An Unexpected Encounter With ‘Hell on Earth’
16 April, 2013 at 07:01 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, labor camps, persecution of dissidents, Science
By Matthew Robertson
Epoch Times
Originally he’d only planned to speak for five minutes, about the recently-concluded Boao economic forum. But as he began recalling the details of torture recently revealed in a Chinese magazine article, well-known television host Cao Baoyin went on for over 20.
“Curse the Boao forum!” Cao said at the beginning of the video, using an actual Chinese curse word. He had just read the article after coming home from his day job on April 9, and needed to speak out. Cao is a television personality and a columnist for Beijing News, a major newspaper in the capital.
At a number of points in his talk he visibly struggled to hold back tears. At one point he held up a board that he’d written a number of the main torture methods on.
“Hell on earth,” he had titled it. He announced the techniques one by one: “Small room,” “inmate-monitors,” “electric shocks,” “death bed,” “tiger bench,” while rapping on each with his Chinese fan.
“Behind every word there’s blood, inhumanity, lawlessness, immorality, and naked barbarism,” he said, before elaborating on specifically how Chinese communist prison guards use the “hanging an airplane” torture against inmates in the Masanjia Women’s Labor Camp.
Cao was one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese to read and react to a recent article about that labor camp, published in the Chinese magazine Lens, which is known for its photography.
The article detailed the brutal torture methods applied against inmates, most of whom are practitioners of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline that has been persecuted since 1999. The article did not mention Falun Gong—the persecution of the spiritual practice is off limits for China’s media.
The fact that the piece was published at all was stunning to many. Masanjia is known to have devised many of the extreme torture methods used to break the wills of Falun Gong practitioners, and then taught them to other labor camps.
Cao Baoyin spoke about how prisoners who go on hunger strikes are treated. “They tie them to a ‘death bed’ and use metal pliers to force open their mouths. Some of the victims have their teeth knocked out because of that. Even some of the workers ask for the day shift, so they don’t have to witness it when it happens at night.”
He became agitated and focused on the camera: “The ‘death bed,’ that’s really going to kill people. But in this women’s labor camp, if you die they don’t even care. They think the prisoners’ lives are worth less than flies. Women do this to other women, except that because some of them wear a uniform they can act like beasts, doing this crazy torture. Are these still people? Even beasts don’t do this to one another. When you hear all this, can you say it’s not hell on earth?!”
via An Unexpected Encounter With ‘Hell on Earth’ » The Epoch Times
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Magazine’s Account of Wrenching Torture Shows Split in Chinese Regime
11 April, 2013 at 08:16 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, labor camps, persecution of dissidents, Society
By Matthew Robertson
Epoch Times
When a long news article is published in China explaining in detail how torture implements with names like the “Tiger Bench” and the “Death Bed” are used against prisoners in a labor camp, you can bet that it wasn’t by accident.
But whatever the thoughts were of those in the Chinese Communist Party who authorized an April 6 article in Lens Magazine, known for its photography, about the Masanjia Labor Camp, it’s unlikely they could have predicted the reaction: an online outpouring by hundreds of thousands, furious at the authorities for what the article depicted. The piece was quickly deleted from web portals.
The roughly 20,000 word article landed amidst discussion about reform or abolishment of the labor camp system in China, and relates the personal experiences of a number of former Masanjia detainees, describing some of the extraordinary torture they were subjected to.
These include how prisoners were shocked with electric batons, starved, hung up by handcuffs, forced to squat in small spaces, clubbed by guards, and tied onto tiger benches and death beds for further torture.
The publication of the piece is surprising because of the clutch of significant and sensitive issues it touches on: most prominently, the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been targeted since 1999, and which constitutes the primary population at the Masanjia camp, in northeastern China. It also highlights the ongoing struggle between the old guard of Jiang Zemin, the former Party head responsible for the persecution, and the new leadership of Xi Jinping. And it appears to give powerful ammunition to those in China who would argue for the abolishment of all labor camps.
The details of the torture depicted in the article make clear why.
Smuggled Accounts
A number of the vivid and gruesome depictions in the article came from diaries that were written by the female captives while at Masanjia, and smuggled out through bodily cavities.
Liu Hua was one of the women who wrote a “Diary of Re-Education Through Labor,” and got it out.
She describes one incident when she was stripped naked and shocked on the tongue with electric batons. According to a translation by Minghui, a Falun Gong website, she said: “It was one shock after another. The electricity ran through me. My heart pounded so hard, so unsteady. Electricity was applied to the tip of the tongue, like needles piercing into it. I could not stand steadily, and I couldn’t even try to.”
She was also made to work, matching nearly thousands of collars and cuffs every day.
Other accounts in the article described inmates being hung up on bunk beds by their arms and legs, and being left for sometimes a week.
Food for the prisoners was abysmal, consisting of only a meager serving of vegetables and rice.
The Unnamed Victims
The article made one oblique mention of the identity of the victims: it says that a victim “confirmed with a Lens reporter that the ‘Tiger Bench’ and the ‘Death Bed’ are both implements used in the labor camp. The former was originally used for a special group, and later was used on regular inmates. The latter is equipment used on inmates that hunger strike.”
It’s an open secret that Masanjia is most well known for its persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong, who are specifically targeted by the camp, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. The “special group” referred to is almost certainly Falun Gong, analysts say.
Minghui, one of the main Falun Gong websites, noted the publication of the article. “This is quite a remarkable occurrence because none of these horrific stories of torture, brainwashing and forced labor have ever before been admitted, much less reported, in mainland Chinese media.”
Minghui has registered thousands of cases of torture in Masanjia alone.
Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, noted that the treatment described in the Lens report “is stuff we’ve been talking about for more than 12 years.”
He added that, given that the Lens article validates the Information Center’s work, “we hope that people will pay attention to the things they didn’t cover, like the show tours, throwing women into male jail cells, and Masanjia being a groundbreaking entity for training and leading the way for torture.”
In interviews with victims from Masanjia, the Information Center found that the facility was unusual for a number of reasons: It is one of the few camps where guards and Party agents do most of the hands-on torture themselves, rather than coercing or incentivizing other prisoners to do so.
It is also “literally a training ground,” Browde said. “They fly other labor camp officials to Masanjia to learn ways to break Falun Gong practitioners.”
Schizophrenic Censorship
The treatment of the article by Chinese Internet censors has been sometimes contradictory. Searches for “Masanjia” on Sina Weibo, a major Twitter-like microblogging service, were at first allowed, and then restricted, and then free.
A hash-tag topic about the article was created — but later it disappeared. As of 1 a.m. Beijing time on April 10, it was available, aggregating the thousands of comments and forwards the news has received. Previously, a search for Masanjia only yielded a few hundred hits, indicating that censorship was loosened.
After publication, the article was immediately posted on a number of Chinese web portals — but soon after disappeared. The 70,000 comments on Sohu were still active, however, even though the article had been deleted.
Even People’s Daily Online, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, included the story in its “hot topics” news list on April 8. The news was ranked first, with a total of over 500,000 comments. That too later disappeared.
Lens continued to carry its chilling double-page spread, a photograph of the monolithic labor camp, on its website, on April 10 local time.
“It seems as though the Propaganda Department only reacted after the fact, but the news was already out,” said Wen Zhao, an analyst of contemporary Chinese affairs with NTD Television, an independent broadcaster.
He noted the fact that under the immense pressure of the news, Liaoning Province authorities gave a terse announcement that they would launch an investigation. “This kind of internal investigation will no doubt gather a lot of evidence, but whether or not it’ll be published, or how far they will take it — we can only watch and wait.”
Wen Zhao added: “There are hundreds of labor camps in China, all doing things along the same lines as Masanjia.”
“This is a blow to those in the Party trying to stop labor camp reform,” said independent political analyst Tang Jingyuan, in an interview with Epoch Times.
He said that the appearance of the article on People’s Daily Online “to a certain degree” reflects the thinking of top Party leaders.
But the fact that it was soon deleted “also shows that the Party has not reached a consensus, and that the resistance to abolishing the labor camp system is still terribly ferocious.”
Browde said that now is the time for the West to start publicly discussing the persecution of Falun Gong. “There are clearly people in China that want to get the truth out about Masanjia, and perhaps the persecution more broadly,” he said. “Now it’s critically important that journalists and others take that momentum they’ve created, at great risk to themselves, and don’t let their efforts sputter out.”
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“Free China” Documentary Exposes Slave Labor
16 March, 2013 at 09:52 | Posted in China, Culture, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Culture, documentary, film, human rights, labor camps, persecution of dissidents, Society
The documentary “Free China: The Courage to Believe,” co-produced by NTD, screened at the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm on Tuesday. The film is about a man and a woman who practice Falun Gong. They are imprisoned and tortured for standing up for their beliefs in China.
The film exposes some of the abuses behind China’s economic success—like slave labour—showing the cruel conditions in China’s forced labour camps.
The woman in the film, Jennifer Zeng was thrown into a Chinese labour camp because she practices Falun Gong. It’s a meditation practice the Chinese regime has been persecuting since 1999. In the labour camp she was forced to make handmade toy bunnies, shoes, Christmas lights and other products that are sold in the West.
[Jennifer Zeng, Main Character in Free China]:
“I hope that international companies must become aware. What kind of business partner and the whole environment inside there is? This is a state sanction system to use innocent people as free slavery that makes profit for the [Chinese Communist] Party. And the international companies and consumers overseas I think unknowingly become part of this. I don’t think they want to become part of this.”
China has the world’s second largest economy and is becoming increasingly more important in the world.
The producer of the film, Kean Wong and Jennifer pointed out that a better economy in China does not automatically grant freedom of speech for the Chinese people.
[Kean Wong, Producer]
“You are dealing with a mafia that is willing to kill their own people. They don’t really care about your company. They want to do business with you, make as much money as they can and eventually steal your market share.”
Kean Wong says that companies today that are doing business with China can no longer put all the responsibility on politicians to work for human rights in China.
[Kean Wong, Producer]
“If you don’t create an environment that is open, that is human, that allows freedom of speech as we are given here in Sweden and around the world, you can not have a proper trading partner.”
Several members of the Swedish Parliament, across party lines, support the film.
[Boriana Åberg, Member of Swedish Parliament]:
“While there is one single person who is denied human rights, the rest of us have to fight and stand up for those values of freedom, to say what you think, express yourselves, write without fear of being thrown into prison or in labour camps like Jennifer here.”
The award-winning documentary “Free China: The Courage to Believe” is directed by Michael Pearlman. Free China has also been screened at the European Parliament and the at the United States’ Congress.
The film team is planning to release “Free China” for threatrical release this summer.
NTD News Stockholm, Sweden
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Chongqing Hospital Harvests Organs, Says Former Patient
14 March, 2013 at 09:29 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, Kilgour and Matas, organ harvesting, persecution of dissidents, Society
A former patient of a hospital in China says she saw and heard things during a lengthy hospitalization that makes her believe the hospital was involved in murdering people to harvest their organs.
Ms. Li Jinzhen (not her actual name), a Chinese national, said she has known for some time about allegations that Falun Gong practitioners in China have become involuntary donors of organs for the transplantation trade over the last dozen years.
Li, who asked not to have her identity or location revealed, told The Epoch Times that she wanted to come forward about things she observed and heard during a three month stay at the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University in the winter of 2006.
“One day I saw seven police cars entering the hospital premises from a side entrance. Getting out of the cars were 20 policemen in plain clothes,” she said, guarding seven handcuffed men and women, of around 30 to 40 years old. “All of them looked very healthy,” Li said.
The individuals were taken into an old two to three story building with a steel gate and two rows of plainclothes officers in front of it, Li recalled. “They were all forced into the building,” she said.
Her knowledge of the allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners, coupled with her observation of the demeanor of the prisoners, led Li to believe that they were Falun Gong practitioners being targeted for organ harvesting. She said their facial expressions appeared to be “peaceful and quiet,” which she associated with practitioners of Falun Gong.
This reporter spent four years in Chinese prisons as a prisoner of conscience and, based on that experience, the prisoner transport described by Li is unusual. Male and female inmates are typically not transported together—they are managed by different prison staffs. Also, sick prisoners are treated in an outpatient unit, not in an old, abandoned building.
A student assistant working in an office in the hospital complex told Li that he believed Falun Gong practitioners were being used for organ harvesting at the hospital and that those seven prisoners locked up in the abandoned building were Falun Gong practitioners meant to be used as live organ donors.
This student also told Li that a fellow student, whom he was close to, was always on operating room duty and had become a “butcher.”
“All he knew now was how to kill people with his scalpel, and he became insensitive,” the student told Li.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University is a state-run “Grade A tertiary” general hospital. It states on its web site: “Our hospital is the only local hospital in Chongqing that has the licenses to conduct both liver and kidney transplantation, resulting in advanced and superior technology of organ transplantation.
A member of the cleaning staff at the hospital told Li: “The doctors here aren’t performing operations, they are in fact killing people. The blood is splattered everywhere, all over the floor of the operation room.”
He said they are using hoses, and it still takes two hours to clean an operating room. “How can this be called a medical operation? It seems more like brutal murder to me,” the man told Li.
The man also told Li that operations are performed on the third and fourth floor in the building opposite the Inpatient Department building.
A former Uyghur surgeon in China, Enver Tohti, said in a telephone interview that the idea that there was a lot of blood in the operating room seemed normal. “With a prisoner, there’s no need, and no time for you to care how much blood will come out. What you do is just go straight to the organ and take it, that’s it.” Tohti, however, could not understand why it would take two hours to clean up.
After reviewing the entire witness statement, in its original Chinese, Tohti said that he was not surprised by the scenario depicted. “There are no surprises here,” he said. Tohti was a surgeon in Xinjiang and himself was called on to remove the organs from a recently-executed prisoner, right near the execution ground. “That is something that is haunting,” he said.
Dr. Zhang worked for a long time in the logistics staff of a hospital in mainland China. Now in Bangkok, he told The Epoch Times that it is not common for the operating room floor to be covered by that much blood during an organ transplant.
“Usually that does not happen,” he said. “When performing an operation, the doctors have a hemostatic plan, such as using hemostatic pliers and clips to stop the blood. If the floor is covered in blood, then it is a case of medical malpractice. It definitely does not happen often.”
Forbidden Elevator
Li also said that she repeatedly witnessed four to five men in the middle of the night pushing gurneys with corpses into a restricted elevator.
“Nobody was using that elevator during the day,” Li said. She said she had wondered if there was a secret passageway behind it.
The corpses on these midnight gurneys were tightly wrapped in multiple layers of green blankets, Li said. “Normal” corpses were never wrapped in such a way, and they were always transported on the regular elevator, she said.
“The bodies from the forbidden elevators were not meant to be seen, maybe those were the bodies of the victims of organ harvesting,” she added.
Eyewitness reports of forced organ harvesting in China are difficult to obtain, say Canadian lawyers David Kilgour and David Matas who are the authors of a 2006 independent report into the allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.
“There are no surviving victims to tell what happened to them. Perpetrators are unlikely to confess to what would be, if they occurred, crimes against humanity,” the report says.
However, they say they have collected many points of circumstantial evidence, including very short waiting times and a surprising number of admissions through investigator phone calls, that paint a “damning” picture.
“Hospital web sites in China advertise short waiting times for organ transplants. … If we take these hospital’s self-promotions at face value, they tell us that there are a large number of people now alive who are available on demand as sources of organs,” the report says.
Based on their research, Kilgour and Matas estimate that from 2000 to 2005, 41,500 organs were harvested for which the most likely source was Falun Gong prisoners. Kilgour and Matas have each said on various occasions since their report was issued that the practice of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience is continuing in China.
via Chongqing Hospital Harvests Organs, Says Former Patient | Regime | China | Epoch Times
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Hong Kongians Plan March Against Banner Invaders
1 March, 2013 at 18:14 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, persecution of dissidents, Society
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Citizens fed up with Chinese regime-inspired anti-Falun Gong slogans
A Facebook campaign group called “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” has called on the former British Colony to protest the increasing anti-Falun Gong slogans that continue to appear in the metropolis.
The group says citizens must stand up for their freedom and stop accepting the abusive behavior of the Hong Kong Youth Care Association, Ltd.
The Association has been blanketing central and very popular areas of Hong Kong, such as the SoGo, Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui and Star Ferry, with banners that slander the Falun Gong spiritual practice.
The Association is believed to be doing so because it is a front for the Chinese Communist Party’s 610 office—a Party organ specifically set up to persecute Falun Gong.
A Facebook message dated Feb. 22 from the “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” group has urged citizens to march to the SoGo area on March 3. The posting described the dress code for the event as “black T-shirts” for all participants, presumably to symbolize mourning for Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Soon after the online call-to-action surfaced, the group’s spokesperson, Danny Chan, was called to the Hong Kong Department of Security, to dissuade them from holding the protest.
Chan said the group had not met such resistance from the police before, even though they have previously held a few protests against the Youth Care Association.
The Feb. 22 Facebook message reported that the police promised to clear the Association’s abusive banners by March 3.
“If those banners are down [by March 2], then we would cancel the event of afternoon tea at SoGo and will go to Star Ferry,” reads the message, euphemistically referring to the proposed action as “afternoon tea.” Star Ferry is one of the busiest spots in Hong Kong and a prime tourist attraction.
Chan, however, expects the members of the Association to be present with their banners on March 3. “The police said the Hong Kong Youth Care Association people are very firm,” Chan said. “They will not remove their banners.”
Because the March 3 event is an appeal on the Internet, Chan does not know how many people will show up. The Hongkongese Facebook page is popular, though. It has 31,887 likes and over 29,000 people are talking about it, as of the printing of this article.
And they are not the only group expressing impatience with the Youth Care Association and support for Falun Gong.
Xiong Li, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Citizen Falun Gong Protection Group, said his group is planning to invite Hong Kong senators and democracy groups to join the March 3 protest.
“The whole information site of Falun Gong is covered by their banners that are offensive and we cannot tolerate this anymore and have to stand out to say something,” Li said. “Our slogan this time is ‘Crack Down on the CCP, Protect Falun Gong.’”
The pro-democracy Facebook group HK Innovational Guard has in the past also taken part in protests on behalf of Falun Gong in opposition to the Youth Care Association, but has typically not announced its plans in advance.
Numerous democracy activists and pro-democracy politicians have also spoken out against the activities of the Association and in defense of Falun Gong.
Protecting Hong Kong
In June 2012 the Youth Care Association began to interfere with the information sites around Hong Kong where Falun Gong practitioners tell others about their practice and how it is persecuted in China. The Association has attempted to cover up or wall off Falun Gong sites with giant banners that repeat Chinese Communist Party propaganda slogans slandering Falun Gong.
Beginning in November, the Association also began covering busy Hong Kong streets and tourist sites with their banners.
The Hong Kong police have allowed the Association’s banners to spread and allowed the Association to interfere with the Falun Gong information sites, despite Hong Kong law that would seem to prohibit the Association’s activities.
Mr. Wang from the “We are Hong-Kongian not Chinese” group says the banners hung up by the Youth Care Association in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Star Ferry are illegal and offensive, and also affect the city scape and the safety of the drivers.
“Many drivers say that the banners block their sight and worry they may cause a traffic accident,” he said.
Danny Chan agrees with Wang’s points but believes the people of Hong Kong will also support the protest of the Youth Care Association’s activities for other reasons.
“Hong Kong people are very understanding,” Chan said. “People can express their political differences, but one thing, they [the Association] are going way too far, far past the tolerance threshold of the Hong Kong people, and out of the scope of the freedom of expression.”
Chan places the blame for the Association’s actions on the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government. He worries that the character of the city of Hong Kong itself is at risk.
“If this is allowed to continue to happen, the Hong Kong people are the ultimate victims,” Chan said. “The Hong Kong people have to stand up to protect themselves and not let the regime or the Hong Kong government turn Hong Kong into a place where people are against people.”
Reporting by Lucy Leung.
via Hong Kongians Plan March Against Banner Invaders | Democracy & Human Rights | China | Epoch Times
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Communist Front Group Seeks to Silence Hong Kong Falun Gong
1 March, 2013 at 10:24 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, persecution of dissidents, Society
Falun Gong practitioners are seen meditating at their information site at Star Ferry in Hong Kong on Feb. 13, 2013. A rack of banners subsequently erected by the Hong Kong Youth Care Association blocks passerby from seeing the practitioners’ site. The raised tile at the base of the Association’s banners is a pathway meant for the blind. (Epoch Times)
Hong Kong is a city proud of its legacy of individual rights, but a campaign to deny those rights to Falun Gong practitioners has proceeded systematically and in the open for eight months, while the city’s police stand aside. Hong Kongers are by turns annoyed and alarmed as the character of their city seems to be changing before their eyes.
On the morning of June 10, 2012 Falun Gong practitioners arrived at the Hung Hom train station in Hong Kong as they had every day for the past ten years. They planned on setting up information booths where they would tell people about their spiritual practice and how it is persecuted in China. This day was different, though.
In the spots they would ordinarily occupy, individuals wearing uniform shirts had hung banners that attacked Falun Gong. When the practitioners hung their own banners in other spots, that group hung banners covering the Falun Gong banners. The new group also began blasting communist propaganda through a sound system.
When the practitioners approached police officers, as they had in the past if there were problems at this site, the police refused to get involved.
This group that first popped up at Hung Hom is called the Hong Kong Youth Care Association and since June 10 it has had Falun Gong in Hong Kong firmly in its sights.
The Association’s very simple website claims it is devoted to various charitable enterprises such as helping the poor and contributing to the community.
In fact, the Association appears to be a front organization for a deadly Party organ. A front organization has no public ties to the Chinese Communist Party, but works to isolate and attack the Party’s enemies.
A reporter for Hong Kong’s Next magazine traveled to the office the Association maintains in
Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong in mainland China, and uncovered the Association’s close ties to the CCP.
The Association’s Shenzhen office stands next door to the local 610 Office. The 610 Office—its name comes from the date of its founding, June 10, 1999—is a Party organization tasked by then Communist Party head Jiang Zemin with eradicating Falun Gong.
The Next reporter tried the door for the Hong Kong Youth Care Association, but it wouldn’t open. A staff member from the 610 Office came out to help. “The two associations have the same people,” the staff member said, according to the Next Magazine report.“Two door signs. If you want to find them, come here. That side won’t open.”
Children are seen playing on a swing from which the Hong Kong Youth Care Association hung a banner attacking Falun Gong. In the background, another Association banner is seen on the playlot’s fence. In November 2012, the Association began blanketing Hong Kong with banners such as this. Parts of the above photograph have been digitally obscured in keeping with The Epoch Times policy to not publish hate speech. (The Epoch Times)
The Youth Care Association is headed by Lin Guo-an a member or former member of the pro-communist political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and currently Special Councilor in of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of Jinggangshan City in southeastern China’s Jiangxi Province, according to Next Magazine.
The journalist Ching Cheong told Radio Television Hong Kong that if the Hong Kong Youth Care Association is a front group, then “the mainland public security people are implementing their laws in Hong Kong.”
Tourists and Tuidang
In 2011, the last year for which numbers are available from the Hong Kong Tourism Commission, Hong Kong hosted 28.1 million tourists from mainland China. Falun Gong practitioners have set up booths at popular tourist sites throughout Hong Kong to reach these tourists.
The booths typically have a table surrounded by banners and placards. The practitioners hand out fliers and may demonstrate Falun Gong’s slow-motion exercises.
The practitioners want to disabuse the mainland tourists of the anti-Falun Gong propaganda they have been steeped in, so they tell them about the practice, and about the cruelties of the persecution against it. And they ask the tourists to renounce any association with the Communist Party—an act called “tuidang” in Chinese.
“The Chinese Communist Party really fears tuidang,” said Juliana Chan, a Falun Gong practitioner and a retired travel agency executive. According to the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, over 133 million Chinese have renounced the Party.
“The Youth Care Association seeks to mislead the tourists,” Chan said. “The tourists arrive and they can’t get close to our booths and they see communist propaganda instead.”
Blind Spot
On Chinese New Year’s Day, Feb. 10, the police ordered the Youth Care Association and the Falun Gong practitioners each to remove all of their banners from Star Ferry—one of the busiest spots in Hong Kong and a prime tourist attraction.
The next day, Wincy Chan, who regularly helps staff the information site at Star Ferry, said that an army of Association members covered the entire Star Ferry with its banners, including the spot customarily maintained for years by the practitioners. On Feb. 13 the police assigned a spot to the Falun Gong practitioners against a wall so that they would have a place to set up their booth.
The Association then set up a rack with its banners that formed a wall between the practitioners and the public. The Association’s rack was so close to a lane on the sidewalk reserved for the use of the blind that the lane was in effect impassable.
Practitioners called the police, and a video shows what happened next. The Associations’ head, Lin Guo-An, showed no deference to the police, who requested that the banners be moved. He argued heatedly with them, and in the end the police withdrew, leaving the Association’s banners in place.
Falun Gong practitioners tell of the Association trying on a daily basis to completely cover their information booths with banners.
Mandy Liu, an old hand at the information sites, says the police could easily resolve any conflicts between the two groups.
“If the police assigned one spot to the Hong Kong Youth Care Association and another spot to the Falun Gong practitioners, and then enforced their decision, there would be no problems,” Ms. Liu said.
No Ground Rules
Without the police setting ground rules, there is room for even more mischief.
Mandy Liu says the practitioners who staff the information sites are suffering a reenactment of the Cultural Revolution. Videos show the Association members shouting at practitioners, cursing them, waving fingers in their faces, and pushing them.
Practitioners began videoing all confrontations with the Association members after an incident at the Lok Ma Chau border crossing with mainland China.
“The Hong Kong Youth Care Association members have these huge banners,” Ms. Liu explained. “They wrapped our practitioners inside these banners and beat them. No one could see what was happening behind the banners. By the time the police arrived, there was no evidence. So, we began videoing everything.”
Zeng Qiaochan is a practitioner who helps staff the Lok Ma Chau information site. She says physical abuse continues there.
“Their banners have long sticks at each end,” Zeng said. “When no one is looking they whip those sticks down and hit your hands or feet. They do it so quickly, you can’t catch them on video.”
On July 4 at the Hung Hum train station, a member of the Association brandished a large knife in front of a New Tang Dynasty TV reporter who was filming the Association’s activities. Police were called, but were not interested in seeing video of the incident and chose to do nothing.
Wincy Chan said the harassment by the Association has an ulterior motive.
“These people try to create a situation where practitioners will involuntarily defend themselves—a situation where they can accuse the practitioners of breaking the law or beating them up,” Chan said. “Because we cultivate truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance we avoid having any kind of conflict with them.”
Legalities
The police have told practitioners that there is no legal basis for stopping the Association from putting up its banners. According to Mandy Liu, the police have said, “both sides have the right to speak, if there is no conflict this situation has nothing to do with us.” Recently the police told practitioners they are “gathering evidence.”
A request for comment from the Service Information Office of the Police Public Relations Bureau in Hong Kong had not been answered at press time.
Some of Hong Kong’s netizens say the police refuse to defend the practitioners because of the Association’s CCP connections.
The practitioners say they should be protected under the Hong Kong Basic Law, whose Public Order Ordinance states in part, “Any person who at any public gathering acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the public gathering was called together or incites others so to act shall be guilty of an offence.”
Hong Kong is also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
With the police refusing to protect them, the Hong Kong practitioners are investigating gaining redress through the courts.
The Hong Kong Youth Care Association could not be reached for comment by press time.
Public Opinion
In November 2012, the Association’s campaign spread from the information sites to Hong Kong’s streets. Hundreds, if not thousands, of its banners now line Hong Kong’s busiest and most chic thoroughfares.
Social media and blogs in Hong Kong are filled with complaints: The banners have destroyed Hong Kong’s cityscape; they’re a traffic hazard; they disrupt city life; and they’re an embarrassment.
In December, stickers started appearing on the banners saying, “Not From HK People.” An organization called Hong Kong Citizens Attending to the Falun Gong Issue was formed.
When someone destroyed a number of the Association’s banners, netizens cheered. A message posted to Mini forum.net, Hong Kong bulletin board, said: “The government is offering shelter to the communist thugs, and the citizens are acting on behalf of heaven. From Mon Kok to Nathan Road, some banners and nearly 70 posters destroyed.”
Several members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council have called on the police to protect the rights of Falun Gong practitioners, but the sympathetic Legco members are powerless to help. They are the minority in a body dominated by CCP allies.
Chow Wai Tung, the district councilor of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, told The Epoch Times for a previous report, “The CCP thinks that Jiang Zemin and his like can just do whatever they please in Hong Kong, and this Youth Care Association was established just at this time, and right after it’s set up it goes and specifically targets Falun Gong and does all these wicked and shady things.”
“Falun Gong is the conscience of Hong Kong, a kind of moral compass of Hong Kong; it’s the most law abiding, kindest group of people,” Chow said. “If even they are attacked, then no group, and no individual in Hong Kong is safe.”
With reporting by Zhou Meihua
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Anti-Corruption Sweep Targets Hundreds of Domestic Security Officials in China: Source
19 February, 2013 at 19:08 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, persecution of dissidents, Society
Hundreds of officials from the powerful Communist Party organ that controls almost all aspects of domestic security have been secretly arrested in Party leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption sweep, New Epoch Weekly has learned from a highly placed official in Beijing. The ultimate goals of this purge are the arrest of former security czar Zhou Yongkang and the dismemberment of the organization he headed.
According to the source, a former senior official of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) recently delivered copies of a report to former party heads Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, informing them of mass arrests within the PLAC during the past three months.
The report stated that 453 PLAC officials from all levels have been detained for interrogation, including 392 from the Public Security Bureau, 19 from the Procuratorate, 27 from the court system, and 10 from nonpublic security bureaus. In addition, it said that 12 high-level officials had committed suicide.
The source, who is close to Hu Jintao’s office, said the report was meant to attract the attention of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao in the hope that they would step in and send a warning to Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan, who heads Xi’s anti-corruption effort.
Hu Jintao has not made his position known on this matter, the insider said, but he ventured to say that Hu was not likely going to interfere with the policies of the new Party leaders.
Jiang Zemin’s reaction is also unknown.
PLAC Purge
Since taking over as head of the Party, Xi Jinping has repeatedly talked about reform and the need to root out corruption in the Party, in particular speaking of the need to target both “flies” and “tigers.” Though a few arrests have been made publicly, they seemed scattered and unable to accomplish anything substantial. However, the large-scale secret arrests of PLAC officials suggest that Xi has chosen the PLAC as his specific target.
The Beijing source said that many observers believe that this is a purge of the PLAC by the new leadership. Many public security police and cadres are unsure of the spirit of the anti-corruption drive, and the arrests have caused a huge shock inside the PLAC and the “stability maintenance” system, the source said.
The observations by the Beijing source are in line with the memo sent to Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, which reported that PLAC operations are in a semi-paralyzed state, with the morale being low, and a pessimistic mood permeating many offices.
Sources told New Epoch Weekly that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign aims to demolish the PLAC. This Party organization has an annual budget of nearly 700 billion yuan (approximately US$112.24 billion)—exceeding China’s military budget. It controls the police, Armed Police, procuratorate, courts, prisons, labor camps, united front work, and other departments. The PLAC has become so powerful as to challenge top Party leaders.
The source in Beijing said the detention and interrogation of so many corrupt PLAC officials was laying the groundwork for the future arrest of “key figures.” The biggest of these is the former PLAC head Zhou Yongkang.
Zhou retired at the 18th Party Congress in November from the Politburo Standing Committee and as head of the PLAC, which he had run since 2007.
Zhou has been at odds with Hu Jintao and former Premier Wen Jiabao and was a mentor to ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai, who is now awaiting trial. The Epoch Times has reported that Zhou was grooming Bo as his replacement in the Standing Committee. In addition, Zhou and Bo had planned a coup, intending to remove Xi Jinping once he took power.
Last week, Beijing human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang publicly denounced Zhou Yongkang on his Weibo accounts, calling him a “poison” of society and a “traitor of the people” who “has brought huge disasters to the country.”
Pu told Voice of America (VOA) that Zhou’s approach to “stability maintenance” is the major cause of China’s social instability. “None of the social conflicts in China were truly resolved,” which include incidents such as the June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre, the Falun Gong persecution, forced demolitions, and environmental destruction, Pu said.
Current affairs commentator Jin Zhentao told The Epoch Times for an earlier report that the fact that Pu didn’t quickly suffer violent retaliation indicates that Zhou Yongkang is not in favor with new leader Xi Jinping. Zhou will likely “be the next to be hunted down,” after Bo Xilai is put on trial, Jin said.
The Beijing source told the New Epoch Weekly that the PLAC is an obstacle to Xi’s rule. Removing that obstacle is not easy. Behind the main PLAC officials are those in local areas with financial ties to the security apparatus and some ministries, as well as some of the most powerful men within the Party, the Beijing source said.
The hundreds of recent arrests and subsequent interrogations may be meant to give Xi the information he needs to justify taking down one of the Party’s big tigers.
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing to participate in the persecution any longer. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
Translated by Irene Luo. Written in English by Gisela Sommer and Stephen Gregory. Research by Ariel Tian and Jane Lin.
Read original Chinese article.
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‘Strike Hard’ Campaign by Party Exposed in Leaked Notice
4 February, 2013 at 10:46 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, persecution of dissidents, Society
A classified Communist Party document has been leaked about an intended “strike hard” campaign on “three groups” by the regime’s security forces in northeastern China. Strike hard campaigns are routinely waged by public security organs, and often use extralegal and brutal measures against those targeted.
The three groups defined at the beginning of the document are “underground evil cult organizations, Jasmine Revolution activists, and Falun Gong remnants.”
The first almost certainly refers house church Christians, who worship separately from the Communist Party-run church; the Jasmine Revolution was a popular term for Chinese-style Arab Spring, pro-democracy protests in 2011; and Falun Gong is a popular spiritual practice that is persecuted by the authorities. The derisive reference to “remnants” is probably due to the fact that, officially, Falun Gong was supposed to have been defeated in 1999, yet the practice persists despite a campaign that will soon enter its 14th year.
An attorney in China, who requested anonymity to talk about the politically sensitive subject, said that “the secret campaign against the ’three groups’ is an explicit violation of China’s constitution.” So far there has been no official response to the exposed file.
A photograph of the official notice was uploaded to the Internet and widely circulated, including on dissident websites like Boxun. A note that accompanied the photograph by the individual who leaked it said his purpose was to “prevent more from harm and ease my own conscience.”
According to the classified document, pre-trial arrests or detention of members of the “three groups” could be followed by legal procedures and trials. Phone calls and e-mails would be monitored, and relatives who withheld information would face administrative detention.
Awards ranging from 1,000 yuan (US$161) to 10,000 yuan (US$1,606) would be offered to volunteers who helped with the campaign, and police who took part would receive double pay, the notice said. The Shandong Public Security Bureau would provide compensation between Jan. 4, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2018, as long as hit-lists of alleged members of the groups were brought to local police stations.
A mainland human rights attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times “This document serves as another piece of evidence directly related to the crimes committed by the CCP.” Many of the actions outlined in the notice were technically illegal, he said.
The attorney also said that Falun Gong practitioners are most likely the primary target of the crackdown, given their extensive efforts to expose the Party’s persecution of their spiritual discipline for over 13 years. Falun Gong practitioners also began urging members of the public to publicly renounce the CCP, which in this lawyer’s view the Party finds particularly frightful.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Ms. Jiang, a Falun Gong practitioner living in China said: “During the 13 years of the brutal persecution, more and more people are taking up the practice of Falun Gong, including my relatives and friends. Now even more officials of the communist regime have declared their renunciation of the CCP.”
Even the manner in which the document was exposed, penetrating the Party’s usual veil of secrecy, demonstrates the trend of the public feeling against the regime, Ms. Jiang said. “It would be wise for Chinese officials to stop pursuing the persecution of Falun Gong.”
Jin Zhentao, a commentator on Chinese political affairs, told The Epoch Times, “With a wider acknowledgement of democracy, freedom, and human rights, the people come to have a better understanding of the deceptive and violent nature of the CCP.” He predicts that as the Chinese people continue to awaken to their rights, the Party will collapse.
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing to participate in the persecution any longer. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
Read the original Chinese article.
via ‘Strike Hard’ Campaign by Party Exposed in Leaked Notice | Regime | China | Epoch Times
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The Difficulty of Smuggling a Slip of Paper From a Chinese Labor Camp
28 January, 2013 at 06:58 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, labor camps, persecution of dissidents, Society
Editor’s note: Guo Jufeng, the author, was an engineer in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, who fled to Germany in 2008 after being persecuted for his practice of Falun Gong. Before leaving China, he had been arrested four times, sent to three labor camps, and persecuted using over 30 different methods of mental and physical torture. Twelve Falun Gong practitioners he personally knew died from torture: seven of those were from Dalian; five had children under the age of 18.
Last week, I was amazed to read the news about a plea for help hidden in a box of Halloween decorations exported from China to the United States. I was once in exactly the same situation as the person who wrote that message!
Five friends and I successfully hid and passed on a truth-clarification letter about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China to the overseas website Minghui, or Clearwisdom, which is dedicated to exposing the Chinese regime’s persecution of Falun Gong to the rest of the world.
Like the person whose plea made headlines around the world, I was also in Liaoning Province, China. Twelve years ago, I was imprisoned in Huludao City Forced Labor Camp, Liaoning, for 2.5 years for practicing the meditation discipline of Falun Gong. My companion Cao Yuqiang, who was eventually tortured to death, and I were watched 24 hours a day by two criminals, so that we could not exchange information regarding the persecution of Falun Gong.
One day, I came up with the bold idea to find a way to communicate information about the persecution to the outside world.
The first obstacle we faced was that we didn’t have pen or paper. So, as more and more information was passed on to me, it became quite a challenge to memorize everything! To improve my memory, I repeated the information to myself every day, since I couldn’t communicate regularly with Cao Yuqiang.
One day, out of the blue, Cao told me he had found a refill for a ball-point pen. I suspected he must have gone through a great deal of trouble to procure it, but I did not have the opportunity to ask him for any details at that time.
Now I had a pen, but there was still the question of what to write on. I finally realized that the only possibility was toilet paper, and to avoid being caught, I would have to write the message after midnight.
I had to keep strengthening my mind to overcome fear and anxiety as any negative thoughts could lead me to give up. Questions and doubts plagued my mind: “Would this work? How could we get the information out? Would I be able to withstand the torture if it was discovered? Had other prisoners found out about my plan? Were they waiting to catch me in the act?” I was certain that if my plan were discovered, I would be tortured mercilessly with electric batons.
It was really quiet after midnight. While laying in bed, I slowly pulled out the pen refill and toilet paper. When the prisoner on duty to watch me turned away, I began to make tiny adjustments to my position, creating the smallest possible space underneath my quilt. Whenever the prisoner on duty turned towards me, I had to immediately stop and be still, for I would need time to deal with any unexpected action on his part. If my mission were somehow compromised, I would have to swallow my written note immediately and secure the ball-point refill.
At last, this truth-clarifying article to expose the persecution was complete; I had written 2,800 words.
I carefully carried it on me, but now I had to figure out how to get it to the outside world. A few days later, a prisoner asked me, “Can I help you somehow?” I was surprised and also suspicious, “Is he trying to fool me to hand over my article to the guards? Could I trust the words of a prisoner?” I thought for a few minutes and then I said “I have to go to the restroom.”
Walking down the long corridor, I kept on thinking “What should I do?” It was difficult to make a decision, but I had to make up my mind. In the restroom, I gathered up my courage. Then I looked at the prisoner, and said, “Could you give me your cigarette box?” He handed it over, I took out my letter, put it inside, and said to him: “Please send it out to the address inside. Please.”
Over the next few days, I was extremely nervous, for I did not know what had happened to the letter. I kept thinking, what should I do if the guards suddenly rush into my room with electric batons? This thought lurked in my mind, overwhelming me like the ocean, a very deep and quite suffocating feeling.
But heaven be praised, the letter safely made it into the hands of a friend, and he immediately sent it to the overseas Minghui website! With this detailed report about several Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted, the cause of justice was righteously served. Looking back, I know that I was extremely blessed. If it hadn’t been for divine intervention, I suspect no one would have ever learned about the story—mine or the other Falun Gong practitioners’. Unfortunately, 4 of the 20 people in this story were later killed by the authorities in the persecution.
The only thing I can do now is to feel encouraged: in the face of great adversity, I had the courage and conscience to overcome evil. I also realized from this experience that I should never give up hope in any situation.
Read the original Chinese article.
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Book Details China’s Nightmarish World of Organ Harvesting
17 December, 2012 at 07:54 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution | 1 CommentTags: books, CCP, China, human rights, Kilgour and Matas, organ harvesting, persecution of dissidents
JERUSALEM—On a recent trip to Jerusalem, lawyer and human rights activist David Matas was in town for merely 48 hours, but still made time for an interview after a long day of meetings. His deep well of energy seems to come in part from his enthusiastic commitment to fighting for human rights.
In 2009 Matas, a Canadian, co-authored Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China with David Kilgour, a former Canadian secretary of state. The book was an updated and extended version of a 2006 report under the same title that horrified the world with its revelations of systematic murder for huge profits from organ transplant sales by China’s medical community. Among other revelations, it established the veracity of allegations that disappeared Falun Gong practitioners were being murdered for the price of their organs.
Each year in China 1,000 death row prisoners are killed for their organs … 500 come from Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Eastern Lightning House Christians, and 8,000 come from Falun Gong practitioners.
Illegal organ transplants from donors of unknown origin purchased for huge sums by foreign patients remains a major human rights crisis in China. Without a national system for voluntary organ donation, China mysteriously has a tremendous number of readily available organs for transplant available on demand. According to research done by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), of the tens of thousands of organ transplants performed in China annually, records of voluntary donations only number in the hundreds.
That means Matas’s work is far from done.
Having spent the last few years building interest in the subject through “Bloody Harvest” and connecting with professionals in the medical transplant community, Matas published this year a second book on the topic, State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China. He co-edited the book with Dr. Torsten Trey, the founding member and executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH). The book is a collection of 12 essays by authors from four continents.
Matas is also the author of other books on topics that include anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, as well as Nazi war criminals in Canada. But his two most recent books on illegal organ harvesting in China target a very specific—and urgent—problem.
“What I found was a real community of concern among the transplant profession,” Matas said of bringing together authors for the essays in his new book. He adds that part of that concern stems from the impact that China’s unethical transplant practices have on the worldwide transplant community’s reputation—sometimes impacting funding efforts.
Matas, who travels frequently for both his work as a lawyer and a human rights activist, says he constantly multi-tasks on different issues he is involved with. He sees publishing the new book on organ harvesting as “another way to get the message across.”
His sense of urgency around the issue is well-founded. According to estimates from research he and others have done, each year in China 1,000 death row prisoners are killed for their organs, 500 transplants come from living donor relatives, 500 come from Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Eastern Lightning House Christians, and 8,000 come from Falun Gong practitioners.
To this end, the book’s essays examine China’s systematic abuse of medicine for illegal organ transplants. It includes pieces by Arthur L. Caplan, head of the Division of Bioethics at the New York University Langone Medical Center; Jacob Lavee, director of the Heart Transplantation Unit at Sheba Medical Center in Israel; Gabriel Danovitch, Medical Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at UCLA’s School of Medicine; and more than a dozen others.
One key point Matas wants to make with the new book is that the desire to stop organ harvesting is much bigger than he and his past co-author. “Both David Kilgour and I are not young, (and) are both doing other things,” said Matas. “It [fighting against organ harvesting] cannot rest with us. The message of this book is that the constituency is bigger than us.”
One aim Matas has in continuing to raise the issue is that individual countries will enact legislation to make it either required for doctors to report a patient who got a transplant overseas or for governments to prosecute individuals who got such an operation illegally. So far, attempts at such legislation have been limited, but Israel is one of the few countries where restrictions do exist.
What I found was a real community of concern among the transplant profession.
—David Matas, editor ‘State Organs’
The Israeli Organ Transplant Law forbids transplant tourism (the practice of patients traveling overseas to get organs from foreign donors) from Israel. The law also promotes national self-sufficiency in organ donation. The enactment of the law was a direct result of “Bloody Harvest.”
Today, Matas sees the best place for pressure to come from is inside the transplant profession itself. That includes working on getting the World Medical Association to evict the Chinese Medical Association (CMA). But progress so far is slow, since the CMA consists of every type of medical professional in China, not just those involved in transplants.
“If the transplant professionals in China stopped doing [illegal organ harvesting], that would end it,” he said. “The [transplant] profession [inside and outside of China], through peer pressure, can stop it.”
In the meantime, Matas continues to focus on promoting his new book, which is close to selling out its first print run. He is also encouraging those who read it and others who hear about the issue of organ harvesting in China to “do what they can do.”
“Write a letter, talk to a neighbor, go to a rally,” he said of efforts that individuals can make. “What you’re dealing with is human rights—so you don’t know who it’s going to hit and when.”
As for putting others in the spotlight with his new publication, Matas believes by taking on more on more of a supporting role, it will actually benefit the issue.
“People will say, ‘I saw you on TV, but I can’t remember what you said,’” notes Matas of his work since his 2009 book and the many subsequent congressional hearings, public rallies, and events he took part in to speak on the issue. “Other people need to be involved.”
With additional reporting by Matthew Robertson
via Book Details China’s Nightmarish World of Organ Harvesting | International | World | Epoch Times
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Human Rights Day Commemorated With Screening of ‘Free China’
11 December, 2012 at 16:49 | Posted in China, Culture, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Culture, documentary, Falun Gong, film, human rights, labor camps, organ harvesting, persecution of dissidents
Award-winning documentary focus of gathering by human rights groups at National Press Club
WASHINGTON—While China has one fifth of the world’s population, the Chinese regime racks up far more than that proportion of the world’s human rights abuses. Responsible for Equality and Liberty (REAL) and several other human rights groups marked Human Rights Day with that unfortunate fact in mind by screening the award-winning documentary “Free China” and hosting a talk by one of the subjects of the film, in an event held on Dec. 10 at the National Press Club.
“You can’t be a human rights group if you’re ignoring 20 percent of the world,” said Jeffrey Imm, the founder of REAL and master of ceremonies for the event. “It’s in humanity’s interest,” to pay attention to human rights abuses in China, he said.
“Free China” tells the stories of two Falun Gong practitioners who each faced detention and torture for their beliefs and portrays the efforts of people around the world to stop the persecution by the Chinese regime of this traditional spiritual practice.
Dr. Charles Lee is one of the two individuals featured in the film and spoke at the event. Lee is of Chinese origin but held U.S. citizenship when he visited China in 2003. He was thrown into prison for three years.
Lee had returned to China to oppose the regime’s campaign against Falun Gong. He had plans to insert into television broadcasts documentary information about this persecution—information that is heavily censored in China.
Lee explained how this persecution came about. “We found a way of life which is much better than the doctrines given by the Communist Party,” he said, explaining the attraction of tens of millions of Chinese to Falun Gong during the 1990s. That led to paranoia from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Lee says, which was terrified of losing power.
Lee also spoke of the large number of human rights crimes committed by the CCP over its decades of rule, some of them particularly grotesque. These included descriptions of violent torture, public executions, mass starvation, cannibalism, and other atrocities.
This led Lee to a discussion of the most recent round of systematic and concentrated human rights abuses in communist China, carried out against Falun Gong practitioners since 1999. Lee focused in particular on the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong adherents.
Organ harvesting targets Falun Gong practitioners detained in labor camps and prisons. They are blood-typed and then forced into having their organs pillaged when a matching donor requires an organ.
According to Corinna-Barbara Francis, a senior East Asian researcher at Amnesty International speaking at a recent European Parliament hearing, “Thousands and thousands of organ transplants occur in China… Belatedly, after a number of years of the issue having been exposed, [the regime] stated that the majority of the organs were harvested from executed prisoners.”
Francis said that much more horrifying and disturbing is the “allegation that these organs may be taken from live people. So in other words, individuals in China have their organs harvested and in the process of that they die… There are many groups that these organs may be taken from, the Falun Gong being one of the main groups. There are many things that provide supporting evidence that this may have occurred and may still be occurring.”
Lee not only spoke about the crimes of the Chinese regime, but also about how China could recover from those crimes.
He considers the Tuidang movement the foundation for China’s future. That movement calls for Chinese people to renounce their ties to the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
Lee said the Tuidang movement leads people to understand “the basic principles and moral structures of being a human being,” something that he believes that 60 years of communist rule has distorted.
Other speakers on the day included Niemat Ahmadi of Darfur Women Action Group, Carolyn Cook of United for Equality, a gender rights group, Nathalie Nguyen, with the International Committee To Support The Non-Violent Movement For Human Rights in Vietnam, and Ahmar Mustikhan, Senior Balochistan journalist. Balochistan is a region divided among Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. The Pakistani part is that nation’s southwestern province and holds rich mineral deposits and a robust nationalist movement.
Mustikhan spoke about the persecution of Balochistani dissidents and the struggle of his people for independence. “China is deeply involved,” he said. “Some of those being tortured report the presence of Chinese intelligence personnel. I hope the U.S. will not be sleepy on this.”
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Doctors Challenge Americans: Tell White House to Condemn Forced Organ Harvesting in China
4 December, 2012 at 10:12 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, persecution of dissidents, Society
A new petition demands the US government take a stand against an atrocity: It asks the White House to investigate and condemn the Chinese regime’s gruesome practice of systematically harvesting the organs of practitioners of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline.
The petition was launched on the White House’s We the People website on Dec. 2, calling on the United States government to “Investigate and publicly condemn organ harvesting from Falun Gong believers in China.”
If it gets 25,000 supporters by Jan. 1 next year, the administration is obligated to respond, something it has yet to do so far.
The subject has been a sensitive one for the administration, according to experts, because of the seriousness of the allegations—live organ harvesting of captive and innocent spiritual believers—alongside the U.S. government’s wish not to rock the boat with relations with the People’s Republic of China, which, among other things, holds a sizable amount of U.S. debt.
But initiators of the petition think it vital that the United States responds. “If there’s any government in the world that will have some impact on Chinese human rights it’s going to be the United States,” said Dr. Alejandro Centurion, a board member of the medical advocacy group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.
“If our government does speak out, it would be a huge step to further expose these crimes and bring them to an end,” Centurion said. The petition says that the government has a “moral obligation to expose these crimes.”
A body of evidence around the Falun Gong and other political and religious prisoners has been accumulating since 2006, and has over the last year begun to gain more public traction, with congressional hearings and mentions—there was a time when the allegations were not even mentioned—in official U.S. reports.
“Like many other Americans and citizens around the world, we are very concerned about one of the most horrifying crimes against humanity of our time: Forced organ harvesting from living ‘prisoners’ in China,” says a note sent to the press by the petition initiators. “This barbaric practice has been taking place in China for over a decade.”
Alongside Dr. Centurion, a neurologist, the two other initiators of the campaign include Arthur L. Caplan, professor and head of the division of bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, and Jianchao Xu, an assistant professor of nephrology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and also a DAFOH board member.
A social media effort is also being rolled out to drum up signatures, spearheaded by the website organpetition.org, “a grassroots effort of people who care about human rights coming together to support this important issue,” according to an email responding to a query sent to the website.
Estimates from researchers indicate that practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline have been killed in the tens of thousands for their “retail organs”: mostly kidneys and livers, and sometimes hearts. The victims die as a result of the forced extractions, often carried out by military doctors who cooperate closely with the security services.
Falun Gong is being singled out in this petition because, according to available evidence, that group has been particularly targeted for organ harvesting because of their abundance in China’s system of labor camps, healthiness above the general prison population (many criminal prisoners suffer Hepatitis B, making them ineligible for harvesting), and other factors. There also exists the most cogent and complete body of evidence, from reports and primary research, about forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.
Other groups in smaller numbers have also been targeted, including Uyghurs and Tibetans, according to the research of Ethan Gutmann, who is currently writing a book about the persecution of Falun Gong; the petition will help them too, according to Dr. Centurion.
“Our concern is for all prisoners of conscience and executed prisoners whose human rights are being violated, and this intends to help solve the problem for everybody,” he said in a telephone interview.
“Transplant abuses of this magnitude are crimes against humanity, crimes which people and governments from every country must condemn,” the doctors’ letter says. “Remaining silent in the face of such atrocities is to be complicit in these crimes. The United States as a world leader in protecting human rights has a moral obligation to speak out.”
Dr. Centurion said that “Americans are kind hearted people that support human rights around the world. They are horrified about this and express interest in supporting this issue. When they learn about these crimes they’re shocked and want to learn more, and express their wish to do something about it.”
Now’s the chance.
Related Articles:
- Taiwan Demands That Transplant Tourists Register
- Chinese Embassy Seeks to Squelch Israeli Knesset Members
Link to Petition Text — Investigate and publicly condemn organ harvesting from Falun Gong believers in China
More info: Parliament to hear evidence of transplant abuse in China
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Body Exhibitions – Disgusting and Unethical
26 November, 2012 at 07:25 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, slave labor camps, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, labor camps, organ harvesting, persecution of dissidents, Society
There is new evidence that Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced former Chinese Communist Party CCP politician Bo Xilai, was involved in selling the organs of prisoners of conscience, including adherents of the persecuted Falun Gong meditation practice, according to a report from a human rights organization.
The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, or WOIPFG, said in a recent report that Gu, who was convicted of killing British businessman Neil Heywood, was profiting from selling bodies to body plastination factories. Body plastination involves replacing body fluids with certain plastics in order to preserve them.
A source previously told The Epoch Times that Gu profited from the plastination of bodies while her husband Bo Xilai was mayor of Dalian. Bo was later made head of the Chongqing mega-city but was sacked earlier this year after his right-hand man Wang Lijun attempted to defect to a U.S. consulate, triggering factional strife in the regime.
Bo advanced through to nearly the top echelon of the Chinese regime by following the charge of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin to persecute Falun Gong adherents, as recalled by journalist Jiang Weiping.
“You must show your toughness in handling Falun Gong much like the toughness shown by Hu Jintao in handling the 1989 Tibetan riot; it will be your political capital,” Jiang Zemin told Bo years ago, according to Jiang Weiping, who was later arrested and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
Bo was this year stripped of his position and Communist Party membership for corruption and nepotism.
Bo, Gu, and Wang were involved in the selling of bodies and harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners, the WOIPFG report said.
“Falun Gong practitioners were victimized in several ways. One was having their organs forcibly removed, and being killed in the process,” Wang Zhiyuan of the WOIPFG said, according to the New York-based New Tang Dynasty Television.
“Secondly, Wang Lijun had a center to research legal injections where Falun Gong practitioners were experimented on and killed. Also, others were tortured to death, or killed directly so their bodies could be used for plastination.”
Wang cited several pieces of evidence, including taped phone calls that the group says incriminate Gu. An investigator posed as Liaoning Province Communist Party secretary Xia Dereng, calling Dalian police chief Sun Guangtian. Dalian is in Liaoning.
In the recorded phone call exchange, the two said:
Investigator: “A lot of things have happened. No matter what, do not reveal that Bo Xilai’s wife Gu Kailai, was selling bodies of Falun Gong practitioners, in case anyone asks.”
Sun Guangtian, Dalian police chief: “Who are you?”
Investigator: “My surname is Wong.”
Sun Guangtian: “Party Committee Secretary Xia’s secretary is surnamed Wong?”
Investigator: “Yes, I was transferred here recently.”
Sun Guangtian: “Oh.”
Investigator: “Are you able to do this?”
Sun Guangtian: “Oh, go on.”
Investigator: “If other departments ask about this, make sure you don’t reveal anything.”
Sun Guangtian: “Hmm, what else do you want to tell me?”
Investigator: “Also, Secretary Xia wants me to tell you to make sure those from the Dalian Public Security Bureau back then also keep things a secret.”
Sun Guangtian: “Please tell Secretary Xia to trust me; I will make sure this is carried out.”
WOIPFG believes the statements from Sun are a tacit admission to knowledge of the atrocities. Later, the WOIPFG contacted an official with the 610 Office, an organization that was created by Jiang Zemin to enforce the persecution of Falun Gong. The phone call exchange between an investigator and the 610 Office official, who was identified only by the surname of “Zhao,” reads:
Investigator: “Don’t you know you guys are a criminal group? Once the persecution ends, have you thought about what will happen to you? Look at Gu Kailai … on the surface.”
Zhao, the 610 Office official: “Gu Kailai was selling organs of Falun Gong”
Investigator: “What did you say?”
Zhao: “I said, Gu Kailai, she was selling organs of Falun Gong people.”
Zhao: “It wasn’t just Falun Gong either.”
The rights group also contacted Sui Hongjin, the assistant professor with the Dalian Medical University and who set up the Plastination Company of Dalian Medical University, was a former general manager of the Von Hagens Dalian Plastination firm, which specializes in body plastination. He was also part of another plastination company, the Dalian Hongfeng Biological Technology firm.
Sui told the WOIPFG investigator that many of the bodies his companies received are from the Dalian Municipal Public Security Bureau.
The recording reads as follows:
Investigator: “What was the main source of the bodies your company used?”
Sui Hongjin: “We received dozens [of bodies] from the Public Security organs … that was … from the Public Security Bureau.”
Investigator: “From the Public Security Bureau, how many bodies have you received?”
Sui: “I don’t remember. Probably dozens of them.”
Investigator: “What Public Security Bureau?”
Sui: “Dalian City. The Dalian City Public Security Bureau.”
Premier Exhibitions, which receives bodies from Sui’s Plastination Company of Dalian Medical University, issued a warning to visitors of its body exhibitions after the connection was discovered.
Sui Hongjin also did business with more than 100 world-renowned museums and from that, received more than 200 million yuan (US$32 million), reported the Bandao Daily in November 2010.
According to the WOIPFG, Sui Hongjin has exported at least 1,000 plastinized specimens made from Chinese bodies to the United States and Europe for exhibition.
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing any longer to participate in the persecution. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
via Evidence That Wife of Disgraced Official Traded in Bodies, Group Says | Regime | China | Epoch Times
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China Uncensored – The New York Times’ Dirty Secret
25 November, 2012 at 12:52 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, IT and Media, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, IT and Media, persecution of dissidents, Society
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Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting – Please Sign the Petition
17 November, 2012 at 11:18 | Posted in China, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, human rights, persecution, Society | Leave a commentTags: CCP, China, Falun Gong, human rights, Kilgour and Matas, labor camps, organ harvesting, persecution of dissidents, Society
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Please go to http://tinyurl.com/DAFOH-petition (DAFOH – Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting) to add your name to the list of people who want to stop forced organ harvesting in China.
Killed for Organs: China’s Secret State Transplant Business
It’s being called “abhorrent” and a “crime against humanity.” Allegations of forced organ harvesting in China started to surface in 2006. Since then, mounting evidence suggests these allegations are true—and even worse than originally suspected.
Prisoners of conscience—especially Falun Gong—are being killed for their organs.
Starting in 1999, the number of transplant centers in China increased by 300% in just 8 years, even though China has no effective national organ donation system. 1999 was the year the Chinese regime began persecuting adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, sending hundreds of thousands to labor camps. Many of them were never seen again.
Transplant medicine was developed to save lives. But in China, innocent people are being killed for their organs—so they can be sold for profit.
Increasingly, doctors, congressmen, international politicians, human rights lawyers, journalists, and people around the world are raising awareness about forced organ harvesting.
Share this video with your friends, family, and everyone you know:
(English) http://e.ntd.tv/Killed-for-Organs
(Chinese) http://e.ntd.tv/QC20wKSign up for NTD’s newsletter to learn more: http://e.ntd.tv/OH-Newsletter-Signup
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KILLED FOR ORGANS:
CHINA’S SECRET STATE TRANSPLANT BUSINESSA New Tang Dynasty Television Production
Produced by Milene J. Fernandez
Engaging Beijing on Organ Pillaging
Fellow Canadian David Matas and I are here to urge your government, legislators, media and other citizens to join the international campaign to end the inhuman commerce in organs from a large community of peaceful Chinese citizens.
We’re both encouraged that The Traffickers, playing now in theatres across Korea, is bringing public attention to this new crime against humanity. The film was prompted by the tragedy of a Korean couple honeymooning in China. The bride disappeared: her body was later found with many organs missing. It is, however, government-sponsored organ trafficking across China that many of us have been attempting to stop for more than a decade.
The democratic world should be as actively engaged as feasible on human dignity issues during the leadership transition in Beijing. Democracy with Chinese features is probably closer than many now realize. The Chinese people should be encouraged to know that the values we seek to encourage in their new leaders are universal ones, including, the rule of law, dignity for all, and a peaceful world.
Read more: Engaging Beijing on Organ Pillaging | Thinking About China | Opinion | Epoch Times
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Welcome!
Life is important and our choices are important.
On this website I will in different ways express what I think gives meaning to life and also what might be a challenge.
It may include the need for sustainable development for our planet, or various questions about our health and mental well-being.
To be truthful, to be good, to have patience and compassion, are spiritual qualities that are a part of my cultivation of self through Falun Gong /Falun Dafa, the way of insights. To refine and improve myself to a better, more compassionate human being gives my life great meaning.
I also bring up more difficult issues , like the persecution of Falun Gong and others in China and explain more about the mentality of the Chinese regime. We can never forget about the Human Rights!
What's important is also everything that makes life beautiful; as good thoughts, beautiful music, healthy food, beautiful art and beautiful scenery. And loving relationships.
I hope you will find something that might interest you in this blog and perhaps brighten up your day or give you a new understanding.
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