator of what is happening in China.

The Constitution of China provides:

"Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration"[1].

"Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief.

"No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion"[2].

Yet, these freedoms do not exist in China.

So, when the Government of China says that there is a constitutional provision, its statements may be and often are smokescreens, exercises in hypocrisy. That is true of its statements to the ILO on forced labour.

The same can be said about policy. China has many policies which diverge from reality. Indeed, the Government of China refers so often to the state constitution and Government policies when the reality is the opposite that the very Government reference to these standards should be an indicator that something improper is happening in China.

Organ harvesting

A policy area with which I am familiar is organ harvesting, the killing of prisoners for their organs to be used for transplants. David Kilgour and I have written a report that some of those prisoners are Falun Gong practitioners detained for their innocent beliefs[3].

The Government of China denies the conclusion of our report and says that those who are in prison merely because they are Falun Gong practitioners are not killed for their organs. Yet the Government does not deny that some prisoners are killed for their organs and that these prisoners are the primary source of organs for transplants in China.

Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu, speaking at a conference of surgeons in the southern city of Guangzhou in mid November 2006, acknowledged that executed prisoners sentenced to death are a source of organ transplants. He said: "Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners."

The dispute David Kilgour and I have with the Government of China is which sort of prisoners are killed for their organs. The Government of China says that the prisoners killed for their organs are all prisoners sentenced to death. Why we disagree with the Government of China, why we conclude that prisoners sentenced to death are not the only prison source of organs for transplants in China, I put to one side for now. I invite you to read our report Bloody Harvest to see how we came to our conclusions.

The point I want to make here is that the Government of China, at the same time as it admits sourcing organs from prisoners, has a policy of not sourcing organs from prisoners. In a news release dated October 5, 2007, the World Medical Association announced at the annual General Assembly in Copenhagen that the Chinese Medical Association agreed that organs of prisoners and other individuals in custody must not be used for transplantation except for members of their immediate family.

Liu Zhi of the Chinese Medical Association's international department said that the agreement with the World Medical Association has no legal effect. He nonetheless expressed the hope that the agreement would influence China's 500,000 doctors and government decisions, a hollow wish as long as China does not have an organ donor system or a law sourcing organs from the brain dead/cardiac alive.

Forced labour

Chinese government hypocrisy on forced labour could not be more blatant. Forced labour in detention is not an abuse of Chinese law. It is the law. The Chinese Law on Prisons stipulates that prisons may punish a prisoner who is able bodied but refuses to work[4].

The United States signed a memorandum of understanding with China in 1992 committing the Government of China to ensure that prison labour products are not exported to the United States. The US in 1994 signed a statement of cooperation which in principle allowed US officials to gain access to Chinese production facilities suspected of exporting prison labour products. The US China Economic and Security Review Commission in its report to Congress for 2008 wrote that "the Chinese government has not complied with its commitments" under the 1992 and 1994 agreement "making it impossible for U.S. officials to conduct complete and useful investigations of such allegations".

Speaking to U.S. journalists in November 1993, in answer to a question about the desire by rights groups to inspect prisons, then Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen said, "I believe that if the Red Cross does put forward such a request..., we would give positive consideration to that request." The Red Cross did put forward such a request, and there was no positive consideration.

Persons are routinely detained in China without charge or for long periods before a charge is laid. Forced labour occurs in administrative detention and the euphemestically labelled re-education camps as well in prisons where sentenced criminals are kept.

Once the practice of Falun Gong was banned in 1999, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners travelled to Beijing to protest or to unfold banners calling for the group's legalization.People came almost daily.Author Jennifer Zeng, formerly of Beijing and now living in Australia, writes that by the end of April 2001 there had been approximately 830,000 arrests in Beijing of Falun Gong adherents who had been identified.

Those who revealed their identities to their captors were shipped back to their home localities. Their families were implicated in their Falun Gong activities and pressured to join in the effort to get the practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. Their workplace leaders, their co-workers, their local government leaders were held responsible and penalized for the fact that these individuals had gone to Beijing to appeal or protest.

To protect their families and avoid the hostility of the people in their locality, many detained Falun Gong declined to identify themselves. The result was a large Falun Gong prison population whose identities the authorities did not know. As well, no one who knew them knew where they were.

There are no statistics available of practitioners who were arrested but refused to self identify. From our interviews with released Falun Gong practitioners, we know that the number of those who did not self identify is large. But we do not know how large.

Arrested Falun Gong practitioners were initially sent to administrative detention centres. Those who recanted were released. Those who did not recant were tortured. Those who recanted after torture were released. Those who did not recant after torture disappeared into the re-education through labour camps. The U.S. State Department's 2005 country report on China[5] indicates that its police run hundreds of detention centres, with the 're-education through labour' ones alone having a holding capacity of about 300,000 persons.

The Department of State's Country Reports for 2008 state: "Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in the country's "reeducation through labour camps...."[6]

Forced organ donor banks

An extremely large group of people subject to the exercise of the whims and power of the state, without recourse to any form of protection of their rights, provides a potential source for organ harvesting of the unwilling. These detention facilities are not just forced labour camps. They are also potential forced organ donor banks.

The investigations which led to the report David Kilgour and I wrote had many chilling moments. One of the most disturbing was the discovery of a massive prison/detention/labour camp population of the unidentified. Practitioner after practitioner who eventually was released from detention told us about this population. A collection of some of their statements is set out in our report.

What these practitioners told us was that they personally met the unidentified in detention in significant numbers. We have met many Falun Gong practitioners who were released from Chinese detention. Yet, except for those detained during the early days of Falun Gong repression, we have yet to meet or hear of, despite their large numbers, a practitioner released from detention who refused to self identify in detention from the beginning to the end of the detention period. What happened to these many practitioners? Where are they?

I went to Geneva in November 2008 to meet with the United Nations Committee against Torture about the report of Government of China on compliance the Convention against Torture. The Committee, in its November 2008 concluding observations, wrote: "While noting the State party's information about the 2006 Temporary Regulation on Human Organ Transplants and the 2007 Human Organ Transplant Ordinance, the Committee takes cognizance of the allegations presented to the Special Rapporteur on Torture who has noted that an increase in organ transplant operations coincides with 'the beginning of the persecution of [Falun Gong practitioners]' and who asked for 'a full explanation of the source of organ transplants' which could clarify the discrepancy and disprove the allegation of organ harvesting (A/HRC/7/3/Add.1). The Committee is further concerned with information received that Falun Gong practitioners have been extensively subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prisons and that some of them have been used for organ transplants (arts. 12 and 16).

"The State party should immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to torture and used for organ transplants and take measures, as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished[7]."

We are independent from the Government of China and the Falun Gong community. The Committee against Torture did not mean to suggest anything different. What they were proposing was an investigation independent from the Government of China with which the Government of China would nonetheless cooperate by giving access to Chinese territory, documents, places of detention, and witnesses in China without fear of intimidation or reprisals.

The reaction of the Government of China to these concluding observations was this: "Some biased committee members, in drafting the observations, chose to ignore the substantial materials provided by the Chinese Government, quoted and even fabricated some unverified information. Running counter to the ethics of justice and objectiveness, they attempted to politicize the review by squeezing some unreal and stigmatized comments into the concluding observations, which China firmly opposes[8]."

The Chinese Government reaction, by referring to "some biased committee members" suggests that some members of the Committee were biased and others were not. Yet, the Committee recommendations were unanimous. Either all the Committee members were biased or none were.

The Government of China as well makes wild general accusations. It accuses the Committee of fabricating information without indicating what that information is which was supposedly fabricated. Nor does it indicate what are the comments in the Committee's concluding observations the Government considers unreal and stigmatized.

Despite the vagueness of the reaction, it is apparent that the Government of China did not accept the concluding observations of the Committee in their entirety. When it came to the Universal Periodic Review, a procedure of the UN Human Rights Council in which the human rights record of every UN member state is reviewed periodically, the Government of China was a lot more specific.

I went to Geneva again, in January, this year and lobbied governments to raise the violations identified in our organ harvesting report when China's turn came up at UN Universal Periodic Review Working Group. At the very least, I asked states to request China's compliance with foundational rights, the respect for which would have made the violations we identified impossible. Many delegates did speak out for these foundational rights during the two hours of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group allocated to these speeches, but to no avail. The Government of China rejected virtually all these rights.

China rejects

The Universal Periodic Review Working Group came out with a report tabulating the recommendations of states which spoke during debate. The Government of China reaction, which followed immediately upon release of the report, gave us a clear idea of what its earlier words had meant. It accepted some recommendations, mostly from other gross violator states which commended the Government of China for its efforts and encouraged it to keep on doing what it was doing. It added that it would consider other recommendations. There was also a long list of recommendations the Government of China rejected out of hand.

At the Universal Periodic Review Working Group, Canada recommended that China implement the recommendations of the Committee against Torture. The Government of China explicitly, in writing, rejected this recommendation.

Canada, the United Kingdom, Hungary, the Czech Republic, France, Sweden and New Zealand recommended that China abolish all forms of arbitrary detention, including re-education through labour camps. The Government of China said no to this recommendation.

Forced labour is an abuse of the rights of those in detention in China. It also harms workers around the world by undercutting the prices of products free workers produce for wages, contributing to global unemployment in a time of economic downturn. And it sets the stage for organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.

Allowing outsider access to Chinese places in detention is not an end in itself. It is rather a means to an end, to assess compliance with international standards, to ensure that abuses in detention are not occurring.

Something similar can be said of forced labour. Ending forced labour is an end of itself. But it is also a means to an end. Ending forced labour and allowing independent investigators to visit places of detention would be important steps towards ending abusive organ sourcing from Falun Gong practitioners.

Canada should have legislation banning the importation of goods produced through forced labour. The Government of Canada should negotiate an agreement with the Government of China committing the Government of China to ensure that prison labour products are not exported to Canada. The agreement should allow Canadian officials to gain access to Chinese production facilities suspected of exporting forced labour products.

The fact that China has not respected similar agreements with the United States is no reason to abandon the effort to stop the export of forced labour products from China. Where the efforts of one country, the US, have failed, the efforts of many countries may succeed. In any case, at the end of the day, when it comes to promoting respect for human rights, we can never rest content with no as an answer.

[1] Article 35

[2] Article 36

[3] Bloody Harvest: Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China

[4] Article 58

[5] U.S. Department of State 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - China, March 8, 2006.

[6] 2008 Report on International Religious Freedom: China

[7] Concluding observations of the UN Committee against Torture on China UN Document number CAT/C/CHN/CO/4, 21 November 2008 paragraph 18(C).

[8] Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang's Remarks on Concluding Observations of United Nations Committee against Torture on China's Compliance with the Convention against Torture

This article comprises remarks made by David Matas at a Forum on Human Right in China held in Canada's Parliament buildings on May 27, 2009.

David Matas is a Winnipeg based international human rights lawyer and the co-author, with David Kilgour, of "Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China"

The CCP continues to see ghosts

Taipei Times /By Sushil Seth
Thursday, May 28, 2009, Page 8

With the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan rebellion of 1959 still fresh in the memory, Beijing now has to confront the 20th anniversary of the student-led democracy movement that was crushed in Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken all the necessary steps to prevent — and crush, if necessary — any protests that might take place next week.

In 1989, students seeking political reforms were met with tanks as the regime feared being toppled by a ragtag movement seeking a more open political system with transparency and accountability.

That system was, and still is, racked with corruption.

Was there any serious danger to the CCP from the student movement? Then-CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) didn’t think so and was toppled by the ruling clique led by Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).

In secret tapes recorded by Zhao during his 16 years in house arrest until his death, he raised some pertinent questions.

“It was determined [by the leading CCP group] that the student movement was a planned conspiracy of anti-party, anti-socialist elements with leadership,” Zhao said.

“So now we must ask, who were these leaders? What was the plan? What was the conspiracy? What evidence exists to support this?” he wrote. “It was also said that that there were black hands within the party. Who were they?”

“It was said that this event was aimed at overthrowing the People’s Republic and the CCP. Where is the evidence?” Zhao said.

His conclusion was that there were no such elements conspiring to overthrow the CCP.

“I had said at the time that most people were only asking us to correct our flaws, not attempting to overthrow our political system,” he said.

One might think that having crushed the last perceived organized threat to its monopoly on power, the CCP would feel at ease. But the paranoia persists.

The system remains alert to any organized sign of resistance that might emerge.

After all, the Falun Gong movement emerged out of nowhere and managed to hold a large public protest in 1999. Soon afterwards, the movement was banned and declared an evil cult, with thousands of followers arrested and tortured.

The persecution continues.

Falun Gong was never a threat to the CCP’s rule. But overkill is still the mark of the ruling oligarchy.

The fact is that China’s rulers do not want to take any chances with unruly masses, believing they need the perpetual control and guidance of the CCP to prevent the country from plunging into chaos.

This is the CCP’s self-serving mythology that has been parroted ever since. In the absence of any kind of popular endorsement of its rule, the CCP has had to create the illusion of impending disaster if the party is not around.

This makes the party and the country indistinguishable. In other words, a Chinese citizen ceases to be “patriotic” if he or she seeks political change.

If a group meets regularly to talk of democracy as a political alternative for the country, soon enough its members will find themselves behind bars.

Zhao, though, favored the democratic alternative. He reportedly said that: “It is the Western parliamentary system that has demonstrated the most vitality … [and] meets the demands of a modern society.”

But the CCP is unlikely to follow this route to commit political suicide. Indeed, it actively works to destroy any challenge (real or imagined) to its political monopoly.

The government freely uses charges of subversion and leaking of “state secrets” as justification to throw people in jail.

Other no-go topics are Tibet, Taiwan and Uighur separatism in Xinjiang.

In other words, the country’s communist rulers have multiple grounds to throw people into jail.

The Internet, though, is posing problems. Despite a panoply of firewalls built by the Chinese government to deny people access to certain types of information, those determined enough do manage to keep themselves informed through alternative sites.

Most Chinese, however, live on a diet of government-fed information that provides a filtered view of their country and the world.

With the economy slowing, however, social unrest has been increasing.

Even with growth rates of more than 10 percent, China has been unable to provide jobs for many of its teeming millions.

The rural economy is so depressed that young men and women from the countryside flocked to urban industrial centers for jobs.

There have been an estimated 140 million migrant rural workers in cities. With the closure of urban factories, about 20 million have already gone back to their homes and farms.

If the process of rural workers trekking back to the countryside continues, it will aggravate social unrest.

There are no jobs for them back home and their families’ farms can hardly feed more mouths. With progressively reduced remittances back home, the rural families will have an even harder time.

Already, there is a three-fold gap between rural and urban incomes. Any widening of this gap is likely to create further tensions.

There is a sense that the Chinese government is aware of the grim social reality of even harder times in rural areas. It is, therefore, diverting resources to the rural sector as part of the overall stimulus package.

Jonathan Fenby, China director at Trusted Sources, said Chinese in rural areas “aren’t benefiting much from the US$1 trillion sloshing out in China in fiscal and monetary stimulus.”

That is because: “That money is going mainly to big urban-based firms, while the drop in remittances from migrant workers in coastal export zones is hitting village income, deflation is reducing income from sales of food, farm input costs have risen and mechanization is uneconomic in many places, given the small size of plots allowed under the land ownership system.”

At the same time, in the cities, the middle class finds itself with fewer economic opportunities. Young graduates coming into the job market find it increasingly difficult to find jobs.

Therefore, even if China’s economy continues to grow (but at nearly half the growth rate reported in the last decade) things are pretty grim.

As economic difficulties create more social tensions and unrest, China’s paranoid leadership will start seeing ghosts of political challenge, which might lead to greater repression.

This is not to suggest that the CCP’s grip on power is in any immediate danger. The suggestion, though, is that an increasing aggregation of social tensions could create an explosive situation in the short or medium term.

Vancouver Chinese Consulate vs Falun Gong

Well said Mark!

Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009

THE CHINESE CONSULATE

Van Courier: Last February, following years of legal wrangling, Falun Gong practitioners dismantled their shack outside the Chinese consulate on Granville and 16th Avenue.

Yet the consulate still stands--a grim and grey reminder of China's many sins, which include censoring political speech, silencing government critics, controlling the press, limiting Internet access, detaining without trial, torturing prisoners, restricting freedom of speech and assembly and association and religion, beating Tibetan monks and leading the world in capital punishment. With the possible exception of B.C. Place, the Chinese consulate is the most offensive structure in Vancouver.

Six thousand Falun Gong practitioners form 3-D ‘Zhuan Falun’ book

Taiwan Celebrates World Falun Dafa Day

By Ao Manxiong
Epoch Times Staff May 10, 2009

In the morning of May 9, over six thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the Puding Prairie in Kenting, Taiwan, and lined up to form the book Zhuan Falun. (Wu Bohua/The Epoch Times)

PINGTUNG, Taiwan—May 13, 2009, is World Falun Dafa Day and the seventeenth anniversary since Falun Dafa's founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, began teaching in China. There will be celebrations all around the world.

Six thousand Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan gathered at the Puding Prairie in Kenting, in southern Taiwan, on the morning of May 9—lining up to form an image of Mr. Li’s book Zhuan Falun. The activity was to celebrate and commemorate the spread and blessing of Falun Dafa as well as to show their respect and gratefulness to Mr. Li.

Cheng Chi-Mei, organizer of the activity said, “Lining up to form the book Zhuan Falun is the first time practitioners in Taiwan composed the three Chinese characters ‘Li-Hong-Zhi’ and formed a three-dimensional Zhuan Falun book. Also, we have broken the record with the largest number of people joining in an activity of forming these Chinese characters.”

Chen Gui-lin was in charge of location planning. “Many Falun Gong practitioners went three days without sleep to decorate the area in gusty winds. The Puding Prairie has Mt. Tajian in the background and the Pacific Ocean in the front. One can see the Eluanbi Lighthouse from afar. The Lighthouse symbolizes Zhuan Falun being a guide of hope and light.

More than six thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the Puding Prairie in Kenting, southern Taiwan, and did the five Falun Dafa exercises together, May 9. (Wu Bohua/The Epoch Times)

“In previous years, the celebrations of World Falun Dafa Day were often held at the Chiang-Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei or tourist spots in central Taiwan. This is the first time we have moved the celebration to the southern tip of Taiwan,” said Chen.

At 10 a.m. on May 9, in the Celestial Marching Band played music, while 6,000 practitioners wearing white and yellow lined up and wished Mr. Li Hongzhi a happy birthday. They then did the five Falun Gong exercises and participated in a parade through the streets. The celebration ended at 6 p.m.

Hong Ji-hong, member of the Falun Dafa Association in Taiwan, said that everyone came to the prairie out of gratitude. “They joined the sacred and meaningful activity to celebrate Mr. Li’s birthday and World Falun Dafa Day.”

The practitioners that joined the character-forming activity came from all walks of life. The oldest was 98-year-old Ma from Tainan city, and the youngest was 4-year-old Hsu Fa-En. Before Ma practiced Falun Gong, his health was poor, “I spent my days taking pills and injections. I was better dead than alive. My greatest fortune came when I had the opportunity to learn Falun Dafa 10 years ago. Shortly thereafter I was pain and illness free.”

Four-year-old Hsu came with his father from Taipei. He sat with his legs crossed among other practitioners and said, “I am a young practitioner. Falun Dafa is good. I wish Teacher happy birthday.”

Mr. Li Hongzhi started teaching Falun Gong on May 13, 1992, in Changchun city, northeastern China. Seventeen years later, Falun Dafa has spread to over 80 countries in the world. On May 13, 2000, practitioners celebrated the first World Falun Dafa Day to let the people of the world understand the significance of this day.

The book Zhuan Falun has been translated into over 30 languages and is the main text of Falun Gong.

Read original article in Chinese.

Prime Minister Harper Sends Greetings for Falun Dafa Month

Epoch Times Staff May 13, 2009

()

Contents of Letter:

May 2009

Greetings from the Prime Minister

I am pleased to extend my personal greetings to the Falun Dafa Association of Canada as you celebrate Falun Dafa month.

Canadians are blessed to live in a country that embraces the many cultures and traditions of the world. Canada draws tremendous strength from its democratic heritage. As Canadians, we are grateful for Canada's shared values of openness and tolerance and the freedom of conscience and religion, which honour our unparalleled diversity and the foundations of our democratic society.

As you celebrate the 17th anniversary of the introduction of Falun Dafa to the public, I commend the Falun Dafa Association of Canada for sharing your practices and traditions with the public. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I extend my best wishes for a joyous and memorable celebration.

Sincerely,

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada

Rally and Grand Parade Celebrate Falun Dafa Day in Hong Kong

Epoch Times Staff May 13, 2009

Falun Gong practitioners of Hong Kong celebrate World Falun Dafa Day and wish Mr. Li Hongzhi a happy birthday. (Li Ming/Epoch Times)

HONG KONG —May 13, 2009 is the tenth anniversary of the World Falun Dafa Day, and the seventeenth anniversary of Falun Gong being taught to the public. Also, it is the fifty-eighth birthday of Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong. To celebrate the upcoming holiday, Falun Gong practitioners in Hong Kong staged a grand assembly and parade on Sunday, May 10. Many local people, mainlanders, and foreign tourists stopped to watch along the parade route.

According to the coordinator of the event, because Hong Kong is so close to mainland China, we hope that by having this event, they will want to tell their fellow Chinese in the mainland: "Falun Dafa is wonderful." In the meantime, they hope that more people will learn the facts and then step up to stop the Chinese Communist Party's persecution.

The harmonious music of the Falun Gong exercises rises over the Recreation Complex at Cheung Sha Wan in Kowloon at 10 am, as hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners start their group exercises there.

The resounding music of the Divine Land Marching band played during the afternoon marking the start of the celebration activities.

The Divine Land Marching Band parades through Hong Kong. (Li Ming/Epoch Times)

Mr. Leung, a local resident came specially for the events. “I have participated many times!” he said, and he felt that “truthfulness-compassion-forbearance” is rooted in practitioners' hearts, so they're in perfect order. “Since there are Falun Gong practitioners, not only is there hope in China, but hope in the entire world. As long as the CCP still exists, the world won't be very promising,” he commented emotionally.

Tourist from Mainland China: 'Stunning! Super!'

Around 2 pm, the grand parade started with the Divine Land Marching Band, they routed through the busiest streets in Kowloon. All the practitioners in the float held all kinds of banners and flags, which drew attention from many local residents and tourists. Many tourists from mainland China expressed their surprise. A young female tourist told the reporter: “I am from the mainland, and have never seen this before, I feel stunned!” the other female tourist holding up Falun Gong related fliers and a DVD said happily: “Super!” and added few times: “I support Falun Gong!”

The parade drew the attention of Hong Kongers. (Li Ming/Epoch Times)

Many people took pictures behind the scenes along the route. A young tourist from mainland China said excitedly: “I have never seen this in mainland China, it's my first time even in Hong Kong, this is very exciting, very interesting!” A senior tourist said: “It's a liberal and democratic society in Hong Kong, you can say whatever you want, people have freedom.”

A lady holding a child said she believed in her heart: “It's different in mainland China, and Hong Kong is different (from China), I feel they are two different worlds.” She also said that she's supportive of Falun Gong's peaceful efforts to stop the persecution.

A Special Wish on Mother's Day

Asking for freedom of prisoners of conscience

Epoch Times By Jin Pang May 10, 2009

Jin Pang and her mother (left). (Jin Pang)

If I knew this day would come, when I could not talk to my mom on Mother¹s Day, or even find out if she was safe and unharmed, I would have cherished every single moment I spent with her.

Sunday will be a sad day for me. It will be the first Mother’s Day in my life that I can¹t talk to my Mom. Instead, I will be worrying about her wellbeing, because she has been held for over nine months in a detention center in China, simply for her belief in Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice banned by the communist regime.

On July 9, 2008, to “prepare” for the Olympics, about a dozen police broke into my parents’ home in Weifang, Shandong Province, and confiscated three laptops, two desktop computers, a digital camera, some bank deposits, Falun Gong informational materials and other personal belongings worth an estimated 50,000 yuan (about $7,000). On the same day, about 100 other Falun Gong practitioners were also arrested in the same city.

Three weeks later, on July 29, 2008, just one week before the Beijing Olympics, the police took away my parents while they were at a friend’s house, and held them in the Weifang City detention center. Afterwards, they ransacked my parents' house again and took many valuable personal belongings, including the rest of the bank deposits. My father was released one month later because he doesn’t practice Falun Gong, but my mother has been detained ever since.

This isn’t the first time that my mother has been persecuted for her belief. She has been practicing Falun Gong and following the core principles of its teachings—Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance—since 1995, when people from all walks of life were performing the Tai-chi like exercises in almost every park in China. As with millions of others, Falun Gong benefited my mom both mentally and physically, curing her dermatosis and greatly improving her disposition.

But the Communist Party, irrationally fearing that Falun Gong’s increasing popularity could be a potential threat to its power, banned it in 1999, and has been carrying out a ruthless campaign against it since then.

In January 2000, my mom and eight other Falun Gong practitioners began practicing the exercises quietly in a public square. After a few minutes, all of them were arrested and taken to a local police station. That night, they were detained in a cold cement cell that was less than nine square meters, where they were shocked with electric batons and beaten with spiked clubs.

After 11 days of torture, my mom had lost a front tooth, the skin all over her body was burned, and her legs were full of bruises and covered in blood. She was released after the police extorted 2,000 yuan (about US $300, more than a month’s average salary in that city) from my father.

During the past 9 months of detention, no family members were allowed to see my Mom. I don’t have any information about her. I am afraid they may be torturing her again. On many nights, I have awakened in tears after dreaming about her.

My mother isn¹t the only one in this situation. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, over 8,000 Falun Gong practitioners throughout China were detained before and during the 2008 Olympics, and 104 were persecuted to death, which brings the total death toll to 3263 in the ten-year persecution.

It may be hard for people who live in the free world to imagine someone being persecuted for doing things we take for granted here, such as reading religious teachings, doing yoga-like exercises and downloading information about human rights from the Internet.

But that has not stopped many kind-hearted Americans from lending their generous support. From the 3,000 Missourians who signed petitions to rescue my Mom, to the 18 state representatives and senators, to Congressman Blunt, Congressman Clay, and Senator McCaskill, who wrote to the Chinese government or Secretary Clinton about my mother's case, I can see the spirit and founding principles that make this nation truly great. I am deeply touched by all the support given to me.

There are also many other sons and daughters whose mothers have been imprisoned, tortured and even killed in this persecution. Most of them endure their grief silently, as they are not as fortunate as I to have this opportunity to tell their mothers' stories.

May all the mothers who are prisoners of conscience be set free! This is my special wish on this Mother’s Day.

Jin Pang is a graduating MBA student in Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.

China and the Falun Gong:Abraham L. Halpern

May 4, 2009 - Letter To the Editor:

Re “After 10 Years and 2,000 Deaths, China Still Presses Its Crusade Against Falun Gong” (news article, April 28):

NY Times: At a meeting of the World Psychiatric Association in 2004, the Chinese Psychiatric Society agreed to allow an independent review committee to investigate reports of involuntary psychiatric “treatment” of non-mentally ill Falun Gong practitioners.

In short order, however, the Chinese government forbade such interference in its internal affairs.

In subsequent years, many American and other foreign psychiatrists have visited China, but no inspection of any of the maximum-security psychiatric institutions has taken place. Reports of misuse of psychiatry in China persist.

Abraham L. Halpern
Palm Beach, Fla., April 28, 2009

The writer is emeritus professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College.

After 10 Years and 2,000 Deaths, China Still Presses Its Crusade Against Falun Gong

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: April 27, 2009

NY Times: BEIJING — In the decade since the Chinese government began repressing Falun Gong, a crusade that human rights groups say has led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of practitioners and claimed at least 2,000 lives, the world’s attention has long since shifted elsewhere.

The drive against the spiritual group has eliminated its leadership, decimated the ranks of faithful and convinced many Chinese that the group is an “evil cult,” as the government contends. But 10 years on, the war on Falun Gong remains unfinished.

In the past year, as many as 8,000 practitioners have been detained, according to experts on human rights, and at least 100 have died in custody. Among them were Yu Zhou, 42, a popular Beijing musician, and Cao Changling, the 77-year-old vice director of a paper plant in Wuhan, whose bruised body was returned to his family by the police last summer just as China was reveling in the glory of the Olympic Games.

In recent months, scores of practitioners have been given long prison terms, including Zhang Xingwu, a retired physics professor from Shandong Province who last week was sentenced to seven years after the police found Falun Gong literature in his apartment, according to family members.

The continued crackdown highlights the difficulty of eradicating a movement whose adherents stubbornly cling to their beliefs, but it also provides a window into the psyche of an authoritarian government that, despite its far-reaching power, remains deeply insecure.

From the outset, the group, which at its peak claimed to have millions of followers around China, insisted that it wanted only legal recognition, not political power. But the country’s top leaders were alarmed by the group’s ability to attract a devoted following from so many citizens — from retired functionaries to pimple-faced college students.

The decision to ban the group entirely was made after 10,000 Falun Gong adherents staged a silent protest outside the gates of Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party’s leadership compound in Beijing, to complain about reports in the state-run media that the group said were defamatory. Security forces apparently had no advance knowledge of the demonstration, which took place on April 25, 1999, and they began treating the group as a threat to national security.

“Even a soccer team with an organization like Falun Gong might have produced the same reaction,” said T. Kumar, the Asia advocacy director for Amnesty International.

Although the propaganda juggernaut has eased in recent years, Falun Gong remains a toxic subject in China. Few academics will speak about it on the record, and the Internet is scoured clean of information that might be construed as sympathetic to Falun Gong, an amalgam of Buddhism, mysticism and qigong, the traditional exercise regimen that remains broadly popular here.

For the Falun Gong devotees who practice in secret, the only glimmer of hope has come from a small but growing number of lawyers who have dared to take on their cases. Even if the legal efforts have mostly come to naught, until recently Falun Gong detainees were denied even the right to a lawyer.

Last week, Jiang Yu, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, reiterated the government’s long-held stance that Falun Gong warrants suppression because it emphasizes meditation and the paranormal over modern medicine. “The Falun Gong cult violates human rights by controlling people’s minds,” he said in response to a reporter’s query.

Among experts based outside the country, there is broad consensus that the government’s efforts have not done much to advance its own interests, at least internationally, where it has been dogged by allegations that it uses torture to crush believers into submission.

‘The excesses and the savagery have really lowered the quality of the government and harmed its reputation abroad,” said Jerome Cohen, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Chinese law. “They’re paying a high price for the cruelty to these people.”

According to Falun Gong followers and Chinese lawyers who take on their cases, that cruelty continues unabated.

Among those swept up in the purge were Yu Zhou, the musician, and his wife, Xu Na. They were stopped for speeding in January 2008, according to their lawyer. After the police found Falun Gong materials in their car, both were detained. Ten days later, Mr. Yu’s sister was told that her brother was gravely ill, the result, she was told, of a hunger strike complicated by diabetes. His sister, Yu Qun, says her brother did not have diabetes. She contends that he died at the hands of his captors.

The family’s efforts to probe Mr. Yu’s death have been thwarted by the police and prosecutors, who refuse to allow an autopsy or even issue a death certificate.

Ms. Xu, who is a well-known poet and painter, was given a three-year term.

“I don’t understand why this happened to them because they didn’t do anything to break the law and they weren’t promoting the group,” Ms. Yu said.

According to former detainees and human rights organizations, Falun Gong detainees are frequently subjected to harrowing abuse, particularly those who refuse to swear off their faith. Bu Dongwei, 41, a longtime adherent who spent three years in a labor camp, said he was forced to share a room with about 30 people, most of them petty thieves and drug addicts who were encouraged to abuse the Falun Gong detainees.

Mr. Bu, a trained geneticist, was given asylum in December and now lives in Los Angeles.

While the group’s initial goals were official legitimacy and an end to persecution, the ceaseless campaign against them has radicalized many adherents, especially those living outside China. In cities around the world, Falun Gong devotees — and their offbeat re-enactments of torture and gory visual aids — have become a common sight.

Falun Dafa, the organization that oversees the movement from its headquarters in New York, is led by Li Hongzhi, a former grain clerk who began spreading his mystical brand of qigong in 1992 but fled China before the crackdown began. Once known for charismatic preaching, he has spent much of the past decade living a reclusive life in Queens.

David Ownby, the author of “Falun Gong and the Future of China,” said that Mr. Li and his followers may have made a tactical mistake by massing in Beijing, but that the Communist Party erred by interpreting their actions as a threat to its rule.

“If either side had played their cards more intelligently, Falun Gong could have been co-opted by the government,” said Mr. Ownby, who is a professor of East Asian studies at the University of Montreal. He added, “This horrific loss of life could have been avoided.”

The great protest that changed the face of China forever

By Editor Thursday, April 23, 2009

CFP: It was on April 25, 1999, that Falun Gong first gained worldwide attention when some 10,000 adherents petitioned the central government in Beijing. Those gathering asked officials to release 40 practitioners who had recently been subjected to police abuse and unlawfully detained, and called for protection of their right to practice their beliefs in peace.

Falun Gong is a peaceful meditative practice called “qigong” that offers its adherents improved health and well-being through gentle exercises and teachings that espouse the values of truth, compassion, and tolerance. First introduced in 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi, the practice quickly grew and even had the support of many Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in China.

However, a small circle of politicians in China grew leery of Falun Gong as the practice grew increasingly popular. False accusations against the practice began appearing in state-run media in 1996, with Falun Gong books being banned from publication the same year. By 1998 the Chinese government estimated there were over 70 million practitioners in China. Individuals within the Public Security Bureau (PSB) continued escalating infringements upon the group by dispersing members at exercise sessions, searching homes, and confiscating property. Practitioners reported these abuses to the government 18 times between 1998 and 1999 using the form of lawful, nonviolent public appeals.

After a Tianjin-based magazine wrongly accused Falun Gong, some 40 practitioners were violently seized and detained by police when they peacefully voiced their concerns. Tianjin city officials afterward advised practitioners to go to Beijing to express their grievances, since the PSB was involved. Acting in accordance with their constitutional right to assemble and appeal, on April 25, 1999, over 10,000 gathered outside Beijing’s Office of Appeals, located beside Zhongnanhai, home to the Communist Party’s top leadership.

The gathering was peaceful, silent, lawful, and did not obstruct traffic. Practitioners requested the release of those detained in Tianjin, a lifting of the publishing ban, and freedom from police harassment when exercising. Initial talks with then-Premier Zhu Rongji led to a resolution and the release of those detained. However, Zhu’s handling of the situation was later overturned by then-Party head Jiang Zemin, who misrepresented April 25 as “the day that Falun Gong lay siege to the Government.”

In July 1999, Jiang outlawed the practice and began a violent campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong, leading to large-scale imprisonment, torture, and the deaths of adherents. According to a 2006 report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, 66 percent of reported victims of torture in previous years were Falun Gong practitioners. To date, the deaths of 3,253 practitioners as a result of persecution by the Chinese authorities have been confirmed by the Falun Dafa Information Center.

April 25 was a principled response to police brutality and months of illegal activity by security personnel. What’s tragic is that the lawful, nonviolent gathering was seized upon by the Chinese regime’s head, Jiang Zemin, as an excuse to launch a campaign bent on ‘eradicating’ Falun Gong.

Saturday’s vigils will continue the tradition of peaceful demonstration begun by the Falun Gong on April 25, 1999 renewing calls for the Beijing regime to end a ten-year campaign of suppression. Falun Gong practitioners and their supporters will participate in candlelight vigils and rallies mostly outside Chinese embassies and consulates in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and other cities around the world. Victims of the persecution who have escaped from China and individuals who were present at the original April 25th appeal will be participating in these activities.

Marie Beaulieu,
Victoria, BC

Confidential Documents Portray Persecution of Falun Gong

'Not guilty' verdicts banned

By Zhang Haishan
Epoch Times Staff Apr 2, 2009

Some lawyers who’ve defended Falun Gong adherents (L-R): Lee Subin, Mo Shaoping, Guo Guoting, Jiang Tian-Yong, Li Heping (The Epoch Times)

“Not guilty”is not allowed. That is the directive in one of two top-secret Chinese documents recently obtained by The Epoch Times that reveal some of the inner workings of the Chinese regime’s continuing persecution of Falun Gong. These documents provide a mixed picture of a crackdown made more severe even while officials worry that a court might choose not to go along with it and defense lawyers seek to prove the persecution is illegal.

The persecution of Falun Gong officially began on July 20, 1999, almost ten years ago. When the persecution began, it received very prominent media coverage in the state-run media and featured show trials of Falun Gong adherents.

In recent years, the regime’s strategy has changed. Media do not report on cases brought against Falun Gong adherents, and the courts, the legislature, and the police have enforced the persecution largely out of sight of the public.

Orchestrating the persecution behind the scences hs been the 610 Office, an extra-constitutional office with power over all levels of the state’s bureaucracy established for the purpose of persecuting Falun Gong. The regime has denied that the 610 Office exists.

The two documents confirm the existence of the 610 Office and show that office seeking to manage the persecution.

A document issued by the Qingdao Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Feb. 27 is said to be on the authority of a “unified directive from the Central, Provincial, and Municipal Party Committees.”

According to the document, Qingdao City is required to “strictly eliminate, investigate, guard against, and control the Falun Gong adherents; prevent Falun Gong adherents from watching and disseminating the New Tang Dynasty TV program; coordinate relevant departments to strengthen measures to control the Internet, radio, television, telephone, and fax; prioritize online publicity and strengthen foreign propaganda,” and so on.

According to Mr. Erping Zhang of the Association for Asian Research, “The detailed list of actions the Qingdao City officials are required by this document to take, including making sure that Falun Gong adherents not disseminate TV programs, suggests that the Falun Gong they are enjoined to ‘control’ are in fact very active.”

Prohibiting ‘Not Guilty’ Verdicts

A 610 office in Shenyang City issued this secret document on Feb 10, 2009. It provides a few pieces of detailed information about how the 610 office controls the legal processes in cases dealing with Falun Gong. Double click on the photo to see a larger image.(Photo provided by a CCP official)

A document issued on Feb. 10 by the 610 Office of the Tiexie District in Shenyang City describes various judicial processes used in persecuting Falun Gong.

The document requires that, “City courts implement internal audit systems, check guidelines, and strictly carry out orders to ensure ‘not guilty' verdicts are denied to Falun Gong adherents. Otherwise, the first case of a ‘not guilty' verdict will be a national political joke.

“Those charged can be, according to the individual's transformation [‘transformation' refers to coercing a Falun Gong adherent to denounce Falun Gong, inform on other Falun Gong adherents, and apologize for practicing Falun Gong], performance, and evidence, given a sentence reduction, deferred, or freed. However, the not-guilty verdict is absolutely not allowed.”

Zhang commented, "The ban on 'not-guilty' verdicts for Falun Gong adherents is not new—for ten years persecuted Falun Gong adherents have in most cases not even been allowed a trial. What is new is the need the 610 Office now feels to try to enforce 'not guilty' verdicts. The 610 Office clearly fears that a court might return such a verdict, and so they issued this document. This document is a testimony to how the Falun Gong adherents have been changing the situation in China so that the failure of the persecution is now anticipated by those charged with enforcing it."

Emerging Defense Lawyers

According to the analysis of a lawyer in Mainland China, the persecution of Falun Gong has no legal standing. According to this lawyer, the documents obtained by The Epoch Times are in fact encouraging and instigating regime officials at all levels to commit crimes.

Many more lawyers are coming out to defend Falun Gong adherents. In court, these lawyers base their defense on the claim that the Chinese law does not prohibit practicing Falun Gong or telling others the facts about Falun Gong and its persecution.

Recently, there have been reports of nine attorneys representing 13 Falun Gong adherents in Qingdao, seven lawyers pleading not guilty for Zhong Fanqing and 10 other Falun Gong adherents, and ten lawyers pleading not guilty for 6 Shenyang Falun Gong adherents.

The 2008 Shenbei Case

Around the time of the Olympic Games, four Falun Gong adherents in Shenbei, in the New District of Shenyang City, were arrested. They were Xi Changhai, Wang Sumei, Sun Yusu, and Huo Fefu. Xi Changhai is a retired 60-year-old elementary school teacher, and Sun Yusu and Huo Defu are both from the same village.

According to insiders, there was serious disagreement in the handling of the case. A public-security-bureau-level official of the Shenbei New District, suggested going through the formalities and releasing the accused.

However, the head of the local 610 Office, Sun Yong-Gang, insisted on complying with the regime’s policy and dealing with the Falun Gong adherents quickly and severely.

As a result, at the end of 2008, the Shenbei case concluded with heavy sentences. Wang Sumei was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Xi Changhai, 11 years, Sun Yusu, 8 years, and Huo Fefu, 6 years.

The sentences given the four in Shenbei appear to be part of a pattern. The Falun Dafa Information Center reports in a recent article since the end of the Beijing Olympics "a significant increase in the number of Falun Gong adherents being sentenced via criminal trials to lengthy prison terms."

The harshness of the verdicts in Shenbei pushed for by the 610 Office, occurring in the context of at least one official's ambivalence in enforcing the persecution, perhaps mirrors the essence of the confidential documents recently obtained by The Epoch Times.

Read the original Chinese article here.

Trade Minister Urged to Raise Human Rights Issue on China Trip

Falun Gong practitioners seek release of family members, supporters

By Cindy Chan
Epoch Times Staff Apr 6, 2009

Falun Gong practitioners Chen Guizhi and Yao Lian with David Kilgour, former Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), on Canada’s Parliament Hill April 6, calling on Trade Minister Stockwell Day to urge China to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—On the eve of International Trade Minister Stockwell Day’s trip to Japan and China on Tuesday, Canadian Falun Gong practitioners are calling on him to urge China to stop the persecution against their practice and release all prisoners.

Among the jailed practitioners are ten who have close Canadian family ties.

At a press conference on Parliament Hill on Monday, Yao Lian said she worries about her husband every minute. Ma Jian was sentenced to labour camp for two and a half years in April 2007.

It has been 767 days and Ms. Yao has not been able to get any information about her husband. “You cannot imagine how long these 767 days [have been] for me,” she said.

Yao herself had been arrested and tortured more than once in China for practising Falun Gong.

“My personal experience tells me my husband might face brutal beatings and corporal punishment, sleep deprivation, brainwashing classes aimed at crushing his spirit, and even organ harvesting.”

David Kilgour, former Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), knows a great deal about this subject. He and Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer David Matas launched an investigation in 2006 and have released a report confirming allegations that the Chinese regime is using Falun Gong prisoners of conscience as a live organ bank to supply an illicit trade in human organs.

“From eventually 52 kinds of proof, we concluded beyond any doubt that the government of China since 2001 has killed without any form of prior trial thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in order to sell their vital organs for high prices to ‘organ tourists,’” Mr. Kilgour said at the press conference.

Mr. Day will be travelling to China to open six new trade offices. Mr. Kilgour wants to encourage him to raise the issue of unfair trade, in particular the export of products made by forced labour.

Falun Gong practitioner Chen Guizhi, 62, told of her experience. She served more than four years in a labour camp in China.

Under appalling conditions, the prisoners were forced to work without pay from about 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., sometimes until midnight, to fill high quotas, Ms. Chen said. She sewed purses, knit sweaters, packed tea, and made toys, among other tasks, and some of these products were for export.

“If we couldn’t finish our quota, the punishment could be extending our terms,” Ms. Chen said in her statement translated into English.

Forced labour product export is unfair trade “in one of its worst abuses,” and Mr. Kilgour hopes Mr. Day will raise this issue when he is in China.

“Cheap goods” from China have been dominating most world markets in recent years and can be linked to the loss of manufacturing jobs in Canada and elsewhere, and “slave labour is certainly one reason for this phenomenon,” Mr. Kilgour said.

Following Mr. Day’s speech at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce last Friday, an audience member asked him to raise the issue of human rights to the Chinese government during his trip.

Mr. Day noted that “the issue of human rights and the promotion of trade are not mutually exclusive. This has been a part of our policy.”

Canada was the second largest donor to the earthquake-devastated region of China, and Mr. Day will be visiting the reconstruction taking place there, with “significant parts” being done with Canadian wood products and housing products, Mr. Day said.

In October 2002, prior to then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s meeting with then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin at the APEC summit, Mr. Day co-sponsored a House of Commons motion that eventually led to the release of several Falun Gong practitioners in China. Conservative MP Scott Reid had introduced the motion to ask Mr. Chrétien to raise the issue of 13 jailed practitioners who had close Canadian family ties. The motion passed unanimously.

Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC) is also seeking the release of all supporters and defenders of Falun Gong, in particular renowned lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gao Zhisheng, who has been severely tortured and whose cause was recently championed by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler.

In 2006, en route to the APEC conference in Vietnam, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government will uphold “important Canadian values” in the context of human rights and “not sell that out to the almighty dollar.”

These words were “very encouraging for all the people suffering in China. We are hoping our government will stay true to the words,” said FDAC spokesperson Lucy Zhou.

Falun Gong Reports Persecution to the U.N.

By Arleen Freeman
Epoch Times Staff Mar 31, 2009

L–R: FLGHR European delegate, Mr Yang Liu; torture victim Haiyan Wang; U.N. Arbitrary Detention group Chairwoman-Rapporteur Ms. Manuela Carmena Castrillo (Spain); witness Yu Wang, U.N. Special Rapporteur Mr. Philip Alston (Australia); FLGHR Chairman, Dr (Courtesy of Falun Gong Human Rights)

Brainwashing, beatings, torture, and death in custody are what Falun Gong practitioners reported to the United Nations Human Rights Council at its March session.

The United Nations held the 10th U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva March 2-27. An organization called Falun Gong Human Rights (FLGHR) arranged for a number of Falun Gong practitioners who the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had persecuted to attend the meeting. They told their stories, thus helping the listeners to understand the brutality the CCP committed against them.

Delegates from numerous governments and human rights organizations developed a deeper understanding and many were moved to tears as they listened attentively to the practitioners’ personal stories of torture and abuse.

As the CCP continually denies its severe human rights violations, many do not fully realize the severity and the scale of its persecution of Falun Gong and other groups. When the victims showed the scars from being tortured and discussed their suffering, it helped the U.N. delegates understand the reality taking place in China under the CCP.

One example is Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Haiyan Wang from Guangdong Province. She was a fashion designer, living with her family before the persecution started in 1999. After the persecution started, the CCP detained her six times, put her into a labor camp twice, searched her home twice, and extorted money from her family members twice. In one incident on June 13, 2002, when she distributed materials about Falun Gong in a shopping center, 610 officers beat her and threw her to the ground, causing damage to her right eye and her brain. The 610 office was created by the CCP to oversee the wide scale effort to persecute Falun Gong.

She lost consciousness, but the police did not send her to the hospital. Instead, they took her back to the detention center to continue persecuting her. When they finally hospitalized her the next morning, the doctor found her eye tissue had been bruised, she had lost hearing in her left ear, and she suffered pain and partial paralysis in her legs. The doctor recommended immediate hospitalization, but the CCP, afraid that she would expose their torture of her, pulled out the IV and oxygen tube and brought her back to the Guangzhou Dongshan Detention Center.

Ms. Wang’s ordeal continued until 2005, when she managed to escape on foot to Thailand and eventually to the United States. Due to the lack of medical attention, she became permanently blind in her right eye.

Ms. Wang nearly died four times; the CCP forced her husband to divorce her and extorted 17,000 yuan from her family; yet even in Thailand, she spent 408 days in the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok.

When Haiyan Wang told the delegates about her and her fellow practitioners’ experiences, many of them were moved to tears.

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Hongchang Liu was detained seven times. On Feb. 9, 2001, the police beat him so severely that they broke his ribs. He managed to escape from prison, and remained homeless to avoid arrest. After being homeless for 97 days, they found and arrested him, sentencing him to five years in prison.

During those five years, Mr. Hongchang suffered beatings, brainwashing, and torture. He was also a witness when five Falun Gong practitioners, who had been detained with him, were tortured to death.

New Zealand practitioner Ms. Yu Wang appealed for her mother Ms. Lijin Zhu, who was arrested on Feb. 1, 2009. She is being held in the Banqiao woman’s labor camp in Tianjin.

Dr. Shizhong Chen, Chairman and spokesperson for FLGHR, introduced the victims to many U.N. delegates. Dr. Chen pointed out that very few manage to escape from China as Ms. Haiyan Wang and Mr. Hongchang Liu did. Out of a population of 1.4 billion, nearly one thousand practitioners who the CCP has persecuted have escaped. Every one of them witnessed their fellow Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted or even tortured to death.

Likewise, there are several thousand overseas Falun Gong practitioners like Yu Wang, whose family members have been persecuted in China. As this suggests how extensive the persecution really is, Dr. Chen appealed to the U.N. that society should help Falun Gong practitioners, because they are the defenders of human conscience.