Persecution of Falun Gong Rampant at Chinese Universities

(Clearwisdom.net) Based on a ranking of China's universities and colleges and a simple online search, I was disheartened to learn that 45 of the top 50 universities or colleges have professors, students, staff members, workers, and graduates who are suffering persecution simply because they practice Falun Gong. This is also true of 82 of the top 100 universities or colleges. These simple statistics clearly indicate that the higher education system has been seriously victimized by the persecution of Falun Gong movement initiated by Jiang's regime over the last five years.

In addition, according to statistics released by various human rights organizations, more than 300 universities or colleges have been implicated in the more than thirty thousand cases of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners (through March of 2003).

These figures show that Falun Gong has been widely practiced in Chinese universities and colleges, and also indicate the pervasive nature of the persecution and its social consequences. The actual situation is more serious if we consider the fact that many students have left their universities or colleges after being persecuted and have become destitute and homeless, causing their situation to become unknown to others.

The Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in universities or colleges have suffered forced brain-washing, illegal detention, dismissals from their work units, expulsion from school, incarceration in forced labor camps, imprisonment, torture, sexual abuse, etc. Some have even died from severe torture. Among them are many experts and scholars. The following are only a few examples.

Professor Yang Jingxia, a famous expert in environmental protection, retired from the Institute of Architecture and Environmental Science at Sichuan University. She has visited many countries. From 1995 through 2000, for five consecutive years, Professor Yang Jingxia had been hired by the World Bank as a member of the "Special Consultants Group on Environmental Protection and Immigration." Professor Yang set up her own company and created two techniques with patent rights. However, she has been sentenced to jail for three years merely for practicing Falun Gong. Recently, she managed to send a ten thousand word letter from jail, which detailed the events she has experienced. For example, she was suddenly kidnapped from home by plainclothes public security personnel, who then deprived her of sleep for 102 hours. She suffered physical punishment and torture as her captors tried to extort a confession from her. They finally put her in the Detention Center of Chengdu City and changed her punishment from detention to arrest.

Sixty-four-year-old Professor Zhang Yougao, a high-ranking engineer at Chongqing University, is a scientist of photovoltaics. He was a leader of a research group in the famous "Three Gorges Project" and earned the title of "Advanced Worker" many times. Because he went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong, he had been tortured in the Baihelin Detention Center of Shapingba District at Chongqing City. Later, he was illegally kidnapped to the Xishanping Labor Camp of Chongqing for one year, where he suffered cruel persecution. After the one-year term was over, he was given a half-year extension for no reason. After being released, he was sent back to the brainwashing center run by the local government to suffer further persecution.

Wu Yifeng, in her forties, was the chair of the Department of Architectural Engineering at the former Changchun Architectural Engineering College. She is one of the three most famous bridge experts in the three provinces of northeast China. The police department of Changchun City subjected her to cruel torture to try to extort a confession from her. Later, she was illegally sentenced to jail for a term of 13 years.

Forty-three-year-old Dr. Shen Yingbo, a professor at the Forestry University, was the chair of his department and an excellent young scholar. He was the most published professor there. He was kidnapped to detention and brainwashing centers many times for practicing Falun Gong.

Forty-one-year-old Liu Limei, an associate professor at the Northeast China Agriculture University, was a graduate advisor in the Masters program in the Department of Veterinary Medicine and the former secretary of the departmental branch of the CCP. She was kidnapped many times for practicing Falun Gong. She was first detained in Wanjia Forced Labor Camp and then the Wanjia Hospital, where her health was wrecked. On August 12, 2003, she died in the Second Detention Center of Harbin City.

Thirty-five-year-old Lin Chengtao was a young medical expert at the Research Institute of Basic Medicine at the Academy of Chinese Medical Science. He was the backbone of the research team developing a malaria vaccine, "sieving new candidate genes of antigens from malarial parasites" in the National "863" program, a project funded by the United States-China Medical Fund. Because of his firm belief in Falun Gong, he was sentenced to the Tuanhe Labor Camp for one and a half years. There, he was deprived of sleep for a long time, suffered physical punishment, and was tortured by 30,000 volts of electricity, along with other cruel means. Ultimately, the cruel, repeated torture led him to develop a mental disorder.

Twenty-eight-year-old Qu Yanlai graduated from the Department of Energy Engineering at Jiaotong University in Shanghai. He once won the special prize in the National Olympic Chemistry Contest and first prize in the Mathematics Contest. In 2002 he was kidnapped by Taofu Police Station of Shanghai and was illegally sentenced to jail for 5 years. He was a strong and healthy young man. He was nearly 6 feet tall and weighed more than 150 pounds before he was arrested. After being cruelly tortured in prison, he could only lie down in bed or sit in a wheelchair, and could not take care of himself.

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This kind of persecution isn't limited to a few individual cases. On the contrary, it is a widespread, systematic phenomenon under Jiang Zemin's administration of the CCP. The absurdity and cruelty of the persecution of Falun Gong cannot be fully depicted with these words. The damage this persecution has caused to Falun Gong practitioners and the harm it has caused to the entire nation and the Chinese people is unfathomable.

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