Press Release: Appellate Brief In Falun Gong v. Jiang Zemin Filed January 20, 2004 In 7th Circuit Court
From Falun Gong plaintiffs' attorney Terri Marsh January 20, 2004 Imagine an injury has occurred, for example the holocaust in Nazi Germany,
and in spite of the tremendous loss of life and cost to the community of man, it
is surrounded in a shroud of silence. The victims, thousands upon thousands or
perhaps millions upon millions, cannot speak, and even if they could speak no
one would hear what they say. There is not a shroud of evidence. Indeed no one
outside of Germany knows of the camps, the terror and the tragedy. Indeed many
claim that the holocaust did not occur precisely because of the silence which
surrounds it. But of course the holocaust occurred. It's just that it occurred
within the context of what Jacques Lyotard has terms "The Differand."
An injury which renders the victims voiceless because they do not have the means
to report it or seek redress in a court of law. This is exactly the situation in China today. A genocidal holocaust has been
launched against those who embrace the spiritual path of Falun Gong in China
today. To say or speak the words "Compassion, Tolerance, and
Truthfulness" is a crime in China, which brings up to 18 years of jail
time, murder by torture, and other forms of torture so brutal as to render them
virtually beyond belief. Infants are tortured as are young mothers, young
children, the elderly, the strong and able. No one is excluded. The predicate
(a.k.a. ticket of entry) is quite simple - the belief that by being kinder, by
showing compassion to one's fellow man, by being tolerant of others' mistakes
and foibles, one is a far better and more enlightened person. Difficult to
imagine and even harder to believe! As many have observed, in China when SARS began to spread and infect the
population, the officials were told, 'Wherever SARS pops up, the officials in
charge there will be immediately dismissed.' So no officials dare to report it.
Just like that, SARS has disappeared. But of course SARS won't disappear merely because the Chinese officials don't
report its occurrence. Nor will the persecution of Falun Gong in China disappear
because no one is permitted to report it. This lawsuit is about the persecution of Falun Gong in China and the shroud
of silence, which continues to surround it. To date thousands of persons have
been jailed illegally, placed in labor camps without trial, force feds with
saline solutions, which rupture lungs and tear stomach walls, injected with
psychotropic drugs, which kill the person while leaving the body intact. The persecution of Falun Gong in China is just that ¨C an assault on human
persons by forcing them to renounce their beliefs or else endure what no living
person can endure. The genocide in China today is a deadly assault which kills
the person while leaving his or her body intact. Today we are here in Chicago to try to lift the veil of silence which
surrounds the persecution of Falun Gong in China; to give the victims of the
persecution their day in court as promised to them by several treaties ratified
by the United States.. More particularly, we filed an appeal today in the 7th Circuit
Court of Appeals asking the panel of Judges to reverse the opinions of the
District Court dismissing the case on the grounds of head of state immunity. We
contend Most importantly, our argument regarding the nonimmunity status of defendant
Jiang is based on U.S. and International law and can be reduced quite simply to
a balancing test. On the one side we have the divine rights of kinds, the notion
that the king is above the law, the more modern view that a head of state must
perform certain stately or sovereign functions while in power which may be
diminished by subjecting him or her to lawsuit. On the other side, we have the
dignity of the human person, the fundamental human rights of all persons to be
free from torture and genocide. The modern notions of equality before the law -
that no one, not even a king is above the law and can commit genocide with
impunity. Even if we allow that a head of state must perform sovereign functions while
in office and that such functions are diminished by exposure to lawsuit, still
in the context of a former head of state, no longer performing the functions of
the sovereign, there are no countervailing reasons not to go forward with the
case. Immunity does not exonerate a head of state from civil and criminal
responsibility. Immunity is not the equivalent of impunity. Once he or she
leaves office, as a former head of state, he is fair game. Defendant Jiang has
left office. He is no longer immune from suit. The case should proceed to
adjudication. No one should be permitted to assault the community of man by the
commission of genocide and torture with impunity. As Justice Jackson, the United States prosecutor at Nuremberg stated,
"if certain acts in violations of [the law] are crimes, they are crimes, no
matter who commits them."
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