By Feiming

(Clearwisdom.net) According to the news web site Epochtimes, at 9:30 a.m. on September 29, plainclothes policemen and citizens who appealed for help clashed in front of the appeals office.

According to the report, the police at the Appeal Offices of the State Department and National People's Congress are the most infamous for violence. They were in riot gear and unrelenting in trying to stop people from appealing. A great number of policemen and plainclothes officers were in the lane approaching the two appeals offices. It was said that the courtyards of the two appeal offices are very large, and can contain one thousand people. There were at least four to five hundred plainclothes policemen sitting on metal stools in the yard each day. People who went to appeal said, "There were more police who tried to stop us from appealing than the people going to appeal."

The two major appeal offices are that of the State Department and the National People's Congress. Under to the Chinese Constitution, if a citizen has a grievance that can't be solved locally, he or she can appeal to higher authorities for help. These two appeal offices are the highest level in China. Recently, "intercepting appealers" is becoming a hot buzzword. What this really means is that policemen in Beijing and in other areas block off people wishing to appeal, and send them to their hometowns for persecution.

Actually, this phenomenon is not new. Since July 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began, many Falun Gong practitioners have appealed to the "Two Appeal Offices" in Beijing, as stipulated under existing law. They were arrested and brutally beaten by the police and officials in Beijing and other cities. Most of them were taken to their area offices, which are based in Beijing. There they were tortured and then sent back to their hometowns for further persecution. They were cruelly beaten, money was extorted from them, and they were detained in forced labor camps. This kind of persecution has now been extended to the greater populace of China.

Because the authorities forcibly relocated Ye Guodong's residence, Ye Guodong has become destitute and homeless. He said in an interview, "My home was near the 'Two Appeal Offices.' Four to five years ago, I saw police barbarically arresting and beating Falun Gong practitioners. They came to eat at my restaurant, and asked my son to beat two female Falun Gong practitioners who were cuffed together. I told my son that we would not do such an immoral thing. I could not stand for it, and quarreled many times with the police. However, now it is my turn to be mistreated like that."

Some ordinary people feel the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners has nothing to do with them. Some accept as truth all sorts of slanderous propaganda about Falun Gong by the Jiang regime. But this latest development made us realize that Jiang's regime is extending what they are doing to the Falun Gong practitioners to the general public. When justifying the persecution against Falun Gong, the authorities have the freedom to charge them with just about anything. Others are now also charged indiscriminately and suffering from persecution.

When the appealers clashed with the plainclothes policemen, those ordinary people were simply defending themselves against injustice. The Falun Gong practitioners' behavior is always peaceful and non-violent, and their sacrifices are not for themselves. Their acts and deeds are for the sentient beings to benefit from "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance."

Posting date: 10/20/2004
Original article date: 10/20/2004
Category: Open Forum
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/30/85390.html

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