Press Statement
In pre-war Nazi Germany, the attempted extermination of Jews and others Hitler considered to be “undesirable” was already underway. Millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, their possessions and their families as they were sent to concentration camps. Most of the world’s governments were acutely aware of this fact by the time of the 1938 German Olympics, but let politics and economics blind them to the plight of these helpless people. In the end, this led to the needless deaths of over six million people, deaths that the world’s governments also bear a certain degree of responsibility for.
Today, and for the past three and a half years, a similar genocide has been taking place in China, affecting tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners and their families. These millions of innocent practitioners, who merely ask for the right to practise their exercises and live according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance so they can become healthier and better people, have also lost their jobs, their right to attend school, their homes and possessions and their families. They have illegally been sent to labour camps, prisons and mental hospitals where they are often beaten, tortured and even killed. Over 550 deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been verified to date with inside government sources indicating that the true number of deaths is actually well in the thousands.
It seems history is repeating itself once again and for the very same reasons. All the world’s governments know what is happening in China and they all know that this brutal persecution of Falun Gong is wrong, both morally and legally. They know practitioners are good people because Falun Gong is practised in over sixty countries around the world. However, political and economic agendas are again blinding governments to this heinous crime against humanity. Thus, these crimes go largely unreported and few actions are taken by the world’s governments to stop them. Do the world’s governments not also then bear some of the responsibility for these deaths?
On 18th October 2002, a lawsuit charging Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the 610 Office, the extralegal office whose sole mandate is the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, with torture and genocide against members of Falun Gong was filed by Falun Gong practitioners in the US District Court of the Northern District of Illinois. Charges were brought under the Alien Tort Claim Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act. These acts have been successfully used in other cases to override the normal diplomatic immunity that government officials avail themselves of.
Recently, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong was established to bring to light the truth of the persecution and such events as the so-called ‘self-immolation’ incident at Tiananmen Square. Evil can never remain hidden and the truth always prevails in the end. Such will be the case with Falun Gong.
Around the world, there are more than 100 family members of overseas Falun Gong practitioners who are being detained in labour camps in China under the most abhorrent conditions. The life of each of these practitioners is at risk daily and that is why we are here today, to let some of the Australian practitioners whose family members are incarcerated in China tell their heart-rending stories. Currently, there are at least 20 family members of Australian practitioners being held in China, mostly in labour camps. Xiao Li will relate the story of his fiancee Ying Li, while Xiao Yan will tell the story of his sister Haiyu Yan. Not even citizens of other countries are safe in China if they practice Falun Gong. Mr Herbert Lu will attest to this today as his wife, Nancy Chen, an Australian citizen, was kidnapped by National Security Bureau personnel while visiting friends in Chengdu, Sichuan Province on 22 January and was detained for eight days for no other reason than being a Falun Gong practitioner. Nancy was finally released last night and will return back to Sydney shortly. DFAT and the Australian Embassy in Beijing played a major role in obtaining Ms Chen’s release and we wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to them for their efforts. Three other family members of Australian practitioners have already died in China, either as a direct or an indirect result of the persecution. Thus, the lives of these 20 family members still being detained in China are decidedly at risk, as the number of practitioners dying in custody has dramatically escalated since the end of the 16th Congress.
We ask the Australian Government to do everything in its power to help obtain the safe release of these practitioners and allow them to join their families in Australia, if that is their wish. We ask all Australian citizens to open their hearts to the plight of these people and support us in getting them released. This, of course, is only the beginning, as tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of other Falun Gong practitioners’ lives are in jeopardy in these same Chinese labour camps, prisons and mental hospitals.
We would also like to bring the plight of two other Falun Gong practitioners to light. The first is 71 year-old Hong Kong resident Chan Wing-yuen, who was arrested in Myanmar (Burma) on 12 December 2001 for unfurling a small banner reading Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance during a visit by Jiang. Mr Chan had been helping local practitioners translate the book Zhuan Falun. Under pressure from the Jiang regime, Mr Chan was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for this act. After unsuccessful attempts to have Mr Chan freed, his case has now been made public.
The second case is that of American citizen Charles Li, who was also arrested on 22 January at the Guangzhou airport and is being charged with breaking into TV cable systems to broadcast Falun Gong videos, which carries a potential sentence of 15 years. Mr Li denies any connection to these events. The crackdown in China is now taking on sinister new dimensions and governments and people around the world can no longer remain silent about this brutal persecution of completely innocent Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Xiao Li
Thank you. My name is Qizhong Li and I come from Sydney. My fiancee, Li Ying, she’s been detained for two years in labour camp in Shanghai simply because she’s a Falun Gong practitioner. On the charge of the sentence paper, the police say that she give somebody a Falun Dafa True Story VCD. That’s just the reason she’s been detained two years in a labour camp.
Since she’s been arrested, no one knows where she is until three months later and her relatives and family found out she’s in the Shanghai Qingsong female labour camp. With the Australia government’s help, she now, the situation in China, she has made big change because before she can’t call anybody outside and now she been call her mom once and her mom can visit her freely to see what the situation is about her.
Recently, I heard about she’s received my Christmas gift in the labour camp, so it has been very helpful by the Australia Government and also because I ride a bike to Canberra along the way, I just tell everybody about the persecution in China and my fiancee’s situation. I been helped lots of Australians, they encourage me and really helped me a lot to keep going to rescue my fiancee. As I know, the persecution goes on more than three years now, why the Chinese Government can do this persecution continuously persecute the Falun Gong practitioners basically they just practising Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance?
As I know, they know the persecution is bad that’s why they blocked all the information from inside and outside China because not many people knows about the truth about persecution in China. So that’s why I want to, today’s a very good opportunity, I just want to tell more and more people knows about the situation in China because my fiancee is only one of maybe thousands of practitioners being persecuted in China. So, thanks very much for this opportunity. Thank you.
Xiao Yan
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Yan Zhihui. I am very happy to have this opportunity to tell you the story of my sister.
My sister, Yan Haiyu, aged 47, used to be an actress, but due to ill health and a very bad back, she had to give her work away. She then took up social work for a community group. She had a sunny nature and got along with everyone. The doctors told her she would probably be bedridden by middle age. She tried Western medicine and different types of Qigong, and then in 1994, she started practising Falun Gong. Soon, all her health problems disappeared. She cultivated herself in accordance with Truth Compassion Forbearance, thus improving her morals and gaining hope for living.
In 1999, a crackdown on Falun Gong was mounted in China. Because it had helped her so much, she decided to speak out for Falun Gong. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and therefore was arrested four times and eventually sentenced to forced labour. In November 1999, my sister went to Beijing to appeal lawfully in accordance with the rights granted to citizens by the Chinese constitution. She was arrested for no reason at the gate of the appeals office in Beijing and was sent to Guangzhou for 15 days of detention. During that time, police deliberately used exhaust fans to make shrilling and ear-piercing noises to torture her. At the end of December 1999, she was surrounded by over 80 riot police while exchanging views with fellow practitioners in Panyu, Guangzhou and 12 of them, including her, were arrested. She was again locked up for 15 days. In early May 2000, she went to Beijing to appeal again and was once again arrested. She was detained in the Beijing Tiananmen Police Station. Police tortured her for 2 days, resulting in her whole body being swollen and her upper legs and buttocks smashed. The police, fearing killing her, threw her out on the side of the street. With the help of some good-hearted people, she went back to Guangzhou by train. Three days after arriving home, she still could not sit nor lie down. When I called her, she did not even have the strength to talk to me.
On 18th June 2000, she and my mother, together with over 200 other fellow practitioners, were arrested again when practicing in Guangzou Tianhe sporting centre and she was denied family visits for 2 months. The police informed her family orally that she had been sentenced to 2 years at a labour camp. At the end of last August, she was transferred to a brainwashing class from the forced labour camp by the 610 office and has been locked there since.
When my sister was sentenced to forced labour, her son was only 14 years old. (He was often due to his mother insisting on following Truth Compassion Forbearance.) My brother-in-law is in poor health, and after losing the care of his wife, is not able to look after the boy. The child cannot attend school and has to stay home alone. His young mind has suffered a huge blow.
My mother also practised Falun Gong and had benefited greatly. She was arrested together with her daughter while practicing, but she was released after three days. A month after her release, police came and put her into a brainwashing class, where she was locked up for 7 days.
In the middle of August 2000, to avoid further harassment to my parents, I brought them to Australia. In March 2001, my father, who was concerned about his small business, went back to China to have a look. But he was shocked that policemen took away his passport and never gave it back to him. Ever since then, my parents have to suffer from separation.
Among my brothers and sisters, my sister and I have the closest relationship. My pretty and kind-hearted sister has always been a symbol of perfection in my heart. Once, a friend from China told me that in the forced labour camp, my sister was often subjected to inhuman treatment. Prison guards hung her up for 24 hours, leaving only her toes touching the ground, in an attempt to force her to write a statement denouncing Falun Gong. She was often locked up in a small cell. Hearing that, I, a big man who had never shed tears, cried bitterly, unable to control my feelings. My mother suffers more pains bearing the brutal torture imposed on her daughter, being in tears every day.
In July last year, 20 Falun Gong practitioners launched an SOS rescue walk, calling on the Jiang regime to stop its persecution of Falun Gong and pleading for urgent assistance in saving the Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China. My mother, already 74 years old, took part in the walk without hesitation, enduring all sorts of hardships on a journey covering about 300 kilometres in 10 days. Blood blisters on her feet and pains could not stop her. For the sake of her beloved daughter and for the sake of tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners like her daughter who are suffering torture, my mother would do all she could.
The Moon Festival should be a time for family reunions. But my brother-in-law, who had seen my sister only twice in two years since she was placed into detention, took his son to the brainwashing class. My nephew called and told me that his mother was dark and thin, not like a human being. Her past beauty was gone. The couple faced each other with nothing to say. Together with their son, they ate moon cakes in tears, spending the Moon festival night of 2002 in this way.
Who doesn’t have parents, brothers and sisters? Such a calamity befell my sister simply because she spoke out the truth about Falun Gong through the good conscience of a human being.
Herbert Lu
Hi everyone. My name is Herbert Lu. Nancy Chen is my wife. And she, with my six years old daughter, visit her parents in Sichuan Province. After she arrived in Yinbin, her hometown, and she tried to visit her friends in Chengdu, she just got arrested on the street. The only reason the national security personnel arrest her, just because she’s a Falun Gong practitioner, nothing wrong she is doing.
They have no reason so when Australia Government asked the national security to tell us the reason to detain her, they say we just watching her, or under surveillance, so that mean Australia official can meet with her face-to-face because during this time the Chinese Government asked her to sign a document, that document states unless she is sentenced to jail, she is allowed to contact Australia Government for support and protection. So, fortunately, they ask for the Australia Government protection. Then the DFAT send staff from Canberra to China to try to rescue her.
So she’s lucky. She just detained in custody for eight days. After that, they have to release her because the pressure from Australia Government, the pressure from the media. Also during this time they say we don’t allow you to make the news about Nancy arrested public. If you do so you’ll bear all the consequence. So, I feel very scared at the first time. I think I’m living in Australia, I still should worry about the safety of my wife, my six years old and my family member in China. So, here I just tell everybody, we should do all we can do to save them, the quicker we do it, the more safe, the quicker they can get out. Thank you everybody. Thank you.
Cr Mark Bailey
Thanks very much Andrew. I’d like to say what a privilege it is to be here to lend my support to the campaign by Falun Dafa for the release of Falun Dafa members in China. I’d like to just initially apologise, I have to leave straight after my speech as I have another appointment at 12:30, unfortunately. But I’d like to say that my heart goes out to the family members who are here today and their loved ones who are in China being detained. In fact, my heart goes out to all Falun Dafa members who have been detained and killed in China because of the actions of the Chinese Government. It is a great shame that the Chinese Government, instead of embracing the values that Falun Dafa promote, they reject them because I think the Chinese Government can learn a lot from the values of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. If the Chinese Government had faith in their own people’s ability to make their own decisions and to live the lives that they wish to lead, instead of telling them what they needed to do, then their country could be the much better for it. And I think that the popularity to some degree of Falun Dafa is related not only to the values that Falun Dafa promotes in China and elsewhere, but the lack of values being promoted by the Chinese Government. The Chinese economy is growing at seven and eight percent per annum and the Chinese Government wishes to play a bigger role on the international scene. Well, I say to them, that they must do more than economic development; they actually have to reform their society to allow people their freedom, to allow people justice, to allow people to come together in a park peacefully to do as they wish. Freedom is as simple as that and I think it is an absolute tragedy that we have so many people, 1.2 billion people, who are living under a government that refuses to learn the simple lessons of life. Some of the simple lessons of life are encapsulated in the values promoted by Falun Dafa, so I hope that the family members of those here today who are detained are released very soon and I hope that there is more compassion shown by the Chinese Government, not just to Falun Dafa people who are being detained in their country but to all people who are being detained in their country because they simply wish to avail themselves of basic human rights that other people in the world take for granted. Thank you.
Cr Graham Quirk
Thank you very much chairman, Mr John Andress, to Falun Gong practitioners, to my colleague, Mr Cameron Thompson, the Federal Member for Blair, ladies and gentlemen, one and all. Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to also be here today and participate in what is, I suppose, a timely reminder to the world that, being the eve of Chinese New Year, of some of the occurrences which are taking place within China. I don’t think any of us could help but be moved by the examples that we were offered today by family members of those impacted by the events which occur in relation to those who are going about what I guess, in a democracy like Australia, is a normal thing and that is expression of your views, expression of your beliefs, expression of actions. And I guess any sense of detention or as far as actions which are causing harm to people in respect of those particular tenets which are just so natural to us in democracies, I guess, of great shock. I suppose last year it hit home to me in a very real sense when one of you among the Falun Dafa membership, and a lady that’s here today, actually made contact with me from Hong Kong where she herself had been detained on entry to that country and then deported simply and solely for the fact that she is a member of the Falun Dafa. And no more gentle lady could I meet than that lady. So it struck me very vividly the impact of persecution and limitation of freedom of movement that happens as a result purely and simply of people standing up for their beliefs and the things that they wish to practice. And so I am in that context very pleased to be able to stand here and join with you and support you today and to extend to you my congratulations to each one of you on the commitment that you have being Falun Gong practitioners. As many of you would be aware, I am not a practitioner and that is, I guess, purely because I may not be able to live up to the very stringent requirements that Falun Dafa members need to live up to and I congratulate you very much on the way of life that you choose and on your belief system. Thank you for having me and congratulations.
Cameron Thompson MP
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, it is, I think, very important that we gather together here in this way to talk about the problems and the persecution that’s been going on in China. I think in Australia, the goals of Truth, Compassion and Forbearance are things that are personal goals that people would regard as being the highest of important goals that we should all aspire to and to have an organisation that openly, so actively promotes those words and those ideals is, I think, something that is welcome in Australia and should be welcome throughout the world. It seems bizarre, I think, to the average Australian that those words and just the expression of those sentiments should result in the kind of persecution that we have seen in the past in China. And to hear these cases where people have been detained and very badly mistreated because of those aspirations I think is something that to an average Australian would cause real revulsion. So the actions that Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is taking in Australia to present these cases and to make it clear what your aspirations are, these worthy goals of Truth, Compassion and Forbearance, these are things that I think you certainly do very well to continue to promote and in Australia I think you find a country where people are very strong in their beliefs and their willingness to support those who have those kinds of ideals. The Australian Government, I think you have mentioned a couple of times already, that the Australian Government has been very keen to alert the Chinese Government to our general concern of our general community over the mistreatment of people involved in Falun Gong and we have continued to campaign for the release of people in those kinds of, you know, those unfortunate circumstances and it is good to hear that on occasion there have been releases and that perhaps there is some willingness on occasion for the authorities in China to recognise that release is important, but it is not good enough merely to leave it at that. Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance are things that I think, as I said, should come as a goal for all human beings and I think that if the Australian Government continues to campaign as it has and all Australians continue to support those ideals then you will find increasing support in the community and hopefully we will, in the future, see the end to persecution of Falun Dafa members in China and anywhere in the world. So I thank you and I do support your efforts. I thank you for taking the steps of creating this gathering today. I hope there are many more and that you do continue to point out the goals that you represent and the difficulties that you have faced. Thank you very much.
Closing
I think it’s very important for the government and the public to remember that the whole persecution of Falun Gong in China is something the [Chinese] government does its best to keep secret. When people outside of China put pressure on the Chinese about individual members that are detained there, then the Chinese really back down because they do not like this to be made public. And, as we’ve seen in so many cases, those particular practitioners’ lives change very dramatically in detention. All of a sudden, they’re treated much better and in many cases they are shortly released. So it really is important for the public and the governments around the world to recognise this fact and actually do everything they can to help release these practitioners. As I stated earlier, there are tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of these practitioners being detained. So, the few that we are highlighting are just the tip of the iceberg. Thank you everyone for coming today. We will definitely have many more events such as this so thank everyone for being here today.
Posting date: 04/Feb/2003
Original article date: 3/Feb/2003
Category: Events
