Q: Chris, why did you travel to Greece? What are you trying to achieve with
this law suit?
I have a number of reasons for travelling to Greece. One
of the main reason is, we came to let the Greek people, as well as the whole world,
know about the human rights atrocity that’s happening in China against Falun Gong
practitioners. We were in the process of preparing a law suit to bring to justice
the three main conspirators of this persecution, being Jiang Zemin, the ex leader
of China, Li Lanqin and Luo Gan. It is a criminal law suit charging torture. The
law suit was filed yesterday (05/08/2004). We had a press conference straight
afterwards with Greek and international media present, and we told them about
the law suit and the whole picture of the human rights abuse taking place in China
at the moment, and for the last 5 years.
Q: Your timing is very interesting
considering the upcoming Olympics in Athens. Is this timing deliberate?
C:
I think there are two things here. One is the time frame it took to get these
things ready, and I was planning to on coming to Greece anyway; and secondly,
I think the Olympics is a very important event, and I feel it is not just a sporting
event. Being from Greek background, I am actually quite pleased to see the Olympics
come back to where it was born. One of the important things about the Olympics
is the spirit of the Games. As I said, it is not just a sporting event, as in
ancient Greece, when there were various states which were quite often at war except
during the Olympic Games when all these places stopped fighting and there was
a common peace. That has been reborn now as something which is extremely important,
and a living example of that is, even within the Olympic village in Athens 2004,
a place has been set aside for people of all different faiths to be able to go
and practice their spiritual beliefs, for Christians or Buddhists or Muslims or
whoever to pray, and they have got that freedom, and have been given that right.
As we know, the Olympic Games is being handed over from Greece to Beijing
in 2008, and that’s quite significant. The other significant thing is that both
the Chinese culture and the Greek culture are very ancient, and we believe they
have got a lot of similarities. I think it would be great to see the true Chinese
culture reborn by 2008, so people can see the richness and greatness of Chinese
culture. At the moment, however I can’t see how the spirit of the Olympic Games
can be carried forward and experienced in the current state of China. Those who
are responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong as well as many other groups
of people, are currently terrorising their own people so I can’t understand how
they can provide a space for people to have freedom of belief when they are currently
killing and torturing people for these same beliefs.
Q: Do you expect
changes between now and 2008 with the next Olympics?
C: I really
think it is not that difficult. I think the difficulty is, other countries have
to place more importance on the fact that there is this persecution going on in
China, and it’s really severe. I think the world has stayed silent for too long,
and turned a blind eye. They know it is happening but are hoping it’s somehow
going to stop by itself. I think if the world sees it clearly, and all the countries
and all the governments say this is not on, how can you do this, and how can we
allow you to do this, and we just boldly speak up, China and the people who are
in charge of this event will have to change. Because the Olympics not just an
event for the hosting country but a world event, the whole world must say this
can not happen, and they have to take it very seriously and change, otherwise
how it can be.
Actually, we’ve had a very good response so far. I’ve found
there’s an amazing amount of interest in Falun Gong as a practice, which is really
all there should be. There shouldn’t be this persecution. It’s a wonderful meditation
practice, it has exercises and the actual teachings of the practice help raise
human consciousness, so many people seem to be very interested in it, and when
they hear that people who are doing this are being pulled out of their homes and
taken off the street and put into labour camps and prisons, and thousands are
tortured to death, they are just in total shock and think why would they do this.
I think there is also a similarity to Socrates during the period 469-399 BC in
ancient Greece. He also believed in looking within, and cultivating oneself, which
is obviously similar in the point that Falun Gong is a cultivation practise where
we look inward to see our own problems, faults, attachments and so forth. Socratism
was also persecuted and this bought about his death too. So it’s a similar thing
to what’s happening here, and that link is interesting for the Greek people as
well. They’ve been very interested.
We have 2 lawyers plus an assistant
to file the lawsuit. The lawsuit has been prepared over a period of time in gathering
lots of evidence to show the extension of the persecution, and it had been those
3 people who are responsible. There are 3 plaintiffs in this lawsuit. I’m the
head plaintiff. The 2nd plaintiff is a lady that resides in Greece, and the 3rd
plaintiff is gentleman by the name of Zhao Ming who is from Ireland. He is a Chinese
national now living in Ireland and had been held in a labour camp for 2 years
in china. He went through terrible forms of torture, brain washing classes and
force feeding and so forth. So all three of us, as well as our lawyers, went to
the court yesterday morning to file the complaint, which was registered and stamped.
I
think it has a very big impact, because they are now going before the DA (District
Attorney), and we hope that this means that if any of these 3 people do travel
to Greece they will be arrested for the criminal charges laid against them. Li
Lanqing believes that he is quite involved and responsible in the 2008 Olympics,
and I think that he would have to think twice before he travels to Greece. Another
thing of significance I believe is that the Chinese Embassy in Greece has been
aware of some of the events and things that are taking here that we were preparing
for. The day before the lawsuit was filed, he was having a meeting with the foreign
ministry. After he came out of the foreign ministry office, he made a statement
to the press along the lines of “Human Rights and the Olympics Games are
not connected; Human Rights has nothing to do with the Olympics”. I think
it was quite amazing that he would make such a statement. I don’t think there
will be anyone who would agree with him, so I think he’s shot himself in the foot
by saying that.
Q: Do you expect any of these three officials will
be planning to come to the Olympics?
C: Since Li Lanqin, is
directly involved in getting the Olympics for Beijing, I’d say that it would be
a good chance he was intending to, even if he hasn’t actually planned to come.
Q: So, would they be arrested if they entered the country, and is there
any immunity issue involved as they are leaders of China?
C:
I think theoretically they should be arrested, but I don’t know what would happen,
and in fact any criminal in that situation should be arrested. Now if the criminal
is not responsible for the assault of one person, but the torture and death of
thousands of people, one would think that should be even more reason to arrest
that person. Only time will tell.
Q: So Chris, you are an Australian?
Which part of Australia you are from?
C: I am originally from
Melbourne, and I am currently working and living in Sydney.
Q: Chris,
you are the head plaintiff in this case and you are an Australian, why did you
travel to Greece to do this case? What makes you compelled to be a plaintiff in
this case?
C: I am Australian, but I am also of Greek heritage.
I was born in Greece. In 2001, because of the severity of the persecution of Falun
Gong, I travelled to Beijing with a number of others, actually 34 westerners,
who practice Falun Gong. We had gone to make a peaceful appeal in Tiananmen Square.
What we did was to open up a banner which had the principles of Falun Gong written
on it, being Truthfulness – Compassion and Tolerance, both in English and Chinese.
We opened up this banner on Tiananmen Square, and within 5 to 7 seconds, the police
vans and cars had surrounded us, and the police literally jumped on us. We were
taken away in police vans. I was physically dragged, kicked, pushed and punched
on the face. They tried to suffocate me at the one point. Throughout all that,
I had received a number of injuries and bruising. One of my injuries was a fractured
finger on my left hand. The maltreatment basically continued during the cross
examination and there was threats of what one would call torture, although of
course to a much lower degree than what the practitioners in China are enduring
and suffering from. Nevertheless, they still were trying to break our spirit by
doing things like try to place us in an atmosphere of fear. For example, with
myself they ordered me to go to the back of the hall where we were cross examined,
made to sit, stand, sit, then stand again…. and just threatening to bring
special police in to do things to me, “I apparently deserved” is what
they said, that’s what kind of mistreatment happened to me. After leaving Beijing
I came straight to Greece. I went straight to a hospital to be examined and get
a medical report. I was X-rayed and the medical report from the hospital here
was one of my pieces of evidence. I also went to see the media in Greece and was
interviewed. The significance of my Greek heritage and Greek citizenship meant
it would appear to be the right place to do this.
Posting date: 9/Aug/2004
Original
article date: 7/Aug/2004
Category: Media Report
