Falun Gong is freely practiced in more than 50 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 March 26^th, 2002

I’m Susan Mitchell.

In our news this week:

· Over 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested in Changchun and at least 100 murders by police are reported

· University students, non-governmental organizations and labour unions in Canada urge Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to condemn the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong

· Sandstorm blankets the city of Tianjin

· Hong Kong protesters are to go on trial June 17^th to July 7^th

· Over 700 practitioners hold peaceful appeals and activities during the annual UN Human Rights Conference in Geneva

· A Chanchun show trial of 13 practitioners turns into a public torture arena

· The sudden death of a healthy high level government official from Hunan province

· Ms. Cuiying Zhang, a survivor of torture from a Chinese labor camp, holds exhibit of Chinese paintings in Geneva

In this week's update from China…

The number of Falun Dafa practitioners verified to have died while in detention is 387. However, trusted government sources inside China put the actual death count at more than 1,700.

Police in Changchun city go on a rampage after Jiang Zemin orders Falun Gong practitioners to be shot on sight.

Following the interruption of Changchun television programming on March 5^th and 12^th by Falun Gong films exposing the truth of the persecution, trusted sources in China have advised that President Jiang Zemin has instituted extreme measures:

· each of 3,000 policemen has to reach a quota of capturing 5 Falun Gong practitioners

· more than 5,000 have already been arrested in the last two weeks

· multiple witnesses report that over 100 have already been murdered in custody, many by being forced by police to fall from 5^th and 6^th story windows of buildings

· all bodies are to be cremated immediately so that identification is almost impossible

· The two Changchun women practitioners thought to have organized the tapping of the TV station cables may be executed. They are 51-year old Zhou Runjun, and 40-year old Li Yanmei.

· On March 15th, Amnesty International headquarters in London issued an Urgent Action statement for Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun. It stated in part that "Amnesty International believes they are at serious risk of torture or ill-treatment…"

Large march held in Taiwan to bring attention to mass murders by police in Changchun

· Falun Dafa practitioners from the Kaohsiung area of Taiwan held an SOS Urgent Rescue March on March 20, 2002 calling for an end to the mass arrests and bloody killing of Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun, China

· Along the route, practitioners distributed flyers, clarified the truth of the persecution to the onlookers and collected signatures for support.

Hundreds of thousands of University students, NGO’s and Unions urge Canada's Prime Minister to condemn China's persecution of Falun Gong

· The Students' Administrative Council at the University of Toronto representing 33,000 full-time undergraduate recently passed a motion calling on the Canadian government to condemn Jiang's regime's persecution of Falun Gong with a resolution at the UN Human Rights conference in Geneva this year. The council expressed their personal support to this cause and said they would call on other Universities across Canada to also support this action.

· 25 Non-governmental organizations also petitioned Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to sponsor a resolution at the UN Geneva conference.

· Letters from labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of members have also been sent to the Prime Minister.

Sandstorms the worst in a decade

· Last week, Beijing was struck by the worst sandstorm in a decade. This week, Tianjin was the victim. The city's skyline is almost obliterated by the orange sand filling the air.

· Cyclists cover their faces with scarves and surgical masks as they head off to work

On January 23^rd, the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi wrote the following poem, predicting more serious storms to come. It is called

The Catastrophe:

The dark, somber clouds have but a few days left

With the bitter cold fully over, spring now appears

Awakening, the sentient beings stand aghast at the things they see

Half of China Proper covered by sand and dust

58-year old Zheng Peiming, former deputy Party secretary of Hunan Province and deputy director of Hunan Province People's Congress, died suddenly in Beijing during the National People's Congress meeting on March 11^th. News of his death was suppressed until after other meeting delegates returned home March 16^th. Mr. Zheng was a healthy man and his death greatly shocked his colleagues. The teachings of Falun Dafa, like many of the world's great religions, say that good will be rewarded and bad deeds will be punished. As the crackdown against Falun Gong has escalated, so has the death count of officials who carry out Jiang Zemin's illegal orders. Some government officials estimate that now, every three days, 2 policemen die suddenly.

Moving now to Hong Kong for an update on the 16 peaceful protesters who were arrested

• Agence France Presse reported that sixteen Falun Gong members pleaded not guilty to charges of obstruction during a protest in front of Beijing's liaison office in the first Hong Kong prosecution of Falun Gong members.
• The four Swiss nationals and 12 local members all denied causing a public inconvenience after they refused police requests to move to a nearby area to continue their sit-in on March 14.
• Some of the 12 women and four men also faced additional charges of obstructing police officers and assaulting the police officers while being taken into a police van and inside a police station, said Sharon Xu, a spokeswoman from the China-banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
• "The practitioners were disappointed by the charges as they did not constitute an obstruction to anyone," she said. "There is no truth to the charges of assault, and we are still hoping that the police will drop the charges." It’s easy to see from the photographs here who w
• The trial will be held from June 17 to July 2. The Falun Gong protesters were released on bail of between 500 to 1,000 Hong Kong dollars (64 to 128 US).
• It is the first time Falungong practitioners are being prosecuted in Hong Kong since Beijing [started persecuting Falun Gong] in 1999.

And on the other side of the world in Geneva…

more than 700 Falun Gong practitioners held a parade

Thanks for watching FGMTV, dedicated to breaking through China's information blockade, revealing propaganda, and bringing you the truth of Falun Gong.