World News
As Falun Gong practitioners all over the world continue raising awareness of the persecution, they have found more and more support. For many, their support no longer stops at giving their own signatures. This was the case last weekend in Scotland, Germany, and Australia.
The 21st Annual Wellness Show in Vancouver was held at the International Convention Center from February 15 to 17. Local Falun Gong practitioners set up a booth at the show and demonstrated the exercises several times each day.
“Falun Gong is a cultivation practice system that benefits any country, society and people. The CCP harvests vital organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. We call on the people of the world to stop the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.”
On 17 December 2009, in a landmark decision, an Argentine judge indicted and ordered the local Interpol department to seek the arrest of two high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials for their role in crimes against humanity committed against Falun Gong practitioners. The ruling follows a similar decision in Spain last month, when the Spanish National Court indicted five top CCP leaders for their involvement in genocide and torture against Falun Gong.
A human rights lawyer from northeast China was sentenced on November 27 to seven years in prison for taking Falun Gong practitioners as clients and presenting legal arguments that the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign against the spiritual practice is illegal under Chinese law.
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.
