Groundbreaking Civil Lawsuit Accuses P.R.C. Ministries of Criminal Conduct Across United States
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEááá
April 3, 2002 Contacts: Dana Cheng 703-725-4168 áááááááááááááá
Terri Wu 202-550-0562 áááááááááááááá
Al Whitted 919-641-1134 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a warning shot to the government of the People's Republic of China, 51 United States citizens, residents, and one non-profit organization filed a civil lawsuit today against three PRC state instrumentalities, charging them with a criminal campaign on American soil to intimidate, injure, and suppress practitioners and supporters of Falun Gong. Filed with the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., Jin vs. the Ministry of State Security, et. al., names as defendants the P.R.C. Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security, China Central Television (CCTV), individuals in the Ministries' employ, P.R.C. Embassy and Consulate officials in the United States, various John Doe thugs, and state-owned and private sector business entities. The case is groundbreaking, for there is no legal precedent for a situation where a foreign government has engaged in activities in violation of U.S. laws on a large scale. "The parties to this case decided to go into federal court because they eventually realized that the beatings, the numerous incidents of vandalism, the break-ins, and threats of murder were not isolated events," said Martin F. McMahon, the plaintiffs' legal counsel, in a press conference outside the United States Courthouse today. "Through investigation it was found that they were part of a nationwide criminal campaign, and were all orchestrated by very dedicated and single-minded individuals inside the Embassy here in Washington and the P.R.C. consulates in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco." Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese self-improvement practice of exercise and meditation, popular in some 50 countries around the world. In July of 1999, and after growing in size to nearly 100 million practitioners by government estimates, Falun Gong was declared "illegal" by the P.R.C. government and targeted in a nationwide campaign of eradication. P.R.C. president Jiang Zemin soon ordered the campaign to be taken overseas, including to the United States, where an alarming number of suppressive, and even violent, measures have been documented. The plaintiffs are a testament to the scope of the violations on U.S. soil. These persons range in background from life-long U.S. citizens to Chinese-American permanent residents and to recent immigrants, and represent 16 states across the nation, ranging from rural settings to major metropolitan areas. "Some of them are tired of being beaten up, simply because they have held up signs or spoken their beliefs, others are tired of having their car tires slashed, their car windows broken, and in one case, their car being fire bombed, others are tired of repeatedly reporting to the police multiple apartment break-ins, or receiving death or arson threats, others are tired of having their private and public conversations recorded, or being photographed or videotaped, and all of them are concerned with having their names and their ID's being entered into an international data bank and being labeled 'evil cult' members," Attorney McMahon said in a statement today. The P.R.C. ministries and defendants are being charged with:
Plaintiff Zhan T. Lin, of Illinois, described at today's conference how his life took a change for the worse when his vehicle was torched, leaving nothing but steel and ashes. Lin's car had been regularly used to transport Falun Gong display banners to the Chicago P.R.C. Consulate for protest. The day his car was burned it had numerous Falun Gong materials in it, which were visible through the windows. Plaintiff Terri Wu, of Maryland, found herself targeted by intimidation and by intelligence gathering entities, who surreptitiously recorded her conversations in public with other Falun Gong practitioners, playing them back into her cellular-phone and work voice mails. In one instance, Wu discussed the matter of the recordings with another plaintiff at a local café; when she returned home, that very conversation was played back to her on her home phone. Several other plaintiffs had identical experiences. Plaintiff Al Whitted, of North Carolina, is one of several who were discriminated against by different entities for merely having affiliation with Falun Gong. Whitted and others were invited to participate in the annual Asian Festival of Charlotte, North Carolina, and to demonstrate the exercises of Falun Gong. However, following pressure and threat from the P.R.C. Embassy, the invitation was withdrawn, on grounds that Falun Gong practitioners were not welcome. Other plaintiffs, such as Erping Zhang, of New York, were given multiple death threats. In Zhang's case, a related P.R.C. ministry reportedly hired gangs in the U.S. to assassinate him along with other Falun Gong "assistants," according to Radio Free Asia. Another plaintiff, from Washington, D.C., was assaulted by P.R.C. Embassy thugs who shouted, "You practice Falun Gong, you ask for death!" The lawsuit is not seeking damages, but instead asks the court to declare that the alleged activities are in violation of U.S. law, and to stop the named defendants from continuing their illegal activities.
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