The Voice of America reported today that, Canadian Prime Minister Chretien, while attending the APEC Summit in Shanghai, expressed his concern toward China's human rights conditions, and especially the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, when he met with Chinese leaders on October 20.
Thirty-four people, today, have solemnly declared that all the documents they signed under forceful brainwashing are null and void. One of the statements pointed out, "in the evil environment of the brainwashing classes, which openly violate national laws and personal freedom of citizens, as well as threaten people with attacks and retaliation, everything I said and wrote is against my conscience, and is null and void. I will continue to practice Falun Dafa, clarify the truth to the people of the world, and work harder to make up the losses I brought to Dafa."
Worldwide Support
Mayor Julian of Utica, in the press conference held in front of City Hall on October 19, named that day the "Falun Dafa Day" of the City of Utica. He also read the proclamation sighed by him for the Falun Gong practitioners participating in the SOS walk from Canada. The state representative, RoAnn Destito, also read the proclamation that she has signed.
The Mayor of Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey issued a proclamation for the Falun Gong practitioners and supporters on September 25 to praise their 250 mile walk to Washington.
After passing through Iceland and many cities and towns of France, Falun Gong practitioners from the U.S. and Germany who are participating in the SOS walk arrived at the Prime Minister's Residence in Brussels, Belgium. The Prime Minister's aide came out of the Residence, shook hands with each practitioner, and said, "Welcome, great walkers."
Media Reports
The Toronto Star reported on October 21, that the speech by George Bush, the President of the United States, who is attending the AEPC Summit, was uncomfortable for many attendees, including Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Jiang was condemned for smothering freedom in Tibet and depriving the rights of Falun Gong practitioners from practicing Falun Dafa. Bush warned yesterday that any country should not suppress their minority groups in its regime with the excuse of the war against terror.
Le Republicain Lorrain, a newspaper in Luxembourg that covers the east of France, pointed out on October 18 while reporting about the Jiang Zemin regime's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners that "The persecution is an evident violation of human rights."
World Journal (Chines language newspaper in the U.S.) reported on October 18 that, beginning October 17th, four Falun Gong practitioners from the Boston area would embark on a 300-mile walk across Massachusetts to call attention to the plight of persecuted and tortured Falun Gong practitioners in China. One of the walkers, Tan Shujun, a 61-year-old woman, said that she had never walked more than two miles nonstop. She hoped that through this action, the public would realize the seriousness of the abuse and torture suffered by Falun Gong practitioners.
Canadian Oneida [transliteration] Express News reported on October 19th: Falun Gong practitioner Zhu Ying and four other women on their walk from Montreal to New York carried a sign that read, "SOS! Urgent: Global Rescue Walk." They hoped to pressure the United Nations to urge the Chinese government's criminal regime to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
Nakano County, Japan. The Xinnong Daily News [transliteration] reported on October 16th: Falun Gong practitioners in this county launched a walk to Matsumoto on the 15th. They also walked in the city and illustrated the situation of Falun Gong practitioners who are suffering brutal tortures and persecution.
Taiwan's Zhonghua Daily reported on October 21st that Zhu Wanqi, who has two master's degrees in law, was an ambassador, and is currently the manager of a legal affairs office at a financial corporation. She talked about her experiences at a "Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Series:" "A tumor threw me and my family into misery. But after cultivating Falun Dafa, I was given a new life." She encouraged all people to give up their prejudices and sincerely cultivate Falun Dafa.
Fangguangming (FGM) TV station reports: On October 1st, government officials and Chinese community leaders of New Jersey got together with Falun Gong practitioners to celebrate the Moon Festival. Regarding Jiang Zemin's regime's persecution of Falun Gong, Mrs. Phyllis, who is Congressman Ferguson's [transliteration] assistant and represented him said, "We cannot tolerate such state terrorism."
The Canadian news agency Mendike News [transliteration] stated that according to last month's survey conducted among 1,504 Canadians by the Leger Survey Company, 57.4% of people interviewed believe that human beings can reincarnate after death.
Cultivation Experience
A veteran practitioner lately experienced frequent feelings of discomfort and sickness. She suddenly realized, "Regardless, whether it's my own karma or outside interference, don't they all have the same purpose of interfering with me and disabling me from doing what I'm suppose to do?" She gritted her teeth and got up. Soon, the pain disappeared, and she devoted herself to the current of clarifying the truth and exposing the evil.
A Caucasian American practitioner understood: when one's mind is assimilated to Dafa and one has really kept up with the process of Fa rectification, one will naturally step forward and do all that one is supposed to do, and devote oneself to the sacred mission to assist Teacher in this human world, with a Dafa practitioner's compassion, wisdom and determination.
Many practitioners have realized more and more clearly: we must jump out of the habitual mindset and out of the mode of individual cultivation. We must completely oppose the warped notions forced upon us by the old forces, which assume that stepping forward to rectify the Fa and clarify the truth will necessarily lead us to be arrested and tortured.
Human Rights Abuse
Using the applicable US and Canadian laws as legal weapons, lawsuits have been filed against Chinese officials who have been unlawfully persecuting Dafa practitioners. These lawsuits have been quite effective in shaking up and suffocating the evil. Large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners have been sent to labor camps, where they are forced to perform ultra-intensive hard labor. The products that they make are generally exported overseas. This practice is against many international treaties and standards. Using the special influence of international organizations to expose the evil is a task that deserves more attention and effort.
In the Panjing City Labor Camp (located in Liaoning Province), guards led by Zhang Shoujiang often brutally torture Falun Gong practitioners and deny them sleep. They often hang the practitioners in the air and whip them or beat them with wooden bats and electric batons. A guard named Cui Xiuyan beat a practitioner with the surname of Su so badly that the practitioner began to vomit blood.
According to news from China received on October 23, Haiyang City (located in Shandong Province) recently arrested more than 200 local Falun Gong practitioners. Out of those, most of them are being detained at the Wanjia Labor Camp. Yu Tongli, a villager at the Houbuqian Village in the township of Facheng, is being detained at the labor camp along with his wife Fan Qinghong and father-in-law Fan Mingwu. He has a one-year-old daughter and a widowed mother at home awaiting his return.
Around mid-September, practitioners Mo Shaoying and her husband Lao Jianfeng, who are residents of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, were arrested on Jinhua Street in Guangzhou City. After being illegally detained at a local detention center for 15 days, both of them were transferred to the Liwan Detention Center in the city of Guangzhou. They are now unable to care for their 8-year-old child.
The Sichuan Province Female Prison is currently holding more than 60 Falun Gong practitioners. A practitioner named Meng Xiao was stripped down to her undergarments during the height of the winter, locked into a small room, handcuffed, and hung up in the air for more than a month.
On May 25, 2001, a group of practitioners who were detained at the Changlinzi Labor Camp started a hunger strike demanding the release all the Dafa practitioners at the labor camp. In response Shi Changjin, the head of the labor camp, ordered two doctors to force-feed the practitioners. After the brutal force-feeding session ended, several practitioners suffered from severe bleeding from their noses and uncontrollable shivering. One practitioner died the very next day.
Fan Xuanzhi, a lady in her 60's from Heilongjiang Province, has never practiced Falun Gong. However, she personally witnessed the amazing healing power of Falun Gong when her sister made a complete recovery from a terminal illness after practicing Falun Gong. Her sister has been detained for refusing to give up Falun Gong, and Ms. Fan Xuanzhi went to Beijing to simply appeal for her release. Because of that, she was sentenced to three years in prison as a Falun Gong practitioner. She is currently being detained at the Beian Prison and has endured a tremendous amount of torture and abuse.
In October during the APEC meeting held in Shanghai, Wu Xiaohua, an associate professor at the Anhui Province Architectural Engineering University, was placed under house arrest by security guards employed by the university. They told her, "Our superiors ordered us to surround your home and keep you from leaving." They later arrested her and dragged her away to an undisclosed location.
Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions
Still having the attachment of fear, a Beijing practitioner failed to display his banner in Tiananmen Square three times. On October 20, this practitioner made up his mind to fulfill his vow [to validate Dafa] and he went to Tiananmen once again. On the west side of Jinshuiqiao (a place that is just across from the Tiananmen Square), he pulled out his banner reading "Falun Dafa is Good," unfurled it above his head, and shouted "Falun Dafa is Good" and "Return Innocence to my Teacher," which he had long wanted to tell people.
In a certain city in Ningxia Province, various Dafa truth-clarifying materials and stickers appeared overnight in all the streets and alleys in the downtown area and some parts of the suburbs. This greatly upset and suffocated the evil.
Dafa practitioners in Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province came to realize that they cannot allow the evil to persecute them at will anymore, so they made many phone calls to the police station and the city 610 office (an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems) requesting unconditional release of jailed practitioners and calling for good treatment of all Dafa practitioners. In addition, practitioners also warned the evil that they will receive their retribution if they do not stop doing evil deeds. The officials in the 6-10 office were very scared and annoyed and they did not even dare to pick up the phone.
Ah Chao, a practitioner in a certain city was kidnapped and taken to a brainwashing class early this September. His wife wanted to her to bring Teacher's comments "Also in a Few Words" to him. On her way to the class, she thought to herself, "Humans cannot see what a god is doing." Sure enough, she passed two check points and sent the comments to her husband with righteous thoughts.
After the mass arrest of Dafa practitioners in Shulan City, Jilin Province on July 8, 18 female practitioners were locked up together. Fourteen of them were able to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil whenever necessary. They kept sending forth righteous thoughts all the way to Heizuizi Women's Labor Camp in Changchun city, Jilin Province. As a result, they were unconditionally released because they failed to pass the medical examination required by the labor camp. In contrast, the other four practitioners who yielded to the evil and wrote statements promising they would quit practicing Falun Gong were jailed in the labor camp for labor reeducation.
One day in mid-September, the sixth floor of a residential building in a Northern city caught fire. The fire was quite strong and it blocked the stairways. Two people jumped out of the building, resulting in one death and one injury. An onlooker said, "I bet the government will again put the blame on Falun Gong for the death." Though it is just one sentence, it tells the truth.
Evil Receives Retribution
Liang Junhong, the director of the armed forces department in Anzhuang Town, Feicheng City, Shandong Province, had been persecuting Dafa practitioners very brutally. In May 2000, he died of cancer.
Also in this town, while Gao Fuquan, the chief criminal who is in charge of persecuting Dafa practitioners, was preparing for his son's wedding, his son, Gao Haisheng was electrocuted to death while working in the Shiheng Electricity Power Plant.
In Aoping Town, Pengzhou City, Chengdu area, Sichuan Province, the town head (Wu Weichun) and the XX party secretary beat up practitioners brutally and forced them to kneel on the charcoal dregs. In September this year, the officials received their retribution. Both of them were arrested and put into jail for embezzling money and accepting bribes.
Category: April 25 Events