Hello, and welcome to the FGMtv news review. I'm Susan Mitchell.

§ Here at FGMtv we focus on programs and news that illuminate the truth of Falun Gong, which is also known as Falun Dafa; information that is having an impact on the international community of spiritual cultivators.

§ Falun Dafa is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that includes exercise and meditation. Its principles are based on Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance.

§ The practice began in China in 1992 and quickly spread by word of mouth throughout the country.

§ In 1998, a government survey concluded that the number of practitioners exceeded membership in the communist party.

§ The next year, Jiang Zemin, the President of China, began a brutal persecution that violates not only the Chinese constitution, but also international treaties signed by China

In this week's update from China…

§ 610 Falun Gong practitioners are confirmed to have died from torture while in custody, with 38 death reports received in the last 12 days. Reliable sources inside China, however, put the actual death count in the thousands.

§ In the last 7 days, torture reports have come in from 16 provinces, including the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Changchun.

§ 1,037 people declared as null and void, statements saying they will give up Falun Gong that were made while undergoing torture as they were the result of extreme coercion. They say they will continue practicing Falun Gong.

Our top story this week:

736 Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted to the extreme at China's second largest oil field in Shandong province.

And some of our other stories:

§ Australian government takes steps to deport to China, an elderly Falun Gong couple who have previously been tortured there.

§ Christine Loftus interviews Sterling Campbell, drummer for recording artist David Bowie.

§ 1,000 attend European Falun Dafa Experience-Sharing Conference in Geneva

Incomplete Statistics from the Shengli Oil Field in China, where at least 736 practitioners have been persecuted and illegally fined almost 300,000 Yuan

§ Under very risky conditions, a few practitioners at the Shengli Oil Field in Shandong province have attempted to investigate the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners there. The result is not yet a complete survey, but it demonstrates the enormous scale and the irrational severity of the persecution of workers inside just one enterprise.

§ The names you see on your screen are the names of the 736 people known to have been persecuted at this oil refinery. Innocent people, persecuted for their beliefs by their government, in violation of their country's constitution and intenational human rights treaties that their government has signed.

§ The Shengli Oil Field of the China Petroleum Company is China's second largest oil field. It is situated in Dongying City of Shandong Province, and is made up of more than 40 subsidiary units. A total of 200,000 people work there.

§ In the Level 2 Units where the survey was conducted, it was determined that 1 person was murdered, 3 were illegally sentenced to prison terms, 57 were sent to forced labor camps, 142 were detained without reason, 5 healthy people were forcibly incarcerated in mental institutions, 67 had their homes ransacked, 77 escaped by leaving their homes and families, and 383 were illegally kidnapped, subjected to surveillance, or sent to brainwashing centers.

§ These innocent workers were not only physically abused. They were also illegally fined a total of 292,742 Yuan. The monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan.

§ If the level 2 units are just one subset of 40, this means that at least 1 out of every six workers at this oil refinery has been persecuted in some way.

§ On March 11^th, Associated Press in Beijing, reported that China's top law enforcement officials promised to redouble their efforts to crush Falun Gong activists and others who they say t