PARIS (AFP) – Four followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual
group
have launched legal action in France against the Chinese Vice Premier Li
Lanqing, accusing him of torture, their lawyers said Saturday.
The four plaintiffs, who include one French national, accuse Li of
responsibility for “Office 610”, a government agency that has severely
suppressed the outlawed religious sect.
The complaint was lodged in the southern French city of Nice, which Li
had
been due to see last month during a state visit to France, the
plaintiffs’
lawyers William Bourdon and Georges-Henri Beuthier said.
The lawyers said the complaint was based on the UN Convention Against
Torture, which France signed in 1984 and which allows it to arrest and
prosecute any person guilty of torture.
Beauthier told AFP he had gathered “overwhelming testimony” about the
activities of “Office 610”.
“It is the first time in Europe that a Chinese leader has faced such a
complaint,” he added.
He said he hoped a magistrate to investigate the case and come to the
conclusion that Li could have been arrested during his visit to France,
which included a meeting with President Jacques Chirac.
The Buddhist-based Falun Gong organisation has long complained that
practitioners who are sentenced to labor camps face torture and abuse on
a
daily basis.
Many practitioners have died in labor camps from excessive forced labor,
torture, abuse, lack of adequate nutrition, medical attention, or a
combination of these factors, the group said.
The causes of their deaths are routinely concealed and deceptively
attributed to “natural causes” in an attempt by officials to escape
responsibility for murder, it says.
China banned Falun Gong as an “<...>” in 1999 and has since jailed or
detained tens of thousands of its practitioners.
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ch/Qfrance-china-li.Rrnx_CD7.html
Posting date: 9/Dec/2002
Original article date: 7/Dec/2002
Category: Media Report
