Media Reports
Chinese authorities say they have shut down more than 8600 unlicensed internet cafes in the last three months in their latest campaign to bring the communication channel under tighter political control.
Importer Leejun Ivie had looked forward to celebrating her 41st birthday with her family in Beijing this year. Instead, she said, she was kidnapped by Chinese authorities and interrogated for 10 hours about her Falun Gong activities in the United States.
Celebrated UK Human Rights lawyer, author and playwright, Mr Geoffrey
Robertson QC, has joined forces with high profile Australian lawyer, author and
filmmaker, Mr Chris Nyst, and a group of Australian university students, to
compile a 500 page complaint to the Human Rights Commission detailing instances
of shocking abuse by Chinese prison guards and government officials perpetrated
on an Australian citizen.
This report further exposes the widespread phenomena of
China’s “re-education-through-labor” camp and prison system, in which
unlawfully detained Falun Gong practitioners have been forced into manufacturing
products.
The Melbourne City Council (MCC) has been ordered to publish an apology for
discriminating against the meditation group Falun Dafa by barring it from
the city’s 2003 Moomba Parade.
The rallies, to be held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, are lobbying for support of the China Resolution, put forward by the United States, which calls for an immediate end to the repression of spiritual and other groups, including Christians, Muslims, Tibetans, Uighurs, Falun Gong and pro-democracy groups.
Mr Nyst believes it is the first complaint on behalf of an individual – a female Australian citizen – to the United Nations about the treatment of people practising the Falun Gong religion.
A HORNSBY mother worried about her daughter who was imprisoned in China for
practising Falun Gong, has turned to Berowra Federal Liberal MP Philip
Ruddock for support.
The House of Representatives passed resolution H. Res. 530 (full text) urging the international community to rebuke the People’s Republic of China for a litany of human rights abuses. The vote on the resolution was 402-2.
Adherents of Falun Gong define it as a traditional self-cultivation practice to improve mind and body. The Chinese government is among the worst offenders as it seeks to keep tight control over its citizens. In recent years, a rapidly growing movement called Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) has been a target of repression by the Chinese government, which banned it in July 1999.
