By Frank J. Murray and Steve Sexton
More than three dozen members of Congress will ask a Chicago federal
judge this morning to allow Falun Gong practitioners to press their genocide
lawsuit against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in the U.S. courts.
The congressional group opposes Bush administration requests to dismiss
the case. Falun Gong advocates who rallied at Freedom Plaza yesterday blame
that legal position on pressure from China.
Asserting an official interest in “human rights conditions in the
People’s Republic of China,” the bipartisan congressional group said the
Justice Department went too far to shield the former president and Communist
Party leader.
“The executive branch has gone beyond asserting the legitimate interests
of the United States,” they said in papers that argue foreign-policy
concerns should not trump the right of U.S. courts to decide the novel issue
of whether a leader loses immunity — “the divine right of kings” — when he
retires from office.
This morning, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly will hear the House
members’ motion to join the case as a friend of the court, or amicus curiae,
before deciding whether to throw out the lawsuit. The Justice Department is
not a party to the case and is also involved as an amicus curiae.
The abstract legal issue was made more personal at yesterday’s rally when
Yeong-Ching Foo of Menlo Park, Calif., told about 40 people that China has
detained her fiance, Charles Li, an American citizen, for 4½ months for
practicing Falun Gong.
“There is no hope for justice in China, so we must rely on the U.S.
justice system to end the torture of Falun Gong,” she said.
A State Department official confirmed that Mr. Li is jailed and was last
visited by a consular official on March 27 at Nanjing Prison, where he is
serving a three-year sentence for what Chinese officials call attempted
sabotage of broadcasting equipment.
The Oct. 18 lawsuit accuses Mr. Jiang of establishing the powerful Falun
Gong Control Office to persecute those who express a belief in and practice
Falun Gong, and putting the office, which is also called the 610 Office,
under his command “to carry out a campaign of murder, torture, terrorism,
rape, beatings and destruction of property against Falun Gong and their
families.”
Mr. Jiang banned Falun Gong and vowed to eradicate the movement, whose
name is translated by a religious tolerance group as “the practice of the
wheel of the Dharma.” It involves five sets of exercises using lotus
postures and hand movements, sometimes accompanied by music.
The Justice Department seeks dismissal of the lawsuit, which asks
declarations to stop persecution and offer compensation and punitive damages
for three Falun Gong practitioners from China and expatriates, identified as
“Plaintiffs A, B, C, D, E, F and others ….”
Government lawyers contend a foreign head of state’s immunity to being
sued in U.S. courts in such situations continues after he leaves office.
Even if he is not immune, government lawyers said, plaintiffs failed in a
complex effort to serve legal papers on the Chinese leader in Chicago.
A federal court ordered that Mr. Jiang be served and papers were
delivered on Oct. 22 to Chicago Police Commander Joseph P. Griffin,
directing him to serve the Chinese leader.
“I did not read the documents [until after] President Jiang had departed
from Chicago,” Commander Griffin said in a federal court declaration. “I did
not deliver the documents to President Jiang.”
The lawsuit invokes two U.S. laws — the Alien Tort Claim Act and Torture
Victim Protection Act — to justify allowing federal courts to hold Jiang
Zemin accountable for genocide, torture and other acts against humanity.
“In filing an amicus brief in the case, the [House International
Relations] Committee affirms the sanctity of the inalienable rights
enshrined in our Constitution,” said Alan Adler, executive director of Falun
Gong USA.
Despite Mr. Adler’s description, papers were filed not by the House
committee but by 38 members of Congress led by committee Chairman Henry J.
Hyde, Illinois Republican, and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Tom Lantos
of California.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030611-113035-2581r.htm
Posting date: 14/June/2003
Original article date: 12/June/2003
Category: Media Reports
