By a practitioner in Germany
(Clearwisdom.net) On April 6, during the annual meeting of the UN
Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), the World Women's Organization (USA)
organized a seminar on Human Rights in the Chinese educational system. World
Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) president
John Jaw, Falun Gong practitioner Zhao Ming and Australian human rights lawyer
Christopher Nyst were invited to this seminar. Based on his personal experience, Tsinghua University graduate and Falun Gong
practitioner Zhao Ming first compared the human rights education and human
rights values of Chinese and Irish college students. He said: "In the
politics courses of Tsinghua University, we students were informed that the
Chinese Constitution stated that citizens had freedom of belief, assembly and
expression; however, we were never told how to practice these rights. In
reality, if students try to practice them, what they will face is punishment and
many difficulties, and even arrest and death. The persecution of Tsinghua
University students who practice Falun Gong is a good example. When I was detained in a Chinese forced-labor camp for practicing Falun Gong,
students of Ireland's Trinity College, which I attended, formed a rescue team.
They organized rallies, collected signatures, appealed to the Irish government,
media and human rights groups. They not only know what rights they have, they know how to practice those
rights, and the Irish government allows them to do so. An important difference
in the human rights education between China and Ireland is whether or not these
rights can be actually practiced. WOIPFG president John Jaw pointed out that his organization's
investigation had shown that the Chinese Ministry of Education forced students
and teachers of Universities, middle schools and elementary schools throughout
China to denounce Falun Gong. The Ministry also forced students and teachers to
watch fabricated movies which slander Falun Gong, and implemented an anti-Falun
Gong "Million Signature Campaign." It also inserted materials
attacking and slandering Falun Gong into school textbooks and exams of different
levels, including college and graduate school entrance exams. Teachers who refused to denounce Falun Gong and give up Falun Gong practice
have been fired and illegally detained, students have been expelled, barred from
entering a higher school and graduating, and forced to attend all kinds of
"Conversion Sessions" (A brainwashing facilities established by the
Jiang regime during its persecution of Falun Gong.) Falun Gong practitioners have been abducted to those brainwashing centers
without any due legal procedures by non-law-enforcing institutes and subject to
forced-brainwashing; many have been sent to forced-labor camps and mental
hospitals, and even murdered. Since 1999, in Tsinghua University alone, more than 300 professors,
lecturers, graduate and undergraduate students have been illegally detained,
fired, expelled, or directly sent to forced-labor camps. Mr. Jaw explained the case of Chongqing University graduate student Wei
Xingyan, a 28-year-old Falun Gong practitioner. Because she was suspected to
have been involved in sending up Falun Gong truth-clarifying balloons and
banners on campus during the world Falun Dafa day period, she was abducted on
campus on May 11, 2003. In the evening of May 13, at the Shabaping District
Baihelin Detention Center, a policeman raped her in public. After this case was
revealed on the internet, Chongqing University claimed that Wei was not its
student and it didn't have the specialty Wei was studying. At the same time, the
university authorities removed the information of that specialty from its
website. After a thorough investigation and internet search, WOIPFG concluded
that Chongqing University does indeed have such a specialty. Zhao Ming said that 2003 was the 10th anniversary of his
graduation from Tsinghua University. Alumni attending Tsinghua that same year
can sign an album on Tsinghua's website. However, when he tried to sign up, his
name was blocked. Zhao Ming also said that Yuan Jiang, another alumnus of
Tsinghua University, had been persecuted to death. It was said that the
president of Tsinghua University was asked about this by alumni on a public
occasion when he was visiting the U.S. The president denied the fact that Yuan
Jiang was a graduate of Tsinghua University. Though this information has not
been confirmed, from his personal experience of being barred from signing an
alumni album, Zhao Ming speculated that it was very possible that the University
authorities would deny Yuan Jiang was a graduate in order to shirk their
responsibility. One of the lawyers who are representing Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Cuiying
in her lawsuit against the Jiang regime, Australian human rights and criminal
law attorney Christopher Nyst, also gave a speech during the seminar. He
believes that one important aspect in human rights education is to encourage
young people to practice those human rights. As one important mission of his
Geneva trip, Attorney Nyst will submit a claim to the UNCRH against the Jiang
regime for persecuting Zhang Cuiying. After the seminar, many people stayed for quite a while to learn more about
Falun Gong and Jiang's persecution. Many of them had long conversations with
practitioners. They also expressed that as citizens of western democratic
nations, they could not understand how a totalitarian regime can persecute its
own people so extensively and profoundly. During the seminar, representatives of two so-called NGOs from Mainland China
sat in and took notes. All the Chinese NGOs attending the annual meeting of
UNCHR are supported by the Chinese government, and their speeches on different
occasions have shown that they conform to the policies of the Chinese
government. This fact conflicts with NGO's UN-recognized function of monitoring
governments, and has upset many governments and NGOs. They call these NGOs from
China, "Government NGOs." Practitioners were planning to talk with
these two representatives of the Chinese "Government's NGOs" and
explain the truth of the persecution of Falun Gong. However, the officials
quickly departed right after the host announced the end of the meeting. Falun
Gong practitioners later said that they hoped these representatives from China
could have a better understanding on the extent and depth of the Jiang regime's
persecution of Falun Gong. Practitioners also hope all the Chinese governmental
officials and NGO members, through contact with foreign human rights institutes
and Falun Gong practitioners, could learn the truth of Falun Gong and no longer
act as accomplices of the Jiang regime.
After the seminar, people talked with practitioners to learn more information
about the persecution
Posting date: 4/14/2004
Original article date: 4/13/2004
Category: Falun Dafa Worldwide
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/4/10/72031.html