China’s roaring industrial economy, its burgeoning consumer class,
and greater individual freedoms of movement, for example, now present an
undeniable veneer of openness. However, dissent continues to be swiftly
crushed as the recent brutal crackdowns on the Falun Gong attest.
News reports on the congress by Canadian, German, Finnish and Hong Kong television agencies, all intended for home audiences, were blocked as they were beamed out of China, reporters said. The footage showed protests in Tibet, practitioners of the Falun Gong and other politically sensitive material.
Beijing police abducted four female Falun Dafa practitioners in Beijing on December 31, 2001, while the practitioners were busy making truth clarification materials. After ten months of illegal detention, they were convicted and heavily sentenced by the Beijing First Intermediate Court on September 5, 2002.
Falun Dafa practitioner, Li Ying, 33 years old, lives in Shanghai. She is the fiancee of Dafa practitioner Lee Cheezong an Australian citizen. In January 2001, Li Ying was arrested and sent to a brainwashing center because she practices Falun Gong.
DISGRACEFUL. Nothing else can be said about the decision to exclude the Chinese meditation movement Falun Gongs prized dance performance from the festival, Asian Comments that started yesterday in Copenhagen.
Television Broadcasts of CNN and BBC were interrupted for several
seconds
almost every hour each time they featured the Party Congress in Beijing
and
referred to either the sporadic attempts at protests by dissidents or by
members of the Falun Gong spiritual group.
On September 24 the Hong Kong government firmly publicized Article No. 23, making Hong Kong residents who have become accustomed to democracy and freedom to be at a sudden loss in the face of “instigating subversion” and “instigating splits”.
A GROUP of Fairfield Falun Gong practitioners formed part of 5000 peaceful
protesters in the US recently.
I am writing regarding a request I received from a constituent, and to express my concern at the situation of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Harrington specifically mentioned that several hundred members of the peaceful Falun Gong religious movement have died in detention as a result of torture or mistreatment by the Chinese government.
