World News
On June 3, 2004, the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a Member’s briefing on China’s current human rights situation in the Rayburn House Office Building. Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Erping Zhang was invited to the briefing and gave a 7-minute speech on the persecution of Falun Gong.
Falun Gong practitioners held “Persecution Meets Principles” torture enactment and picture exhibit at the Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago last month to demonstrate the cruel torture methods used on Falun Gong practitioners in China.
The report was published on March 23, 2004 and submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It is a summary of communications between the rapporteur and various governments concerning suspected torture cases and urgent appeals during 2003.
Before a packed courthouse in downtown Chicago, oral arguments were presented yesterday to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in the class-action lawsuit against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
On May 27, 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit will decide if former foreign heads of state may use the “head-of-state” defense, typically limited to sitting heads of state, to shield themselves from civil responsibility for the alleged crimes of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity.
From April 16 to May 9, 2004, the 13th Argentina International Book Fair was held in the largest exhibit hall in the country’s capital city, Buenos Aires. Falun Gong practitioners participated in the book fair for the first time. About 1.3 million people, 300,000 more than usual, came to visit the book fair.
The Chinese Consulate in Chicago refused to renew Ms. Dongmei Wang and Mr. Jiyun Kuang’s passports and withheld the passports simply because they are Falun Gong practitioners. On March 28, US lawyer Eric Ziegenhorn wrote to Consul Saipo Zhou requesting Chinese Consulate to reconsider the withholding of Falun Gong practitioners’ passports to prevent the filing of a legal action.
From April 14 to 18, the Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International US section was held at the New York Marriott in Brooklyn. Falun Gong practitioners joined the “New Idea Display” with the theme of “Petals of Peace.”
Bo Xilai, the Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, was served with a lawsuit during his visit to the United States. The complaint, brought by Li Weixum and others, alleges such serious human rights abuses as torture, genocide and other crimes against humanity carried out while persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China.
During the 60th Human Rights Conference at the UN, Falun Gong and the NGO “International Education Development” held a forum together, the theme of which was “Chinese State Terrorism: The Persecution of Falun Gong.”
When speaking of terrorism, people often think of radical people who operate in other countries
using terrorist means such as assassination, explosions and so on to cause
hundreds of thousands civilian casualties and deaths, in order to force the
other side to surrender. People often ignore another type of terrorism, which is
state terrorism operated by a country’s government. In fact, research by
commissioners in charge of studying terrorism at the UN pointed out that the
horrors caused to human beings by state terrorism is many times greater than
that caused by non-state terrorism.
