Information Centre
On June 10, 1999, because of Jiang Zemin’s personal will and abuse of power, the “610 Office” was specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.
Ms. Wang told reporters that Jiang’s regime arrested her family members because she narrated her experience of brutal persecution in China, and her participation in international lawsuits holding Jiang responsible for his crimes. Her family members are not Falun Gong practitioners. Jiang’s regime carries out a policy of “guilt by implication” to retaliate and persecute her family members.
“The Chinese regime’s current cover-up of the SARS outbreak is sadly an indicator of a much larger problem,” “Since 1999, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.S. government and many other reputable sources have documented hundreds of deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China from torture and other abuse, yet to this day, the Chinese regime maintains that not a single Falun Gong practitioner has died in custody from police torture or abuse.”
Yet, through my sadness I felt her strength and her gentle determination to express her deep compassion for us, and that she understood and respected our way of thinking and feeling. At that point, I understood the truth and my heart began to change.
On April 5th and 6th, 2003, the International Human Rights Association held its 31st annual meeting in Frankfurt, Germany. The topic of this annual meeting was “Eliminating Cruel Punishment.”
On March 2, an editorial in the China Times stated that more and more people were starting to practice Falun Gong in Taiwan. Although not everyone believes in the practice, people could hardly dislike it, let alone hate it, since Falun Gong advocates “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” and does not compete for material things. Falun Gong practitioners usually seem to be kind and treat others warmly.
You have ordered a crackdown on adherents of Falun Gong, and renewed it continuously over the span of nearly two years. You have ordered it be carried out to “break their spirits, bankrupt them, annihilate their bodies,” and “if they are killed, it will be counted as suicide.”
The Chinese government continues to confine, torture, imprison, and subject individuals to other forms of ill treatment on account of their religion or belief, including Protestant Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and others, such as members of Falun Gong
Members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement are a key target of the Chinese government’s ‘strike hard’ campaign against crime. Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested. Several dozen have been convicted and imprisoned after unfair trials. Thousands have been assigned, without any judicial process, to ‘re-education through labour’. And several hundred may have died as a result of torture.
The following is a record of the debate that took place in Canada’s House of Parliament on February 28, 2003 regarding the motion in support of rescuing Falun Gong practitioners in China.
