| Table of Contents:
Lawyer Nearly Sentenced to
Three Years of Forced Labor
for Defending a Falun Gong Practitioner in Court
In April 2003, Mr. Wei Jun, an attorney
from the Baicheng Law Firm in Baise City, Guangxi Province, defended Ms. Liang
Changying at the Second Criminal Court of the Youjiang District Court. Ms. Liang
is a Falun Gong practitioner who was on trial because she wrote an article that
was posted to the Internet, documenting the human rights violations committed
against Falun Gong practitioners at the Guangxi First Labor Camp and the Guangxi
Women's Labor Camp.
Mr. Wei argued Ms. Liang's case based on
the facts and provided a powerful defense against the public prosecutor's
charges. During closing arguments, when the public prosecutor was unsuccessful
in rebutting Mr. Wei's arguments, he became very upset. Despite Mr. Wei's
efforts, Ms. Liang was still sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
When the court adjourned, the public
prosecutor demanded, "Isn't there a regulation saying that lawyers cannot defend
Falun Gong practitioners who plead "not guilty" Who authorized that lawyer to
defend a Falun Gong practitioner?"
That day, Mr. Wei's home phone, cell
phone, and office phone were put under surveillance. Several days later, police
officers went to the Judiciary Bureau and asked the bureau to suspend Mr. Wei's
license to practice law and to sentence him to three years of forced labor. The
director of the Judiciary Bureau refused their request, so the police then
warned Mr. Wei that in the future he would not be allowed to defend Falun Gong
practitioners. Then they confiscated all of his materials regarding Ms. Liang's
case.
Falun Gong Practitioners
Jailed for Posting and Downloading Internet
Articles Documenting Human Rights
Violations
Falun Gong practitioners in Baise City,
Guanxi Province have been sentenced to prison for posting and downloading
articles to the Internet about the human rights violations committed against
Falun Gong practitioners:
Ms. Liang Changying is a
34-year-old teacher, has been detained and released multiple times. On September
5, 2002, the police arrested her for writing an article titled, "The persecution
of Dafa disciples at the Guangxi First Labor Camp and the Guangxi Women's Labor
Camp," documenting the human rights violations committed against Falun Gong
practitioners at both camps. The article was posted to the Internet. Her lawyer,
Mr. Wei Jun, provided her with a well-argued defense. The enraged prosecutor
asked the Court, "Aren't there rules stipulating that no one can use 'innocence'
as a defense for Falun Gong practitioners? …" For defending Ms. Liang, Mr. Wei
was reprimanded, and nearly sent to a forced labor camp for three years. On July
25, 2003, despite the excellent defense, the Youjiang District People's Court at
Baise City sentenced Ms. Liang to five and a half years in prison.
Ms. Wei Xinglian, Ms. Liang
Changying's mother, was sentenced to two years in prison for downloading
"materials from an overseas website."
Mr. Fang Guokun was jailed because
he wrote an article to expose the persecution, and posted it to the Internet.
Mr. Wei Binglian was arrested on
August 16, 2002, because the police thought that he accessed the Internet to get
information about Falun Gong. The Baise City court sentenced him to one and a
half years in prison for "illegally obtaining national secrets." Then on July
25, 2003, the Youjiang District People's Court of Baise City sentenced him to an
additional four and a half years.
Li Weiji Sentenced to 8 Years
in Prison and Beaten until Paralyzed for
Helping Falun Gong Practitioners
Collect Evidence of Abuse
On March 5, 2003, the Yinzhou District
Court of Tieling in Liaoning Province sentenced Mr. Li Weiji to eight
years in prison to be served in the Panjin Jail. Although he does not practice
Falun Gong himself, Mr. Li helped collect evidence of the human rights abuses
suffered by local Falun Gong practitioners, and also helped them with paperwork
so that they could travel abroad. While in detention, guards beat Mr. Li so
severely that they broke both of his arms and caused a protrusion of his lumbar
intervertebral disc. As a result, Mr. Li can hardly walk.
Assassination Attempt on Falun
Gong Human Rights Defender in South Africa
David
Liang's feet were
seriously injured. |
Bullet
holes on the car. |
Mr.
David Liang was telling
his story at a press conference
in Sydney,
Australia. |
On June 28, 2004, at around 8:30 p.m.,
five Falun Gong practitioners were driving from Johannesburg International
Airport to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, when a white car came up from
behind and opened fire on them with an AK-47 assault rifle. The practitioners
tried to change their speed to dodge the attack, but the assassins kept up with
them and continued to shoot. The practitioners' car and its driver, Mr. David
Liang, an Australian Citizen, were hit and forced off the road; the injured
driver managed to stop in a field. The gunmen stopped and watched for a few
seconds, then fled the scene.
This shooting does not seem to be a simple
homicide attempt. The victims were among a group of nine Falun Gong
practitioners from Australia who traveled to South Africa to file a lawsuit -
charging China's Vice President, Zeng Qinghong, and the Minister of Commerce, Bo
Xilai, who were visiting South Africa from June 27 to June 29 - with torture,
genocide, and crimes against humanity. Before they left Australia, one of them
had received two threatening phone calls. When they arrived in Johannesburg
International Airport, they noticed a suspicious-looking man following and
watching them. In addition, Mr. David Liang, the driver who was shot, was
wearing a Falun Gong jacket. The South African police noted that the shooting
site was not located in an area with a high crime rate. The gunmen did not
attempt to steal anything from the practitioners although there were several
suitcases in the car, thus ruling out the possibility that the shooting was an
attempted robbery.
A hasty statement on June 30 by China's
embassy in South Africa only adds to the suspicion. As the representative of
Chinese nationals in South Africa, the embassy showed no sympathy towards Mr.
Liang, who suffered gunshot wounds in both feet and bone fractures in the right
foot. On the contrary, the embassy claimed that the incident was a Falun Gong
conspiracy and warned the international media not to make any "irresponsible
report about the incident."
Actually, this shooting was not an
isolated attack on overseas Falun Gong practitioners, either. Ever since Jiang
Zemin, former president of China, launched the violent persecution against Falun
Gong on July 20, 1999, the Chinese government has been trying to stifle overseas
Falun Gong practitioners' efforts to reveal the brutality of the situation in
China. The Chinese government has used economic pressure to coerce foreign
governments to mistreat Falun Gong practitioners and disrupt their activities.
In France, Germany, Iceland, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, and a few other
countries, there have been cases in which local police forces were pressured
into arbitrary and wrongful detention of Falun Gong practitioners who were
merely exercising their rights of peaceful demonstration. Chinese authorities
have also resorted to violence and hate crime to intimidate Falun Gong
practitioners; in Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City, there have
been multiple incidents of physical assaults against Falun Gong practitioners by
Chinese nationals with close ties to the Chinese consulates.
While the factual details of the South
Africa shooting await police investigation, there is no dispute regarding the
Chinese government's other crimes against Falun Gong. The issue in question is
how universal principles and values weigh against China's market. As long as the
international community acquiesces, the Chinese government's actions will
continue, and the escalating terrorist attacks against Falun Gong practitioners
overseas will not stop until the state terrorism against Falun Gong in China is
stopped.
For updated information please visit www.628watch.net
Li Chunyuan Sentenced to Labor
Camp for Filing Complaints against
Former-President Jiang for the Persecution
of Falun Gong
Mr. Li Chunyuan, male, over 40, of
Korean nationality, is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religion
at Central Minority University, Beijing. He was forcibly removed from his home
on January 17, 2001, accused of "disturbing the social order," and sentenced to
one and a half years of imprisonment in the Tuanhe Labor Camp in Beijing's
Daxing County. His "crime" was filing two complaints - in September 2003, with
the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China, and in November 2000, with the
National People's Congress - against Jiang Zemin, the then-President of China,
for the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. He wrote a ten-page-long report
that documented how he was deprived of his teaching position, his stipend, and
his lodging, and was detained for four months because he once practiced the
Falun Gong exercises on the university campus.
At the Tuanhe Labor Camp, he was locked in
an iron cage for a long period of time. He had to sit still on a board from
early morning until evening, and he was not allowed to go out or talk. The
officers tortured him by shocking his back, face, and genitals with electric
batons. In addition, his sentence was extended because he would not give up the
practice of Falun Gong.
Sun Ke Sentenced to Forced
Labor for Speaking Out against
the Injustice Done to Falun Gong Practitioners
Mr. Sun Ke lived with his family in
Dehui City, Jilin Province. Although he is not a Falun Gong practitioner, some
of his family members are. After the government started persecuting Falun Gong,
his whole family suffered both physically and mentally. His elder brother, Mr.
Sun Dawei, a practitioner, was arbitrarily detained for refusing to give up the
practice. Once he was tortured to the verge of death and detained in a hospital.
Mr. Sun Ke's younger brother, Mr. Sun
Qian, and his wife, Ms. Ma Chunli, are also practitioners. Ms. Ma was forced to
become homeless to avoid further detention and torture. Mr. Sun Qian was
arbitrarily detained and tortured for practicing Falun Gong.
In November 2003, Mr. Sun Ke appealed to
leaders at the police station and to the local Public Prosecutor Department, the
Justice Department, and other local government entities, all in accordance with
the law. However, these departments shifted their responsibilities to each
other. Having no other alternatives, Mr. Sun Ke, along with twelve other family
members who were Falun Gong practitioners, went to Beijing to appeal to the
central government in accordance with the law. This shocked the authorities in
their local district.
On December 18, 2003, the Dehui City Court
held a trial of thirteen imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, including Mr. Sun
Qian, who had already been detained for over 14 months. The court sentenced him
to 12 years in prison. He was then detained at the Jilin Prison. When Mr. Sun Ke
came to the court and requested to enter as a visitor, he was denied entry. He
argued on behalf of his brother, telling them, "The extended prison term is
nothing but an illegal detention. If you don't release these people, we, the
family members, will go to Beijing to sue you!" In response, Commissar Li Jin
directed a group of policemen to subdue Mr. Sun. Some policemen grabbed him by
the hair, some forcefully took him by the waist, and some grabbed his arms. They
overwhelmed him and took him away.
At the police station, policeman Wang
Chunsheng from the Criminal Brigade, along with eight other policemen, beat Mr.
Sun on the head, kicked his lower back, and struck his back with their arms and
elbows, all the while verbally abusing him. He was beaten for a long time, until
his whole body was covered with cuts and bruises. The police then created false
documents to frame him. They tried to force him to sign them, but he refused.
The police even threatened others in an attempt to contrive false evidence
against him. Mr. Sun was interrogated three times within a period of five days.
Finally, he was sentenced to one year of forced labor and sent to the Yinmahe
Labor Camp in Jiutai City. Recently, Mr. Sun has suffered mental confusion and
has been unable to eat food. He has passed out many times. While Mr. Sun remains
in detention, his wife, children, and elderly mother are without a source of
income.
The Director of a Local "610
Office,"[1] Sentenced
for
Refusing to Persecute Falun Gong Practitioners
Mr. Yang Liwen, male, was a group
leader and deputy director of the Beihu District's Justice Inspection Department
in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province. In 1999, he was made the director of the local
"610 Office" and witnessed the emergence of the persecution and all the
mechanisms used to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs. Not
only did he refuse to persecute Falun Gong practitioners; he also wrote letters
to the Chenzhou local government to appeal to them to stop the persecution of
Falun Gong practitioners, and to an overseas website pointing out not only that
Falun Gong is the hope of China, but also that "truthfulness"[2] would be fatal to corrupt Party officials. On
November 5, 2002, he was arrested and detained. On November 3, 2003, he was
sentenced to 18 months in jail at the Second Detention Center of Chenzhou City.
---------------------------
[1] "610 Office": A national agency specifically created for the purpose
of eradicating Falun Gong and to "reforming" practitioners. It has absolute
power over every level of administration in the Communist Party, as well as all
other political and judiciary bodies.
[2] Falun Gong
is based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, as
practitioners strive to assimilate to these values in their daily
lives.
Zhu Xianzhi Arrested for
Appealing and Publicizing Torture
Ms. Zhu Xianzhi is 43 years old and
a mother of three. She lives in Tangsengsi Village of Houshi Township, Yanshi
City, Henan Province. On June 28, 2000, Ms. Zhu brought two appeal letters to
Beijing's Central Appeal Office to ask the government to stop the persecution of
Falun Gong. The next day, she was arrested and escorted back to her hometown.
She was detained several times. On July 31, 2001, she was again arrested and
detained. She was deprived of sleep for three days, while handcuffed with her
hands behind her back for two nights, injuring her right arm.
During her detention, Ms. Zhu wrote a
description of the ongoing inhuman treatment she received from Houshi Township
officials and the police. She gave it to other Falun Gong practitioners to
publicize on the Internet. When the township officials heard this news they
retaliated. On March 6, 2003, Ms. Zhu was forcibly taken to a brainwashing
center[3]. She went on a hunger
strike to protest her illegal detention.
She managed to escape four days later, and
became homeless to avoid further arrest and torture. Houshi Township officials
arrested her husband and her 15-year-old daughter to determine Ms. Zhu's
whereabouts. They detained her husband for seven days and deprived him of sleep.
They handcuffed her daughter to a table leg for 24 hours; she was not allowed to
eat or sleep. The police also harassed many of Ms. Zhu's relatives.
---------------------------
[3] "Brainwashing center": The Chinese authorities have constructed
thousands of facilities across China where Falun Gong practitioners are subject
to indoctrination to force them to renounce the practice. There are made to
watch videos or recite anti-Falun Gong propaganda and are often deprived of
sleep and tortured.
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