Belgium: Plaintiff Ms Zhang Cuiying and her Lawyer Hold a Press Conference in Brussels Regarding Lawsuit Against Jiang (Photo)

(Clearwisdom.net, February 22, 2004) On the 13th of February 2004, Australian artist Ms Zhang Cuiying and Belgium human rights lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier held a joint press conference in Brussels, appealing for an immediate end to Jiang Zemin's genocide against Falun Gong practitioners in China and for the upholding of human rights and justice.

Ms Zhang and five other Falun Gong practitioners formally submitted a lawsuit to the Belgium Federal prosecutors against China's former leader Jiang Zemin, his accomplice Luo Gan and former head of the "610 Office" Li Lanqing on the 20th of August 2003, for their crimes of genocide against Falun Gong practitioners, torture, and crimes against humanity.

The press conference was hold in the hall of the Brussels high court. Ms Zhang Cuiying described to the media her eight-month ordeal in a Chinese prison, where she was brutally tortured and abused simply because she is a Falun Gong practitioner.

"In the prison I was violently beaten up whenever I practiced the Falun Gong exercises. The head of the prison and his followers kicked and punched me and threw me to the ground. Even when I could not move because of injury, they still kicked me all over my body. My body became very bruised from the beating. They then forcefully shackled my ankles. They ordered me to kneel down to the prison head. I refused to do so, they told me that they would fabricate materials that would lead to my death and then handcuffed me to the window. Because I did not give up my belief in Falun Gong, they lied to me that they would let me go home. However when I walked past the male prison, a few male guards locked me up in a male prisoners' cell. I was forcibly stripped. Male police officers and prisoners could see us showering and changing clothes through the closed-circuit surveillance television."

Lawyer Beauthier's assistant Ms Suno introduced this lawsuit to the journalist: "The persecution (against Falun Gong practitioners) occurring in China fits exactly the three necessary conditions for the crime of genocide: large scale, seriousness and planned. This lawsuit is about genocide. The persecution in China uses torture and murder, is large-scale and is carried out completely according to Jiang Zemin's plan."

"If this lawsuit succeeds, I think it will have a significant influence. This influence shall benefit the persecuted and will shock the dictators. Let me go back to history. In 1993, Belgium passed a law on Genocide that defined common rules for violating the international laws. This is the first step that the criminals who violated international laws will not escape the punishment. After the law was passed, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was sued in Belgium for violating international law in his own country. This frightened him greatly and he never stepped onto Belgium soil ever since. Therefore from this point of view we think this law indeed gives the dictators great pressure by stopping him from coming to the country where he is sued, thus limiting the influence of the dictators."

Several local and international media outlets attended the press conference.

Source: http://clearharmony.net/articles/200402/17946.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/17/67657.html

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