Greece: Press Conference following the Lawsuit Launched in Athens
(Clearwisdom.net) On August 5th 2004, European and Greek Falun Dafa
Associations in conjunction with International Advocates for Justice (IAFJ),
sponsored a press conference to celebrate the Olympic ideal. As articulated in
the poetry of Pindar, the Olympic spirit is best expressed as harmony between
the Olympic athlete, nature and the gods. The Olympic victors were not merely
physically fit athletes, but also spiritually sound in mind, heart and spirit.
The similarity between the Olympic spirit of balance and harmony and the
principles of Falun Dafa were but one of the many themes articulated by a panel
of seven, which included, Falun Dafa Association spokespersons Wu Wenxin and
Peter Jauhal, Attorneys Nikos Livos, Stavros Tsakyrakis, and Terri Marsh, as
well Falun Gong practitioners Zhao Ming, Jane Dai, and Chris Cominos. As Peter Jahaul, the moderator of the panel, noted, Greece is best known as
the cradle of western thought and civilization, as manifest in its architecture,
sculpture, drama, philosophy, science and history. As Attorney Terri Marsh
noted, the Olympic spirit has been well preserved in Greece, as evidenced by the
respect shown at the 2004 Greek Olympic Games for religious freedom and
diversity of religious belief. However, as Attorney Stavros Tsakyrakis, among others, noted, under the Jiang
regime, China has not respected the religious freedom of its citizens, be they
Tibetans, Catholics or practitioners of Falun Gong. As the co-drafter of a
landmark criminal case filed with the D.A. office that very morning, Attorney
Tsakyrakis noted that the criminal complaint is based not on allegations, but on
fact. As noted by the third party reports, also included as exhibits in the
filed complaint, the persecution of Falun Gong in China is a fact, Tsakyrakis
told an audience of newspaper and magazine journalists. As the United Nations
Reports, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports disclose,
thousands upon thousands of persons have been tortured for their belief in the
principles and practice of Falun Gong in China. While no one has yet been held accountable for such crimes in China, the
complaint filed in Athens charged the initiator of the persecution, Mr. Jiang as
well as his accomplices, Luo Gan, and Li Lanqing (and several unnamed Chinese
principals) with torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. Attorney Livos,
co-drafter of the complaint and one of the most renowned criminal attorneys in
Greece, characterized the case as a landmark case, a first of its kind, in which
Greek citizens tortured in China are asking a Greek court to hold the
perpetrators accountable under a Greek criminal statute that prohibits torture.
The severity of the persecution was underscored by Zhao Ming, as he described
the incessant brutal methods of torture deployed by the police, and other
security personnel. A video of the torture exhibit displayed in Chicago played
in the background, as Zhao Ming reminded the audience of the gruesome realities
of the persecution. Such inhumanities are unacceptable, Mr. Zhao stated as he
urged the audience to report the news of the persecution to the rest of the
world. Jane Dai reinforced Zhao Ming's message, as she and her daughter told the
journalists of the extrajudicial killing of her husband, for no other reason,
than his insistence on his and others' rights to freedom of belief and
conscience in China. Attorney Marsh, also a professor of Greek Poetry and Philosophy, noted that
many wise men, including the Greek historian Thucydides noted that when men are
not persuaded by polite conversation to desist in their killing and torture of
their fellow men, we are compelled by moral principle to turn to a court of law
for a just and equitable resolution of the situation. Chris Cominos, a Falun Dafa practitioner and Greek citizen, who went to
Tiananmen Square to appeal to the government and people of China against the
treatment of Falun Gong in China, concluded the panel presentation. He stated
that we can only hope that when Greece passes the Olympic torch to China in
2008, it is to a China free of religious oppression.
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