China Crisis News Bulletin #52
"Instead
of strengthening China, in the long run this crackdown fatally weakens
China, complicates its foreign relations, and undermines its standing
amongst ordinary Chinese citizens. If China wishes for the world's
respect, then it must respect the heartfelt beliefs of its own
citizens." - Rabbi David
Saperstein, Past Chair of US Commission on International Religious
Freedom, Director of the Religious Action Center of the Reform Judaism á CHINA
CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #52á 7/27/2000
Monitoring News of the Persecution of
Falun Gong
FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER
- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng
Yuan 917-734-6913, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com
or usinfo@falundafa.org
á BEIJING, July 26, 2000, -- (AP) A
follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group choked to death while in
detention after police forcibly fed her to end her hunger strike, a human
rights group said Wednesday. Elementary school teacher An Xiukun, 50, was
arrested June 6 while protesting a ban on the group in Beijing's Tiananmen
Square, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy said. An Xiukun, who was being held at a detention center near
her home in Hengshui in central China's Hebei province, launched a hunger
strike to protest being shackled, the group said. Six days into the
protest, guards forced food down her throat, causing her to choke, the
center said An is the 25th Falun Gong follower to die in detention
since the government banned the sect a year ago, the center said.
á HONG KONG, July 26 - (AFP) ...
Police in Hengshui refused to comment on the case. Zhang Qizeng, An
Xiukun's husband, was subsequently arrested on July 20 and sentenced
without trial to three years reform through labor for protesting the
manner in which his wife died ... After continued protests while in
detention, police bound her feet with wire, the center said, resulting in
her hunger strike. She had practiced Falungong for three years... The
center estimates some 10,000 Falungong followers have been sentenced
without trial to the administrative punishment of
"reform-through-labor," with Falungong followers in every one of
the nation's 300 labor camps. Meanwhile some 450 Falungong followers and
leading members of the group have been sentenced in Chinese courts to up
to 18 years imprisonment, the center said, while over 600 followers have
been detained in mental institutes.
á PEKING, 23 July 2000 --
(UK-Independent) For China's leaders, the Falun Gong campaign of civil
disobedience is a problem that will just not go away. Police officers and
security forces in every province face the threat of demotion if they do
not control people from their province travelling to Peking. Yet still
they come, mostly middle-aged and educated, quietly angry that the
government has outlawed a belief they credit with rejuvenating their lives
and curing ailments... A Chinese film director in Peking said: "I
don't believe in Falun Gong, but religious belief is a basic human right.
The government response has been excessive, not strictly legal."
Despite the sensitivity of the subject matter, he intends making a
documentary about the followers. "When I see them being dragged away,
they are not frightened like most Chinese would be. It seems that their
sacrifice is meant to show their dedication."
á BEIJING, Jul 24, 2000 -- (AFP) The
Chinese government is prepared to incarcerate and maltreat thousands of
followers of the Falungong because it sees the spiritual movement as a
real political threat, analysts said. Events in Tiananmen Square in the
heart of Beijing on Saturday, the one-year anniversary of the government's
ban on the movement, show the extent to which Chinese authorities are
willing to go in their crackdown. At least 100 Falungong members were
arrested while protesting in the square, and some were beaten and kicked
bloody, as tourists and other visitors looked on Daily demonstrations
in Tiananmen Square show the Falungong still has a firm grip on millions
of people, even after one year of incessant propaganda attacks from the
government... "It's seen as a threat because it exposes failures on
the part of the (communist) party," said Joseph Cheng, a political
scientist at the City University of Hong Kong. "It reflects
weaknesses in the party, its inability to mobilize, its inability to
command loyalty, its inability to fill the emotional needs of the
people." The fact that many retired communist cadres are among the
Falungong's members also goes to underline that the movement is better
able to command hearts and minds than the ruling party... "The
[communist] regime does not accept erosion of its monopoly of power and
its control of the ideological orientation of the people," said
Cheng.
á As thousands of Falun Gong
practitioners in locations ranging from Auckland to Taipei to Stockholm to
New York held candlelight vigils in front of their local mainland Chinese
embassies, human rights leaders denounced China's abuses at a July 20th
Washington press conference:
á Mark
Palmer, Vice Chairman of Freedom House, a leading human rights
organization I think
each era since the Second World War, each decade, has been defined, and is
identified with a peaceful, nonviolent movement... I want to say in all
seriousness that I believe your movement, the Falun Gong, is the movement
which will define our time, at the beginning of the 21st century. I think
that when people look back, they will say: "Oh yes, there was Gandhi,
there was the American Civil Rights movement, there was Solidarity, and
then there was the Falun Gong. There was a movement that came out China
that defined its era, and ultimately it was successful."
á Rabbi
David Saperstein, Past Chair of US Commission on International Religious
Freedom, Director of the Religious Action Center of the Reform Judaism From
slavery in Egypt through the gas chambers in Nazi Germany, to the efforts
at spiritual annihilation of the Jews under the regime of the Soviet Union
using many of the same tactics [being used by against Falun Gong by
China]. Ultimately religious freedom is the litmus test for the decency,
the openness, the freedoms, the democracy of any nation, anywhere across
the globe. On that test, China has failed miserably, identified by the
United States as one of the seven countries involved in egregious systemic
religious persecution Falun Gong has become a symbol of the struggle
for religious freedom in China and elsewhere, [but] China has nothing
to fear from peaceful practitioners if they just let them live out their
lives without government interference and oppression.
á MEDIA ADVISORY: In
recent weeks there have been several misleading and confusing reports from
Hong Kong featuring interviews with people who claim to be Falun Gong or
Falun Dafa practitioners. These people have made threats to local
authorities, and, in some instances, even threatened suicide. They are not
legitimate practitioners, nor are they speaking according to the
principles of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa. Certain individuals seem to be
using Falun Dafa to achieve personal goals or draw attention to
themselves. The Falun Dafa Information Center would be happy to brief
journalists on this issue, which has led some media outlets to speculate
that this self-styled Falun Gong group is actually working with Chinese
government intelligence agencies.
á NEW PUBLICATION AVAILABLE: "The
Falun Dafa Quarterly," a journal for community leaders and
concerned individuals. Contact the Falun Dafa Information Center for a
complimentary copy for the media.
á FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE
CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER -
Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan
917-734-6913, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com
or usinfo@falundafa.org
PRACTITIONER SUFFOCATED BY POLICE; HUSBAND
SENTENCED TO 3 YEARS WITHOUT TRIAL FOR PROTESTING HER DEATH
POLICE REACTION: "NO COMMENT"
ANALYSIS: STRONG-ARM POLICE FAIL TO ERASE FALUN
GONG SMILES
CHINESE GOVERNMENT SEES FALUN GONG AS POLITICAL
THREAT
HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS ANALYZE CHINA'S CRACKDOWN;
DENOUNCE TACTICS
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