Falun
Gong is freely practised in 40 countries around the world, but relentlessly
persecuted in China. The peaceful courage of practitioners there has shocked
their oppressors and moved the people of the world. While China continues to
block all information, FGMTV brings you the stories you may not hear anywhere
else.
Hello,
and welcome to FGMTV on October 30th, 2001.
I’m Susan Mitchell.
Some of our stories
this week:
§ Parliamentarians, Bishops and City officials throughout
Europe, Canada and the United States register strong condemnation of China's
treatment of Falun Gong
§ An Italian businessman loses company in China for
practising Falun Gong.
§ Canadian Prime Minister Chrétien and US President Bush
bring up the Falun Gong issue at APEC meetings
§ A recently released report concludes that
Nortel, formerly the largest telecommunications company in Canada, is helping
the Chinese government build "the Greata Firewall of China". One
reason for this is seen to be a further repression of political dissidents using
the Internet. The Falun Gong websites, including ClearWisdom.net and its
Chinese counterpart, MingHui.org are among sites blocked from Chinese Internet
users.
In this week's update from China:
§
The number of Falun Gong practitioners verified to have died
while in detention is 304 as of today, although government sources in China say
that the actual number exceeds one thousand.
§
The '610 Office' in Shijiazhuan City in
China is promoted from being an affiliated office to becoming a standing
department.
§
An elderly couple go to visit their
23-year-old daughter in a detention centre only to discover she had died that
morning from force feeding
§
On National Day in China, hundreds of
practitioners are arrested, but also, thousands of flyers are distributed, stickers
posted, and banners fly throughout cities across the country telling the truth
of Falun Dafa.
§
Officials of the Jilin Province Female
Labor Camp in Changchun city refuse to comply with Ministry of Justice
instructions prohibiting physical and verbal abuse of Falun Gong practitioners
and extending their sentences.
§
Details of what happens to practitioners
who publish their names in Falun Gong literature in China
and…
Although
China claims to be eradicating Falun Gong, In the Past Ten Months, Over 41,500 People Have Published
Solemn Declarations on Minghui Net, the Chinese counterpart of Clearwisdom Net.
These are declarations declaring null and void the so-called "Guarantees
to stop practising" that they were pressured to sign while illegally
detained by Chinese authorities.
In
the last 7 days, we have received almost two dozen letters of support,
proclamations and certificates from kind-hearted government officlals
throughout the United States, France, The Netherlands, Australia, and Great
Britain.
As well,
there were questions raised in the Irish Parliament about the current state of
imprisoned PhD student, Zhao Ming. The reply was as follows: During the recent
visit of Premier Zhu Rongji, I met with senior members of the Chinese
delegation, including Foreign Minister Tang.
Human
rights were raised by the Taoiseach in an open and frank way during his private
meeting with the Premier and during the plenary meeting with the Chinese
delegation, which both Foreign Minister Tang and I attended. The Taoiseach set
out Ireland's concerns, in particular in relation to the treatment of Falun
Gong practitioners. The Taoiseach took the opportunity to raise the case of Mr.
Zhao Ming, the Trinity College student currently detained in China. The Premier
undertook to raise this case with the judicial authorities on his return to
China, and the Government has been assured that this has been done. We will
continue to closely monitor the situation.
EFDIC
- On 8th October, Alfredo Favo Minor, General Manager of a fabrics company in
Shanghai arrived at Shanghai airport from Italy as he had done numerous times
before, but within an hour and a half, he was deported back to Italy. His only
" crime " was that the participated in a rally in Rome two weeks
earlier for the human rights of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China.
He has since been blacklisted.
Mr
Favo-Minor owns and runs a successful business in China which he founded six
years ago with great courage and foresight. He is a great enthusiast of Chinese
culture, has a wife of Chinese origin and employs 35 people in Shanghai. He has
been awarded the honour of "Model Foreign Investor" by the local
authority.
Mr
Favo-Minor's plight shows that China's regime of terror is much closer to the
people in Europe than we might have thought before; that a European citizen may
lose his property--even his livelihood-- in China for exercising his freedom of
expression and belief; and that a European may have to abandon his belief and
conscience in order to be allowed to run his business in China.
During the last week, 2 new websites have
been introduced on the Clear Harmony website: one Swedish and one French.
They
will provide readers with information about Falun Gong, the brutal persecution
of practitioners in China, and about Falun Gong in Europe as well as the
support from European countries.
During
the Falun Dafa Rally in Rome, Italy, two government officials offered their
heartfelt support. The first is a speech given by Gustavo Selva, Chair of the
Foreign Affairs Office of the Italian parliament. He said, " We feel
encouraged by the peaceful demonstrations by Falun Gong. Thus we need to
support them more. We feel that our support should be of a moral responsibility,
rather than simply a political one. We believe that your belief, freedom and
respect for civilization will win. We should avoid letting business be the only
link between nations and their peoples. Instead, first of all we should all
show respect to ...We should create a society within which individual beliefs
and freedom are respected. In the end I would like to emphasize that I will
continue supporting the battle to win the freedom of speech and beliefs."
The second is a statement from D'Amico
Natale, who was the first Italian Member of Parliament to sign the resoution
condemning China). He said, " We should respect people's belief and
freedom of speech. I would like to emphasize that the current persecution
towards Falun Gong by the Chinese government is a disaster for the whole of
mankind. I am in support of the resolution, in which the Italian government is
requested to apply pressure to China in order to help the Falun Gong members to
regain their freedom of belief and speech."
Shijiazhuang
City Government Issues a Secret Document: "610 Office" is Promoted into
a Standing Department from an Affiliated Office
Shijiazhuang
City "610 Office" (an agency specifically created to persecute Falun
Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and
all other political and judiciary systems) formerly was a temporarily
affiliated office at the city government level. The office has committed many
crimes. Recently, Shijiazhuang City's government authorized organizational committees
in every district to promote the vicious "610 Office" from an
affiliated office to "610 Standing Department." Every year the
government would allocate activity fees and appoint special personnel to
"to carry out special tasks."
Shijiazhuang
City, Hebei Province: About 8 p.m. on October 5, without proper legal
documents, several dozen police officers from the East Street Police Station
broke into a practitioner's home in Yudong District. They tried to break
through the door to kidnap the practitioner, but the practitioner didn't
cooperate with them. Since the police could not pry the door open, these
ruffians unlocked the door with a master key and broke in. The commanding
officer, Li, kicked the practitioner's 70 years-old mother on her chest. She passed
out
immediately
and was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. The practitioner escaped.
The
truth-clarifying booklet "The True Story of Falun Gong," contains an
article entitled, "Hangzhou City Falun Gong Contact Person, Wang Dawu,
sent Explanatory Letter to CCTV about its broadcast of a fabricated story
called 'Three Reports of The Crimes of Illegal Falun Gong Publications were
Tracked Down." In the letter he wrote, "It is not easy to tell the
truth. Sometimes we must pay for it. I have a 70-year-old mother and a
3-year-old child. Considering the current situation in China, perhaps I will be
detained when I publish this letter. But after I thought it over thoroughly, I
thought I should come out and speak the truth."
Afterwards,
for telling the truth, he was arrested and sent to a labor camp. He was
sentenced to two years of forced labor to begin with. As he refused to slander
Dafa, his detention sentence was extended to three years. His wife was also
sentenced to two years of forced labor. His mother and father had to take care
of their 3-year-old child. His father-in-law is very old and his mother-in-law
is paralyzed.
158 Female Dafa Practitioners in Wanjia Labor Camp Hold a
Memorial Ceremony for Fellow Practitioners Tortured to Death
Earlier
this year, the international media reported on mass killing of Falun Dafa
practitioners in Wanjia Labour Camp. The following report has been smuggled out
of the camp:
September
29, 2001 marked the 100th day after Falun Dafa practitioners Zhao Yayun, Zhang
Yulan and Li Xiuqin were tortured to death. All 158 Dafa practitioners
illegally detained in Team 7 of Wanjia Labor Camp, except for the eleven
practitioners held in solitary confinement after emergency treatment, held a
memorial ceremony for all the Dafa practitioners who had lost their lives while
safeguarding Dafa.
The
ceremony was solemn. The doors of each cell were opened. Practitioners were
neatly dressed, with white flowers pinned on their chests. They stood quietly
and shed tears as the memorial speech was given.
This
memorial was held in our ward. We had planned collectively to hold it on the
playground or in the dining hall, but because the imprisoned Dafa practitioners
were deprived of their freedom, we had to fulfill our wish to mourn for the
fellow practitioners in the restricted wards.
The
eleven Dafa practitioners who survived that torture have been held in solitary
confinement in harsh conditions over the past 100 days. We are deeply concerned
about them.
Shijiazhuang
City Government Issues a Secret Document:
Shijiazhuang
City "610 Office" (an agency specifically created to persecute Falun
Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and
all other political and judiciary systems) formerly was just a temporarily
affiliated office at the city government level. The office has committed many
crimes. Recently, Shijiazhuang City's government authorized organizational
committees in every district to promote the vicious "610 Office" from
an affiliated office to "610 Standing Department." This means that
every year, the government would allocate activity fees and appoint special
personnel to "carry out special tasks."
Also
in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province: About 8 p.m. on October 5, without proper
legal documents, several dozen police officers from the East Street Police
Station broke into a practitioner's home in Yudong District. They tried to
break through the door to kidnap the practitioner, but he didn't cooperate with
them. Since the police could not pry the door open, they unlocked the door with
a master key and broke in. The commanding officer, Mr. Li, kicked the
practitioner's 70 year-old mother on her chest. She passed out immediately and
had to be sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. The practitioner
escaped.
Moving
now to Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province
A
reliable source has reported that starting around October 12th,
Harbin City started implementing a new policy on persecuting Falun Gong. This
policy was issued directly by Jiang Zemin to the Party Committee of
Heilongjiang Province. It states that because the APEC [Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation] Convention was being held in Shanghai, all Falun Dafa
practitioners within the region must be arrested. More than ten Falun Dafa
practitioners have been arrested in Harbin City alone and at least two homes
that were used to produce Falun Dafa literature and CDs have been destroyed.
and over to Qingdao City, Shandong Province.
Starting
on October 1st, 2001, authorities began to hold continuous brainwashing classes
in the Sixth Rubber Factory. It was reported that they were unable to force
Falun Dafa practitioners to renounce their beliefs, even though some of them
were beaten many times to the extent that some had to get more than ten
stitches to close wounds to their heads.
In
Canada, the Montreal Gazette reported last week that Nortel, formerly Canada's
largest telecommunications company appears to have compromised its Internet
privacy statement by helping the Chinese government develop "The Great
Firewall of China".
According
to a report released by Warren
Allmand, a former Canadian Federal government Cabinet minister and now
president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development,
Nortel and other firms are helping China to build "a more sophisticated
system of content filtration at the individual level," and that
"Old-style censorship is being replaced with a massive, ubiquitous
architecture of surveillance. The report is titled China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance
Technology in the People's Republic of China. Ultimately, the aim is to
integrate a gigantic online database with an all-encoumpassing surveillance
network."
That
network would include speech and face recognition, closed-circuit television,
smart cards, credit records and Internet surveillance technologies.
Nortel
has lost billions of dollars in the past months and has been forced to lay off
thousands of staff. The principle that good will be rewarded with good and evil
will suffer retribution is universal.
A
few weeks ago, we reported that in 7 days, we received information that 7
practitioners had been murdered in custody and that during the same 7 days – in
different areas of the country – the sudden deaths of 7 officials who had
viciously persecuted Falun Gong were also made public.
In
the last 7 days, the death count of officials who have persecuted Falun Gong is
higher than the number of practitioners tortured to death.
Because
of time limitations, we have not provided many accounts of officials who have
been seriously injured or who have suffered major personal calamities and
family tragedies. However, there are many such reports like two received this
week. Chen Jishun, a villager from Leiyin village, Lian County of Pengzhou City
in Sichuan Province who burned his mother's Falun Dafa books and shortly
afterwards had four of his fingers cut off by a chainsaw while doing carpentry
work.
It
seems that the heavenly principle that good will be rewarded with good and evil
with evil is not limited to the person alone, but extends to their family
members. For instance, while the chief authority in charge of persecuting Falun
Dafa practitioners in Anzhuan Town, Feiching City of Shandong province was
preparing for his son's wedding, the son, Gau Haisheng, was electrocuted to
death during a working shift at the Shiheng Electricity Power Plant.
And our final story this week:
China has bragged that it is eradicating Falun Gong, but
Statistics
show that between early January and October 29, 2001, over 41,500 people have
published Solemn Declarations on Minghui Net the Chinese counterpart of
Clearwisdom Net. These people declared in their statements that the
brainwashing done by Jiang Zemin's regime is null and void. In addition, they
stated that they will resume their practice of Falun Gong.
In Mainland China, Jiang Zemin's regime
strictly blocks the Internet and controls email at all costs. Even in such an
environment, every day an average of 143 people have successfully published
their solemn declarations on Minghui Net. They have overcome many difficulties
and took the risk of being arrested, sentenced, and tortured to death. This
fact has proved that suppression with violence and brainwashing with force have
failed, thus verifying the famous words of the founder of Falun Gong:
"Coercion Cannot Change People's Hearts."
Thanks for watching FGMTV, dedicated to breaking through China's information blockade, revealing propaganda, and bringing you the truth of Falun Gong.