World News
On May 19, 2006, six to seven police broke into my home and searched for the book ‘Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party’. They didn’t find the book they wanted but found several Falun Gong books. They put me in the detention centre in Haidian District, Beijing.
In a groundbreaking case, following a two-year investigation, a Spanish judge has accepted charges of genocide and torture in a case filed against five high-ranking CCP officials for their role in the persecution of Falun Gong.
This historic decision by a Spanish judge means that Chinese Communist Party leaders responsible for brutal crimes are now one step closer to being brought to justice,” said Carlos Iglesias, a local lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
2009 marked the 10th anniversary of the government’s formal ban on Falun Gong, a spiritual movement based on the teachings of its founder, Li Hongzhi,and Chinese meditative exercises called qigong. Viewing the 10th anniversary as sensitive, the central government held fast in 2009
with its 2008 pre-Olympics efforts to ferret out and punish Falun Gong practitioners. Authorities conducted propaganda campaigns that deride Falun Gong, carried out strict surveillance of practitioners, detained and imprisoned large numbers of practitioners, and subjected some who refuse to disavow Falun Gong to torture and other abuses in reeducation through labor facilities.
In the past year, allegations of organ harvesting from nonconsenting Falun Gong prisoners have emerged again, further raising concerns about possible abuses in China’s organ transplant industry. In December 2008, the UN Committee against Torture (UNCAT) indicated in its report on China that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, had noted ‘‘an increase in
organ transplant operations coincides with the ‘beginning of the persecution of [Falun Gong practitioners],’ ’’ and had urged the Chinese government to provide ‘‘a full explanation of the source of organ transplants.’’
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor under the US Department of State recently issued its 2008 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The report expresses concern about the lack of freedom of belief in China, as it has done in previous years. The report points out that the Chinese government continues to harshly repress religious groups, Falun Gong in particular. Falun Gong practitioners are being arrested, with some dying as a result of torture and maltreatment. The report has listed China as a “country of particular concern” since 1999.
In the afternoon of October 8, New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) and their supporters held a press conference outside the Eutelsat Shareholders’ Meeting venue in Caen, France. They demanded that Eutelsat resume NTDTV broadcasts in Asia.
Two United Nations Special Rapporteurs have reiterated their previous findings on China’s organ harvesting. Once again, they requested the Chinese government to fully explain the allegation of taking vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants that has been going on in China since the year 2000.
Falun Gong practitioners gathered in Flushing, New York to practice the exercises, and to later pass out truth-clarifying materials to local people. Following the pattern of recent weeks, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) instigators organized a few attacks of practitioners, but for the most part, local Chinese seemed supportive.
New York City police have arrested at least six members of a pro-Communist mob which attacked Falun Gong practitioners in the New York suburb of Flushing. Pro-communist mobs, numbering as many as 600, have been a consistent presence in intimidating Falun Gong adherents since May 17th. The attacks have frequently escalated to violence. The events are believed to have been orchestrated by the Chinese consulate in New York, as revealed by a telephone recording with the Chinese consul general in which he boasts of his involvement.
U.S. coverage of China has been weak and our policies inconsistent. Terribly so. But it doesn’t render us incapable of doing the right thing. Falun Gong has been getting little press in the torch relay fracas. That’s not surprising. As an indigenous Chinese movement, rather than a separatist one, Falun Gong has taken a neutral position on boycotting the Chinese Olympics, sensing correctly that it has become a matter of Chinese “face” that the Olympics continue.
