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Luo Gan Faces Lawsuit in the Republic of Moldova
(Clearwisdom.net) On September 18, the international human rights
organization World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong;
Rescue Our Family Members, and European/St. Petersburg Falun Dafa
Associations filed a class action lawsuit charging Luo Gan with torture,
genocide and other crimes. Luo Gan, head of the Gestapo-like "610
Office,"* is currently visiting Moldova.
During the morning of September 18, representatives from these organizations
filed a lawsuit with Moldova's Prosecutor General in the capital city Chisinau.
The prosecutor, after accepting the legal documents, said he would examine the
case further.
This is the fourth lawsuit since beginning his European visit, charging Luo
Gan with genocide and torture.
Chinese consulate interferes with press conference
The plaintiffs held a press conference the day the lawsuit was filed, but
when the journalists arrived, they were told the room could not be used at the
prearranged time. When asked, the Moldova Department of Foreign Affairs admitted
they received pressure from the Chinese consulate in Moldova.
The Chinese consulate's interference with the press conference surprised the
journalists. They said, "How can China do whatever they want in another
country?" They expressed their intention to report on this incident.
Persecutor and criminal
Luo Gan is one of the chief perpetrators responsible for the persecution of
Falun Gong. He is also the head of the "610 Office," an organization
established by Jiang in 1999 for the sole purpose of persecuting Falun Gong.
Since it does nothing but political persecution, is completely above the law and
does not need to report to other governmental agencies, it shares common traits
with the former "CCP Central Committee Cultural Revolution Leadership
Team," the Nazi Gestapo and the former Soviet Union's KGB. The "610
Office" is under direct control of Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan. It
systematically carries out Jiang's orders to "defame their [Falun Gong
practitioners'] reputations, bankrupt them financially, destroy them
physically." These so-called policies are in connection with the brutal and
systematic persecution spread throughout China and have affected millions of
Falun Gong practitioners' families. In the past four years, the "610
Office" made up countless bloody lies under the direction of Jiang and Luo;
the lies deceived millions of Chinese people and made them fear Falun Gong's
principles of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance. These lies were extremely destructive
to social morality and stability.
Luo Gan actively encouraged the police to use torture. In the past four
years, over 50 types of torture have been commonly used in persecuting Falun
Gong practitioners. Among them: sleep deprivation for several consecutive days
or even more than 15 days; sometimes the police tie up the practitioner in a
crucified style by fixing their hands with two separate handcuffs and deprive
them of sleep for several days that way; suffocating the practitioners by
wrapping their heads in a plastic bag followed by violent beating; "Five
Horses Split The Body" - in this torture method a practitioner is
hung up by the arms and legs, and pulled in four directions; laying
practitioners on the ground and using a knife to scrape their scabies,
inflicting severe pain on them and causing blood to flow everywhere.
The implements used to beat the practitioners include leather straps, metal
sticks, "thistly sticks," bamboo sticks with spikes on them, rubber
clubs, lead pipes with spikes on them; all kinds of handcuffs, shackles; back
shackles, double shackles (the practitioners' hands and feet are cuffed together
and he cannot walk, eat or go to the restroom), "smoke pipe handcuff,"
"wolf" handcuff; dungeons, water dungeons, manure pit, "dead
person's bed," small stools [two inches off the ground], solitary
confinement, metal stools, the Tiger Bench and solitary postures, all used for
torture purposes.
There is also shocking with multiple electric batons for a long period of
time, with the electric batons striking sensitive areas such as their mouths,
chests, underarms, breasts and private areas; forced to wear handcuffs and
shackles of various designs, including ones with spikes on the inside;
handcuffed with hands behind the back; hit with rubber batons and clubs with
sharp spikes; locked in cellars and water chambers; forced to lie down with both
feet and hands tied and not allowed any movement for days; whipped with ropes
made of leather, copper wires, other metal wire; tied up in painful positions;
having sharp objects hammered under their nails; having flesh torn away with
pliers; having their nails torn off with pliers; forced to stay hunched down for
long periods of time; being force-fed water laced with (extremely hot) cayenne
pepper and/or highly-concentrated salt water through plastic tubes.
Additional methods used are having feces shoved down their throats; some who
hold hunger strikes are also tied to a metal bed used for criminals on death row
or locked up in a "strict control room;" doused with cold water in the
winter; being forced to take their clothes off and stand outdoors in the winter
for long periods of time; being forced to stand outside during the height of
summer for long periods of time; not being allowed to use the restroom; injected
and forced to take large amounts of narcotic drugs that damaged their central
nervous system; stabbed with electric needles. The abusers tie up the
practitioners with ropes, hammer nails into the practitioners' fingers, pinch
their flesh with pincers, stick needles in their fingers, drip concentrated acid
into their nostrils. Women practitioners are thrown into male cells and
sometimes raped by police; pregnant practitioners are forced to have an
abortion. The abusers encourage inmates and collaborators to torture the
practitioners by promising sentence reductions, and other base means.
Luo Gan Does Not Qualify for Protection under Vienna Convention
Luo Gan was previously sued in Iceland and Finland. Iceland's national
criminal prosecutor did not accept the case, claiming Luo is protected by
immunity as a visiting foreign official. According to Morton Sklar, executive
director of the World Organization Against Torture, USA and an expert on
criminal immunity, under the Vienna Convention, Luo Gan has no immunity
during his visit this week to Iceland:
"First, he [Luo Gan] does not fit within the very clear categories of
protected officials set out in the Vienna Convention," said Mr.
Sklar. "He is not a head of state or a foreign minister, and is not in
Iceland on a special mission fulfilling ambassadorial duties or even major
governmental functions. As I understand it, he is conducting a review of the
Icelandic legal system. This is not the type of special mission that the Vienna
Convention had in mind covering under immunity protections given only to the
highest level officials visiting, pursuant to special diplomatically linked
missions."
Mr. Sklar continued, "To interpret the Convention otherwise would
mean that virtually all foreign officials were subject to absolute immunity in a
foreign country, which is nowhere near the way the immunity provisions are
interpreted and applied."
Torturers are public enemies
"[F]or purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the
pirate and slave trader before him, hostis humani generis, an enemy of
all mankind," said Irving R. Kaufman, United States District Judge in the
matter of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (2nd Cir. 1980).
U.S. Human Rights Attorney Terri Marsh, lead attorney in a class-action U.S.
lawsuit against former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, and against the "610
Office" stated that as the perpetrator of both genocide and torture against
innocent practitioners of Falun Gong in China, Luo Gan cannot commit crimes of
such terrible magnitude with impunity. He has violated the most sacred
principles of all civilized nations; he has violated Chinese law as well as
international treaties and covenants. There are no moral or legal bases for an
immunity claim in this or any other Chinese official's case. Indeed, the
official position of any person accused of genocide will not relieve him of
criminal responsibility. One may not commit genocide (or) torture without legal
reprisal.
*The "610 Office" is an agency specifically established to
persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in
the Party and all other political and judiciary system.
Posting date: 9/23/2003 |