(Clearwisdom.net) On Wednesday October 15 at Spain's National Court, La Audiencia Naciaonal, Falun Gong practitioners launched a lawsuit against the ex-president of China Jiang Zemin, charging him with crimes of torture and genocide in his persecution of Falun Gong.

According to a report from The Epoch Times, lawyer Carlos Iglesias formally handed the penal lawsuit against the ex-president of China Jiang Zemin and the head of the "610 Office" Luo Gan to the Spanish Court in Madrid on October 15. The lawsuit charged them with torture and genocide. After the lawsuit was handed in, the lawsuit complainants and the lawyer held a press conference.

According to a report from Reuters, lawyer Carlos Iglesias gave the following statement at the press conference: "Because of Jiang Zemin's crimes of torture and genocide against Falun Gong, he has been sued today. In the last 4 years, what is probably the biggest violation of human rights since the Second World War has been occurring in China."

He went on to say, "The purpose of this lawsuit is to stop the persecution and guarantee that the crimes committed against Falun Gong practitioners will receive appropriate punishment. Since the start of the persecution in 1999, there have been between 800 and 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners tortured to death and approximately 200,000 sent to labor camps."

The lawsuit had 15 complainants from China, USA, Australia, Belgium and Spain. One of the complainants, Australian citizen Zhizhen Dai, said that her husband was murdered two and a half years ago merely because he went to Beijing to hand in a letter saying that Falun Gong is good. He was detained, jailed, tortured and then murdered by the Chinese police. This lady held her 3-year-old daughter and told her stories to the media via translation.

Reuters said that according to Spanish law, the judge has the right to hear about lawsuits concerning worldwide human rights violations. The prosecutors hoped to take advantage of this point to sue Jiang Zemin. The court that received the lawsuit has a judge called Baltasar Garzon who is famous for his role in the trial of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

http://clearharmony.net/articles/200310/15750.html

Posting date: 10/21/2003
Original article date: 10/20/2003
Category: Falun Dafa Worldwide

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