(Clearwisdom.net) We have recently received many letters and calls from audiences in China, saying that TV programs in Mainland China were replaced with Falun Gong programs. On August 15th, for two or three minutes the audience saw a TV program saying that Jiang Zemin is facing lawsuits abroad for persecuting Falun Gong.

TV programs in China were recently tapped into several times

According to a report by Xinhua Net in Beijing on August 15th, a journalist learned from the Ministry of Information Industry Radio Monitoring Center, that at 9:05 p.m. on August 12th and at 8:23 p.m. on August 13th, Falun Gong-related programs appeared successively on China Education TV, CCTV and ten provincial TV stations. This was confirmed by the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Radio Film and Television. Xinhua News Agency didn't reveal the content of the tapped program to the audience.

At around 9:20 p.m. on August 15, a Falun Gong practitioner in China contacted Minghui Net and said he saw Falun Gong-related pictures on TV. "It seems to be saying that Jiang Zemin was being sued abroad."

It was learned that two days ago, the Radio Free Asia broadcast station received phone calls from people in China, saying that at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, 30 minutes of Falun Gong practitioners exercising and other videos were aired on TV in Wuyuan County, Inner Mongolia.

Voice of America was also queried about the tapping incident in Mongolia.

Some people also thought they were watching a rebroadcast with the world-wide broadcasting by NTDTV in North America, since NTDTV broadcasts programs to China, some of which include Falun Gong-related topics.

The lawsuits against Jiang shock Zhongnanhai

In October 2002, eight Falun Gong practitioners in the United States filed a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin with the U.S. Federal District Court in Chicago, accusing Jiang of single-handedly starting and driving the persecution.

According to overseas media, this court case has brought a major shock to Zhongnanhai [the Chinese Central Government compound]. Jiang Zemin and the "610 Office," which was specifically established for persecuting Falun Gong, are currently using diplomatic channels to let the United States and other countries know that "Jiang Zemin is willing to pay any price to prevent this case from being prosecuted."

Some government officials reveal that Chinese diplomatic officials are "very nervous" when expressing Beijing's stance on the U.S.-based lawsuit against Jiang. They are so afraid of making a mistake that they read Beijing's "attitude" word by word by following an official document.

According to private information from an official in a Chinese embassy, orders have been given for the embassy to report all court proceedings and media coverage related to the lawsuit against Jiang "immediately" to the high level officials in Beijing, because the standing committee members of the CCP need to review all such information immediately.

According to a recent report in Epoch Times, an article entitled "10,000 word report: an investigational report of Jiang's history, the time he joined the Party and other issues," appeared on a website in China and shocked the readers. It claims that several items on Jiang's resume submitted to the Party were made up. It is highly unusual that such a report could be published on a website in China. It was learned that a group consisting of high-level Party officials have finished investigating Jiang's personal history. They found that Jiang has played important roles in many of the great lies spread by the Party. Other than Falun Gong, he had ties with the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4th, 1989, some important financial crimes and some international incidents related to Sino-U.S. relations.

Numerous lawsuits against Jiang

News about the lawsuits against Jiang Zemin is blocked in China but it has gained great momentum overseas.

Followed by the filing of the lawsuit against Jiang Zemin in October 2002 in the U.S., in March 2003, Falun Gong practitioners in Switzerland announced their plan to sue Jiang Zemin. On August 1, 2003, practitioners in Canada announced that they were preparing for a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin for his persecution of Falun Gong. On August 9th, Falun Gong practitioners in England announced that they were preparing to sue Jiang.

Moreover, for a lawsuit pending in Australia, a well-known international lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, has agreed to provide help for a lawsuit against Jiang. "Friends of Falun Gong" in Australia published a news release on August 14th: "Zhang Cuiying, a renowned traditional Chinese artist, files a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin because she was brutally tortured and persecuted in China for practicing Falun Gong. A meeting on the Gold Coast last week between Ms. Zhang's legal team - Nyst Lawyers and the UK-based Mr. Robertson, resolved to prosecute the case through a number of

international channels. Mr. Robertson also plans to personally lodge it with the Human Rights Commission within the United Nation in New York."

Mr. Nyst said Ms Zhang's case is "very specific, strong and cogent," adding that "it is an action with a strong chance for success."

Lies cover up the persecution

Beginning in 1996, Falun Gong practitioners' freedom of belief and basic human rights started being violated by Jiang Zemin and his accomplices. After July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan used the government machinery to openly persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

Many firsthand witness accounts of Falun Gong practitioners in China show the policy formulated by Jiang Zemin and "610 Office"* is "defaming their reputation, bankrupting them financially, destroy them physically."

According to verifiable statistics on the Clearwisdom website, during the past four years, more than 760 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of persecution, because they refused to give up the practice of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance. In late October 2001, statistics from the Chinese government show the actual death toll has reached 1,600. At least 6,000 practitioners have been illegally sentenced to prison, and hundreds of thousands of practitioners were sent to labor camps. The tortures used by police and labor camps around the country on these Falun Gong practitioners include long-term sleep deprivation (as long as two weeks or more), shocking practitioners simultaneously with several high-voltage electric batons at sensitive body parts (including the mouth, chest, armpits, breasts and private parts), beating with limbs tied in four opposite directions, and many others.

They also use a dungeon, a water dungeon, the "dead person's bed," sitting on planks to torture practitioners or lock them up in solitary confinement; they force practitioners to sit on metal chairs, subject them to the "tiger bench" (a torture designed to break a person's leg), to do squats for a long period of time. They tie up the practitioners with rope and insert metal nails under the practitioners' fingernails, pinch the practitioners' bodies with pliers, pull out the practitioners' nails with pliers, etc.

According witnesses' accounts, the police followed the policies from Jiang Zemin, that "No law regulates the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners," and "death of Falun Gong practitioners from beating is nothing and shall be counted as suicide; the body shall be directly cremated without investigating the person's identification."

However, all of these brutal facts were covered up by systematic lies originating with Jiang and persons from the "610 Office." TV stations, newspapers and radio broadcasts controlled by the Chinese government continuously demonize the victims. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. Under the "one voice" system in China, in addition to the severe blockade of outside information, many people gradually believed the words of the government, just as back during the numerous political persecutions, many people believed that the people suppressed by the government were against the Party and against the people, and therefore were unpardonable criminals.

Symbolic Public Trial and Lawsuits Abroad

On July 22, 2003, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States held a symbolic public trial of Jiang Zemin in front of Capitol Hill in Washington DC. The public prosecutor said to the audience, "Imagine the despair and anger of a family who knows nothing of what happened to their loved one and has literally nowhere to turn. For the authorities to simply claim they have not killed a single practitioner - they were all supposedly 'suicides or death by natural causes' is incomprehensible, immoral and the worst of the worst behaviors. Police guards burn the flesh, the mouth, the genitals with electric batons, hammering metal spikes under fingernails, whip them with spiked wooden sticks, beat them with metal clubs, sexually humiliate and rape them... the list goes on."

According to a March 20, 2003 report published by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong ("WOIPFG"), "The regime has expended one quarter of China's financial resources to persecute Falun Gong, which is one of the main reasons why the persecution is able to last. This funding comes from diverting foreign investments and Chinese citizens' earnings, as well as the illegal fines forcibly imposed upon Falun Gong practitioners and their family members and work units. A great deal of funding has been allocated to public security, national security, the criminal "610 Office" across the nation, and the foreign affairs department. The sustained defamation campaign and information blockade have cost a great deal of the country's financial resources. This has put tremendous pressure on the livelihoods of people throughout China and brought grave consequences to the nation's economic development."

This persecution against Falun Gong was started by Jiang Zemin, out of personal jealousy, and it is completely based on lies. However, this persecution is again covered up with all kinds of lies. People who dared to learn and speak the truth were brutally persecuted. Some people in Mainland China were sentenced to more than 10 years in prison only because they were suspected of accessing Minghui Net. Overseas Falun Gong practitioners have made tremendous efforts and sacrificed a lot in order to expose and stop this persecution.

Note: The SinoSat satellite was launched in 1998. It serves dozens of important clients, including the "CCT broadcast and TV project" under The State Administration of Radio Film and Television, China Education TV, China National Offshore Oil Corp., China Meteorological Administration, China Unicom, and China Netcom.

*The 610 Office is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political or judicial systems.