Main Echo (Miltenberg, Germany): Falun Gong Practitioners in China in Danger of Losing their Lives

September 14, 2001

According to eyewitnesses and family members, while in custody, five female Falun Gong practitioners were murdered by police officials. The specific details are not known at this time. Their bodies were covered with signs of torture. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese cultivation practice [...]. Similar to Tai Chi and Yoga, that has brought countless people better health and inner strength. Falun Gong has been banned in China since July 1999.

To date, 278 Falun Gong followers have lost their lives, murdered while in police custody. More than 50,000 who are still alive are incarcerated, and over 10,000 are in interned in so-called "labor camps," having been sent there without due process of law. While in these labor camps, the practitioners are subjected to beatings, humiliation, torture and rape. Hundreds are kept in psychiatric facilities where they have to endure forced treatment with drugs. Ignoring countless appeals by governments around the world as well as human rights organizations to observe human rights in China, Jiang Zemin's regime continues its persecution unhampered.

Some victims were arrested solely on grounds they possessed Falun Gong materials or because they forwarded information about the persecution. Their deaths confirm the alarming increase of violence toward Falun Gong practitioners permitted since the government's latest edict on May 2001.

This edict states that those individuals who forward information about Falung Gong or the persecution of Falun Gong are to be "heavily punished." These five murder victims are:

Chen Quilan from Daqing, Heilongjiang Province. According to information from family members, Chen Quilan had been tortured to death close to midnight on August 14^th, 2001, after she had already endured two months of abuse during her incarceration at the detention center in the city of Daqing.

Yang Rulyu, from Fuzhou, Fujian Province, died July 22, 2001 while in police custody, after having been tortured and abused for three days prior to her death. According to eyewitnesses, her upper body showed a fist-size wound.

Zhang Fengyun from Lanzhou, Ganzu Province. Her family was informed on August 10^th that Zhang had died while in police custody at the Xiguoyan detention center in Lanzhou. Apparently she died from injuries resulting from force-feeding.

Zheng Xianmei from Dalian City, Liaoning Province. It is assumed that Zheng died August 13^th, four days after she was mistreated while incarcerated. Zheng was arrested August 9^th, following a search of her house by police deputies who found Falun Gong books.

Wu Lianjie was from Baicheng, Jilin Province. She died under mysterious circumstances, either August 19^th or 20^th, while being detained in the Office for Public Safety in Gongzhuling. The officials tried to pass off her death as a suicide.

On Saturday, September 15, 2001, 10 AM until 4 PM, the German Falun Gong Association will hold a public information forum at "Am Riesen," (a central location in town; translator) to tell more of the brutal persecution.