China Crisis News Bulletin #68

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"Regimes that violate human rights are as destructive to human life as regimes that create weapons of mass destruction. In the end, the result is the same - human tragedy - and in real terms the toll is much higher. North Korean missiles have yet to kill anyone in Asia, while Falun Gong prisoners have been brutally beaten and other Chinese dissidents executed..."
- Carlos Salinas, Acting Director of Government Relations at Amnesty International (Nov. 15)

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CHINA CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #68 (11/22/2000)
Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gong

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FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: [e-mail], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

• CANADIAN ART PROFESSOR SENT TO LABOR CAMP IN CHINA
• P.R.C. SIGNS 'COOPERATION PACT' WITH U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER
• FOUR FEMALE PRACTITIONERS PARADED THROUGH STREETS IN PUBLIC HUMILIATION; WOMAN FORCE-FED TO DEATH

DAUGHTER PLEAS WITH CANADIAN GOV'T TO HELP HER 60 YEAR OLD FATHER

OTTAWA, Nov 18, 2000 (The Ottawa Citizen): LingDi Zhang pleaded to Canada today at the University of Ottawa for help in getting her father's release from a labour camp in China. He was placed there for practising the 'gentle exercises' common to Falun Gong... A University of Ottawa student, her voice cracking and eyes brimming with tears, appealed yesterday to the federal government to help free her father -- a Canadian citizen -- from a detention camp in northern China where he is being held for practising the meditation exercises of Falun Gong. LingDi Zhang says her 60-year-old father, KunLun Zhang, who lived in Montreal from 1989 to 1996 but now teaches sculpture at the Shangdong University of Arts, "has been severely tortured and sent to a labour camp without trial."... She said her parents were among a small group of people performing Falun Gong movements in a public park on July 27 when they were arrested and taken to jail. Her father "was beaten and tortured with electric shocks," said Ms. Zhang, her hands shaking as she read from a prepared statement during a press conference at the university. "He was forced to watch Chinese government propaganda that defames Falun Gong. He was forced to write a pledge to renounce Falun Gong." She said that after his release in late August, Mr. Zhang was placed under house arrest, with his wife, until Wednesday. Then he was taken from his home and sentenced, without trial, to a labour camp for three years. "We are calling for the Canadian government to intervene in this urgent matter," said Ms. Zhang, adding that once her father is moved next week from a detention centre in Jinan City she is "afraid of losing track of him."... [Lucy Zhou, a spokeswoman for Falun Gong practitioners in Canada,] decried the "behind-closed-doors" diplomacy of Canada and other countries as they address China's crackdown against Falun Gong. "The Canadian government was the first to condemn this, but since then, it's been very quiet," she said. "The behind-closed-doors policy has proven not to be effective, and we hope our government will stand up and take a stronger stand." (Nov 18, 2000, Agence France Presse) ...Reynald Doiron, a spokesman with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that Kulun Zhang, 60, had been arrested by the Chinese authorities and that Beijing had refused to allow Canadian diplomats access to him... "We are sending a diplomatic note to the Chinese authorities," said Doiron. "We are seeking information. "One of the things we will request is consular access. "We also want to know under what article of China's criminal code he was charged, when he was sentenced and why."

FALUN GONG REPS BRIEF U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER ON THE CRACKDOWN BEFORE SHE SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH BEIJING FOR CLOSER REVIEW OF ABUSES

From the Falun Dafa InfoCenter: Two representatives of Falun Gong were invited to attend a closed-door meeting with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson on the morning of November 17. During the meeting, they discussed the crackdown in China, focusing on the various crimes perpetrated by Jiang Zemin in his escalation of the persecution, including the serious abuses occurring in notorious labor reform or 'laogai' camps like Masanjia in Liaoning Province. They also presented various documents detailing the killings, tortures, and other inhumane tactics used against Falun Gong practitioners, calling upon the U.N. and the international community to intervene in the situation.

BEIJING (AP, Nov. 20): The top U.N. human rights officer agreed Monday to work with China to reform its legal and police practices, but said a broader effort is needed to protect the basic civil liberties of its people. Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya signed a memorandum committing China to comply with rights treaties it has already signed and to review some current rights abuses, including its use of labor camps. While Robinson called the agreement an important step in improving human rights in China, she said abuses continue and warned her office will pay close attention to China's behavior, particularly on insufficient protections for freedom of expression, assembly and religion. "These remain areas of concern, and I hope to discuss them further," Robinson told reporters with Wang at her side after they signed the agreement at the start of her two-day visit to Beijing. In a sign of the agreement's limits, Robinson said she would press Chinese leaders anew to accept a visit by a U.N. monitor on torture. China agreed to host the monitor last year, but then refused to grant unfettered access to sites and victims... Critics have accused Beijing of taking symbolic steps at opportune moments to deflect foreign censure... "What we hope doesn't happen is that China can make cosmetic changes without changing the substance to get critics in the international community to shut up," said Sophia Woodman, a spokeswoman for New York-based Human Rights in China... Among the abuses singled out in Monday's memorandum is what China calls reform through labor ['laogai'], a system that allows police to send suspects to labor camps for up to three years without trial. Largely meant for drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders, it has been used against political dissidents and more recently the outlawed Falun Gong [group]. Robinson said the labor reform system and other detention policies will top the agenda of February's dialogue between Chinese and foreign experts.

NEWS FROM CHINA

Eyewitness account from Yueyang, Hunan Province (11/13/00): Four female practitioners, ranging from 28 to 50 years old, were detained twice for appealing in Beijing. On the morning of May 1, they were tied up with thick ropes, and wooden boards were hung in front of them saying, "Stubborn Falun Gong Practitioners." They were forced to stand on a truck and were paraded through the streets in different towns together with two police cars. The whole process lasted from morning until the afternoon. The incident was videotaped for propaganda purposes by a van following them from a news media outlet, so there is a record of the abuse. [Ed. Note: Tactics like these were commonly used during China's Cultural Revolution]

Practitioner Wang Lixia killed by local police [Ed note: this brings the known death toll to 82] Wang Lixia, approximately 46-years-old, lived in the village of Yushuli, Balibao County, Shuangta District, Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province. She was arrested on September 5, 2000 by the Shuangta District Police Department and detained at the Chaoyang 2nd Detention Center. She held a hunger strike for 13 days and was released on the 15th day. Before she was released, the police agreed to give back her copy of Zhuan Falun [the main text of Falun Dafa] but they did not keep their word. Thus, after she returned home, she asked her husband to carry her on his back and go to the Shudangta Police Department to get the book back - her legs had become so swollen during detention that she was no longer able to walk on her own. The police refused to give her the book back, but instead they threw her into the detention center again. She went on another hunger strike for 9 days, and the police tried to force-feed her. The feeding tube punctured her throat and left a gaping hole there. On October 9, the guards at the detention center realized that she was on the verge of death and carried her back to her home where she passed away later that day.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: [e-mail], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/