By Ouyang Fei
Lawsuits filed outside China against high-ranking
CCP officials have become an important aspect of Falun Gong practitioners’ efforts
to resist the persecution.
By June 2005, forty-seven such lawsuits have
been filed. The defendants are dozens of CCP officials including Jiang Zemin,
Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang, Zeng Qinghong, and Li Lanqing. Thirty-five lawyers
from twenty-nine countries are representing or advising the plaintiffs, making
this the largest group of international lawsuits on human rights abuses since
World War II.
Some people may ask, "As soon you file a lawsuit, he
runs back to China. What can you do to the defendants? What good is it to sue
them?"
When Hu Jintao visited the United States and Canada in 2005,
the Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai originally planned to come as a member
of the delegation. However, because Bo was sued in the United States a year ago
when he accompanied Vice Premier Wu Yi to the United States, Falun Gong practitioners
appealed to ban Bo from entering the United States. In the end, Bo did not come
with Hu. Who wants to bring someone facing criminal lawsuits in various places
on their visit to other countries? Who wants an accompanying official to steal
the media’s limelight from the country’s chairman? As the Minister of Commerce,
if Bo could no longer travel outside of China to negotiate business, despite being
in his prime, does he have any political future?
The lawsuits outside China
obviously have a strong effect in restraining the CCP officials who knew no limit
in the persecution. Actually, CCP officials who follow the Jiang group in the
persecution care about nothing but their rank, promotion, personal interest, wealth,
children, going abroad, and their future after they retire. Many of them are corrupt
officials who accept bribes and swindle public money. They dream about moving
their wealth overseas, and they try everything they can to send their children
to foreign countries where they can move to in the future. These officials also
really want the opportunity to go overseas themselves. Besides sightseeing, they
can also make money and use the experience to embellish their political resume.
However, with the lawsuits for torture, genocide, and crimes against humanity,
these officials don’t dare to leave China anymore. Their political futures are
limited. Even though they are protected for now by the Jiang group, the situation
is bound to change. For the officials facing lawsuits, their political future
is failing, and they won’t be able to move their wealth overseas. This is the
best warning for the officials who participated in the persecution to gain political
capital.
Zhao Zhifei, deputy director of the police bureau in Hubei Province,
and Bo Xilai, Minister of Commerce, both personally received subpoenas when they
visited the United States.
The delivery of the subpoena to Jiang was more
dramatic. Jiang was sued when he visited Chicago in October 2002. However, the
CCP publicly denied that it happened. The plaintiff’s attorney then used FedEx
to deliver the subpoena to China. It first reached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The special nature of the piece put the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a dilemma.
They can’t say "there’s no such person," but neither can they sign and
accept it. They forwarded the piece to the Office of Jiang Zemin in Zhongnanhai.
T. Huang with Jiang’s office signed off on the receipt, which has become important
evidence of the delivery of the subpoena.
The defendants’ reactions demonstrate
the power of these lawsuits.
Jiang used diplomatic channels to tell the
United States and other governments that they are "willing to compromise
on everything to stop the lawsuit from going forward." When Zhao Zhifei received
the subpoena at a hotel in Manhattan, he immediately changed his plan and returned
to China. Chen Zhili, former Minister of Education and Jiang’s dedicated follower,
was visiting Tanzania when she received the subpoena. She didn’t find an excuse
to run away and became the first person to appear in court for being involved
in the persecution. Su Rong, former deputy CCP Secretary for Jilin Province, received
a subpoena when he was visiting Zambia with Wu Bangguo. After nearly ten days
on the run and in hiding while being wanted by the Zambia police, he escaped to
south Africa and eventually to China after much difficulty.
Every lawsuit
is like a stick hitting the defendants on the head. It is a wake-up call for the
collaborators of the defendants. It is a bucket of water on the rampant flames
of the persecution.
The CCP, which is accustomed to killing and persecuting
people at will, thought nobody could do anything to control them. But as the universal
values of humanity become widely accepted, as more and more exchanges happen between
countries, the Chinese people have learned to use justice and international laws
as a powerful tool to restrain CCP tyranny.
An announcement published by
the Falun Dafa Association on October 9, 2005 states, "Those who refuse to
do the right thing and instead continue to follow Jiang’s scoundrel regime’s persecution
policies will be severely punished as perpetrators of unforgivable crimes."
"At this critical historical moment, the Falun Dafa Association has made
a special announcement: From today on, overseas Falun Gong practitioners will
file civil or criminal lawsuits against all important government or CCP officials
who participate in or continue to implement the persecution of Falun Gong and
as a result, commit new crimes in addition to those they have already perpetrated
against Falun Gong."
The ultimate goal of Falun Gong practitioners’
lawsuits is to stop the persecution. On the one hand, the lawsuits serve to bring
this long-term, almost underground persecution to the attention of the international
community, using powers of the international community to constrain the CCP’s
brutality and punish the criminals using international laws. On the other hand,
the lawsuits send a warning to the other officials who have participated in the
persecution, giving them an opportunity to redeem themselves and make up for their
mistakes, while encouraging the kind-hearted people who believe in the power of
justice.
Posting date: 19/Oct/2005
Original article date: 18/Oct/2005
Category:
Open Forum
