From the International Conference on "Genocide in the New Era:" A Tribute To Chinese Mainland Falun Gong Practitioners
By Terri E. Marsh, Esq., USA
In the Differend, by Jean-Francoise Lyotard (1), an injury of great
magnitude occurs -- something as serious as the Holocaust, an example used by
the author throughout his poignant essay. Unlike the Holocaust in Germany, the
holocaust as "differend" cannot be expressed. It occurred but no one
knows about it, because no believes it could have occurred or because no one
wants to believe it occurred, or because other 'so called' more important
matters do not permit it to be discussed. 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 shred of evidence. Indeed no one knows of the holocaust, the
terror or the tragedy. If asked, many would claim that it did not occur
precisely because of the silence which surrounds it. But of course it did occur.
It's just that it occurred within the context of what Jacques Lyotard terms "The
Differend--" an injury that renders the victims voiceless because they do
not have the means to report it or to seek redress in a court of law. Lyotard's point is especially important today, because the fictive holocaust
which he describes is actually occurring today in China. The perpetrators' names
are real as are those of the victims. The goal of the holocaust is not merely
the physical death of millions, but the psychological death of the person, his
belief, his principles, and his conscience. To date hundreds of thousands of
persons have been jailed illegally, placed in labor camps without trial, force
fed with saline solutions, which rupture lungs and tear stomach walls, injected
with psychotropic drugs, which kill the person while leaving the body intact,
and subjected to a huge number of other tortures of frightening and terrible
inhumanity. As Barrister Theresa Chu observed in her talk, by forcing persons to
renounce their beliefs or else endure what no living person can endure, the
genocide in China today is a deadly assault that, whether or not it results in
physical death, aims to kill the person. Surely there must be legal redress for these injuries in a court of law in
China. But, as many have observed, the holocaust in China continues without
legal redress. Indeed the attorneys who have filed complaints on behalf of the
victims have themselves been arrested and tortured, with many disappearing.
Lawyers are not permitted to represent practitioners of Falun Gong. When trials
do occur, and even that is rare, they are a sham.
In China today, the law is viewed and used as an instrument of power and
political control, and its application is always subject to the dictatorship of
the Party, which has established a public security system independent of the
official legal system. It has used this independent system to detain hundreds of
thousands of political prisoners by administrative action alone.(2) Many judges
are former Party officials, many are not trained in law at all, and many are
openly corrupt. Political leaders still use the criminal process to advance
their own policies and personal agendas.(3)
Many third party reports disclose the lack of a rule of law in China. For
example, Amnesty International's report for the year 2002 states that political
trials are conducted well beyond the standards set by international law for a
fair trial, since the judgments are drawn up by authorities before the trial
begins.(4) In its reports for 2001 and 2002, Human Rights Watch points to the
increase in human rights violations in China in recent years: including
arbitrary arrests and executions following a trial with no guarantee of fairness
or impartiality. (5) Among the recommendations of the International Center for
Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights and Democracy) to the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights can be found the request to the Chinese
authorities to guarantee that the right to a fair trial is upheld for all
citizens in China.(6)
Enshrouded in silence, the genocide against Falun Gong in China continues, in
spite of the principles of Nuremberg, which have been reaffirmed in
international law, in court decisions and the practices of nations - all of
which assert, affirm, and re-affirm the principle that all individuals
notwithstanding their position are subject to suit for acts of torture, genocide
and other jus cogens crimes.
Le differend as an injury that renders the victims voiceless because they
do not have the means to report it or to seek redress in a court of law
characterizes well the situation in China in some but not all respects. In fact, practitioners of Falun Gong in China and abroad have managed to find
their voice and to break through the silence of le differend. By their
persistence, determination and courage they have managed to tell their story, by
the filing of lawsuits in domestic federal courts outside China, by interrupting
cable signals on the state-owned television stations in China, by an array of
other creative and courageous techniques. Lawsuits have been filed against Jiang Zemin, the architect and founder of
the campaign of genocide and torture in China today in courts around the globe.
In Spain Carlos Ignesias filed a criminal lawsuit under the principles of
universal jurisdiction; in Taiwan, Theresa Chu helped to file a criminal lawsuit
under Taiwan criminal law; lawsuits have also been filed in France, Belgium,
Iceland, Finland, Germany, Moldova, Armenia, Cyprus, and South Korea. The
lawsuit filed against Jiang Zemin in the United States in October of 2002 is now
on appeal before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. And the law is on our side.
Not even le differend can silence practitioners of Falun Gong. In time
the persecution will end because we the disciples, by our voices, our innovation
and our sheer persistence, shall end it.
In the words of Justice Jackson, the distinguished United State Prosecutor at
Nuremberg, not even a King is above God and the law... If certain acts in
violation of [the law] are crimes, they are crimes no matter who commits them.
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