By European practitioners
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.”
 |
 |
| Attorney Karen Parker and Falun Gong practitioners |
People attending the forum |
* The Most Brutal State Terrorism is the China’s Persecution of Falun Gong
The forum was held on March 31, 2004. Renowned human rights lawyer Karen
Parker hosted the forum. She began by pointing out that 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.
Attorney Karen Parker further pointed out that, “At present, the most
brutal state terrorism is the persecution of Falun Gong perpetrated by the
Chinese Government. Before 1999, Falun Gong was popular in China and there were
tens of millions practitioners. Therefore, when the Chinese government (Jiang’s
Regime) started to persecute Falun Gong in July 1997, huge numbers of people
were involved. Our organisation was concerned by the suffering from the
beginning and helped Falun Gong practitioners to appeal to the United Nations.
We saw that this persecution had resulted in hundreds of thousand of people
being illegally arrested and brutally punished, and thousand of people being
tortured to death.” Many UN human rights commissioners condemned the
Chinese government. The persecution of Falun Gong was extensively reported, and
it was pointed out that the cases of Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights
being violated were so many that they have been far beyond the management
capability of the UN human rights mechanism. The lawyer also said, “Today,
our forum wants to make sure that everyone knows about the state terrorism
against Falun Gong in China, and help to stop this persecution.”
Next, Dr. Chen Shizhong, working in Falun Gong’s human rights team, explained
that such brutal state terrorism actually aims to destroy human conscience by
forcing people to go against their own conscience. The worst thing about this is
that it forms a vicious circle: the more people that give up their conscience,
the more legitimate this crime becomes.
Chen Shizhong further explained that this persecution of conscience is the
substance that the Chinese government uses to persecute Falun Gong. Falun Gong
practitioners do not participate in politics, but only try to cultivate
themselves to become good people. This inward cultivation will certainly lead to
the upgrading of morality, courage and universal compassion. This is what the
evil fears and wants to persecute. The goal and means of the Chinese
government’s persecution of Falun Gong also clearly manifests this point.
What is the goal of the Jiang regime’s persecution of Falun Gong? Jiang said
he would eradicate Falun Gong and force all those who practise it to renounce
their belief. This cannot be more obvious and states clearly that forcing Falun
Gong practitioners to give up their own choices and violate their own conscience
is the fundamental goal of this persecution. That is to say, the true motive is
to cruelly kill the conscience.
The forms that this persecution takes are the most vile. The worst massacre
is genocide and this is acknowledged internationally. Its goal is to destroy
people’s physical bodies and its result is a large number of deaths. However,
the Jiang regime’s cruel slaughter of Falun Gong practitioners is even more
sinister. Its goal is not to wipe out the physical bodies (although the
slaughter does not care about the number of innocent deaths), but to force the
sufferers to choose the death of either the physical body or the spirit – to
destroy the sufferers’ will and make them give up their own consciences and
dignity.
Therefore, to torture victims to the brink of death is a necessary means of
this massacre. The brutal policemen publicly tell Falun Gong practitioners that
they will make them no longer want to live. Their only way out? To say Falun
Gong is not good, “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance” is not good,
and express gratitude for the government’s salvation. Telling the truth will
mean murder but if they tell lies they will be allowed to survive!
Chen Shizhong finished by saying that what the Chinese government wants to
destroy is not only the victims’ conscience. When those policemen are ordered to
cruelly beat their fellow man, to vent their beastly desires on their fellow
women, to be hoodwinked by the deceitful propaganda which is causing this hatred
aren’t they also being destroyed to the point of no humanity?
Ms. Chen Ying, now studying in France, was imprisoned three times and shared
her experience at the conference about being tortured and brainwashed while in
prison. Her speech caused many people to shed tears. She said, “The torture
and inhuman treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by policemen is widespread and
serious. While in prison, the first thing they have to do is take off all of
their clothes in public and have iced water poured all over them. Everyone has
to go through this severe routine, including menstruating women. This may cause
them to later have problems when giving birth, but the policemen don’t
care.”
She talked about her experience of being injected with harmful medicine:
“They handcuffed me to the window and forcibly injected the medicine into
my left arm. When the medicine got into my bloodstream, I felt severe pain in my
heart, then my heartbeat sped up and beat severely. Every heartbeat felt like it
would cause my heart to explode. After that, I clearly felt that I was having
difficulty thinking. My reactions and memory became dull. My left side also
twitched frequently and the twitching became more and more fierce. What we were
fed in jails and labour camps may have had medicines mixed in. The food smelled
strange. After eating it we would feel like throwing up and become very drowsy.
In addition, there were brutal beatings and torture. Once they beat me so badly
so that the prisoners who took part in beating me cried and asked the policemen
stop beating me.”
“In the labour camps we were forced to work extremely intensely. We
worked until midnight everyday, making products for Nestle Coffee and other
companies. We were not allowed to sleep if we did not achieve the target. The
temperature was very high during the summer and some practitioners fainted
because of excessive exhaustion. Some got hypertension, some got heart disease
and some were so tired that they had convulsions. We had to say “Report,
yes” loudly when going in and out of the jail cells. If the sound wasn’t
loud enough, we would be punished by being forced to shout 100 times at the
wall. We had to lift our legs up to a 90 degree angle while walking and then
stamp down with all our strength. While eating, we had to kneel down on the
ground, hold the bowl over our head and shout loudly, “Report to the
leader, prisoner XXX asks to have his meal.”
“There were times for washing in the morning and at night. There was
only five minutes each time. It wasn’t possible to clean up in such short time.
Because eating, drinking, urinating and sleeping took place in the same room,
mosquitoes and flies were everywhere. In such a filthy environment, we packaged
chopsticks. Although the wrapper indicated that they were disinfected, actually
the whole operation was unhygienic. We didn’t our wash hands before we picked up
the chopsticks, which frequently fell on the ground, and wrapped them. Now many
small restaurants and big hotels even still use these extremely dirty
chopsticks, and allegedly these chopsticks were exported.”
Many female practitioners were usually pushed outside; all of their clothes
were taken off and they stood outside for a long period of time. In winter, some
practitioners were forced to freeze outside until they lost consciousness.
During the long-term tribulations, I finally reached the limit of my endurance.
I signed a guarantee that I would not practise the exercises. The pain of giving
up one’s own belief and being transformed is unable to be described by words.
The next day I cried all day long.
With some kind hearted people’s help, I eventually left China. I often ask
myself: I only want to follow the standard of “Truthfulness, Compassion,
and Forbearance” to be a good person but they forced me to change from a
respectable person to an accomplice who persecuted my fellow practitioners. It
is Falun Gong that will save me once again. It gives me the courage to face all
of this. No matter how depressed I am, I know the peace and the pure land of
“Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” can soothe my mind. Now that I
am finally a Falun Gong practitioner again, I know what happiness and good
fortune really is.
In the forum, Ms. Dai Zhizhen talked about her husband who was tortured to
death in a brainwashing class in a Chinese jail.
Afraid to be exposed, the evil’s obstruction was in vain
During question time, two people were sent by Jiang’s regime, pretending that
they were from an NGO. They wanted to use this opportunity to defame Falun Gong.
However, they did not succeed. Actually, the evil ones fear that the world’s
people will come to understand the truth and they use all opportunties to
prevent this. During the preparation time before the conference, representatives
of Jiang’s policies tried to bribe the guards and staff and hamper the
conference’s preparation so that the conference couldn’t start on time. The
Falun Gong practitioners who attended the conference questioned the obstructers:
why did they not allow us get into the conference on time? Why did they not go
to other conferences’ entrance but only stay here? Is it because Chinese
problems are discussed here? Is it because the persecution of Falun Gong is
discussed here? People who were questioned couldn’t answer, but still blocked
the doorway. Many attendees were blocked in the hallway and in the lobby. At
this time a Falun Gong practitioner came and questioned an obstructer:
“What on earth is the relationship between you and the Chinese
Government?” The obstructers who heard this stood still like statues. The
practitioner pushed the door and entered, and people attending the conference
were able to get in. The obstructors still attempted to block the doorway during
the conference. A practitioner saw the situation and stood at the door to
prevent their pathetic tricks.
Source: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200404/18983.html
Posting date: 15/April/2004
Original article date: 14/April/2004
Category: World News
