Clearwisdom Weekly

News and Events from around the World -- January 8, 2007

Content

Monitoring the Falun Gong Human Rights Crisis in China - www.faluninfo.net

CONFIRMED DEATH TOLL OF FALUN GONG IN CHINA TOPS 3,000
Last week, the confirmed number of people killed in China for practicing or supporting Falun Gong topped 3,000. According to Chinese government sources, the true death toll is estimated to be as high as 10,000 or more. Most of the deaths resulted from severe forms of torture, including beatings, being shocked with 30,000-volt electric batons (often in sensitive places, such as the anus, genitals and mouth) and being submerged in sewage water for prolonged periods of time (see: torture methods). Since the Chinese Communist regime launched the suppression of Falun Gong in 1999, extreme violence -- combined with a systematic propaganda campaign and a wide range of extortion and suppression tactics -- has been used throughout China to coerce Chinese citizens into giving up their Falun Gong practice. The Falun Dafa InfoCenter has verified more than 63,000 cases of torture. Millions of Falun Gong men and women have been detained or sent to forced labor camps without trial. Untold thousands have been driven from their homes and workplaces by the threat of torture and imprisonment from local police.

CHINESE ARMY HOSPITAL ADMITS USE OF FALUN GONG ORGANS
According to a Dec. 29, 2006 report from China, a staff member at the Air Force 281 Hospital in Beidaihe District, Qinhuangdao City confirmed to an undercover investigator that organs used at the hospital to perform transplants come from (unwilling, imprisoned) Falun Gong practitioners. The hospital has recently taken out advertisements in local newspapers offering transplants for kidneys, livers and, more recently, lungs. The statement is the latest in a string of shocking admissions by medical staff in hospitals across eight provinces that have told investigators they get organs from Falun Gong practitioners. In some cases, the staff members boast at how healthy and "fresh" the organs are, and how quickly a match can be found. In July, former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) David Kilgour and human rights attorney David Matas issued an independent report on organ harvesting in China (see: news). The report concluded that a large number of people who practice Falun Gong were being killed for their organs. The report also said there was no other explained source for the more than 40,000 transplants that have taken place in China since 2000.

FALUN GONG FOUNDER RESPONDS TO SWELL OF NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS
The Epoch Times, January 3, 2007 - "The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tried for over seven years to eradicate the peaceful meditation practice of Falun Gong, but an exchange of New Year's greetings suggests that Falun Gong is more than surviving the CCP's campaign. On New Year's Day, in response to thousands of New Year's greetings, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, published on the Falun Gong Web site Clearwisdom.net a message addressed to the people of the world... Greetings were sent from every corner of China, including remote rural or mountainous areas and also ethnic areas, such as Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region -- the home of the Hui people. A wide cross-section of Chinese society is also evident in the greetings from China... Such greetings show the failure of an intensive propaganda effort meant to turn the people of China against Falun Gong. This propaganda effort was one cornerstone of a systematic and comprehensive persecution that began on July 20, 1999."
Full story: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-1-3/49992.html

HEAD OF BEIJING OLYMPIC GAMES SUED IN AUSTRIA
Austria Press Agency reported on Dec 16 that the Austrian Falun Dafa Association filed a suit in Vienna against Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee, and three other high ranking Chinese Communist Party officials. Liu, along with former Chinese Communist Party head Jiang Zemin and two heads of the infamous 610 Office, Li Lanqing and Luo Gan, have been charged with "Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity" for their roles in the persecution, torture, and deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Often likened to the Nazi Gestapo, the 610 Office is an extra-judicial agency created in 1999 specifically to wipe out Falun Gong in China.

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ORDERED TO PAY LAWSUIT COSTS TO FALUN GONG
On December 14, 2006, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Supreme Court issued a final verdict on the year and a half-long legal case filed by Falun Gong practitioners against Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. In order to avoid a court order, Mr. Downer promised he would stop issuing certificates that restrict Falun Gong practitioners' use of banners in peaceful protests. The judge also ordered Downer to pay $20,000 in legal fees. The Falun Gong practitioners had charged Downer with abuse of power in issuing 96 certificates, on a monthly basis, over a period of four years, which restrict practitioners' use of banners and music to protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. Downer began issuing certificates in March 2002, one day before Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan was to visit Australia.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 917-757-9780, Levi Browde 646-415-0998, Erping Zhang 646-533-6147, or Christina Chai 917-386-5068. Email: contact@faluninfo.net, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

On January 6, 2007, the Toronto Service Center for Quitting the CCP held a rally in Chinatown to celebrate and support 17 million withdrawals from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and its affiliated organizations. Several Chinese shared their view on the CCP and the Quitting the CCP movement at the rally. Volunteers for the service center distributed copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and other related materials.

By January 6, 17,118,000 people have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations through the Epoch Times' website.

Ms. Wang from the service center said to the crowd: "According to the CCP's statistics, in 2005, there was a protest (civilians' struggle to defend their basic rights) every 6 minutes in China. Evidence showed that there were even more protests in 2006. While struggling for their rights, many civil groups in China have also sent the Epoch Times name lists of people who decided to quite the CCP and its affiliated organizations. In his statement of quitting the CCP, a military officer wrote: 'The question of whether men and women in uniform are to protest citizens or to be a tool of the CCP's totalitarian regime has bewildered me for a long time. Through my relatives, I learned that the CCP is so evil and brutal and it can even commit atrocities of harvesting organs from living people for profit. I therefore decide to quit the CCP. At the same time, my wife and daughter decide to quite the Communist Youth League. As a man in uniform, I will point my gun to the evil party when the call from the public comes.'"

Ms. Wang continued, "Every time the evil party commits an atrocity, such as the recent killing in Guangdong Province, harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners and the arrest and secret trial of civil rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, it inspires more Chinese people to denounce the party and more foreign governments and overseas human rights activists to condemn the CCP. For example, in 2006, the Vice President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, former secretary for the Canadian Department of State (Asian Pacific) David Kilgour, the Australian Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong and Canadian Prime Minister Harper in succession stepped up to say 'no' to the CCP's atrocities."

In his speech, volunteer Mr. Li said: "Chinese people can no longer tolerate the atrocities of the CCP, and social contradiction has reached a critical point. In China, cursing the CCP has become a popular social phenomenon: regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religious background and social status, people, including corrupted officials, are cursing the CCP. The collapse of the CCP is coming soon."

At the rally site, this reporter met Ms. Wang, a volunteer for the hotline of the Toronto Quitting the CCP Service Center. Wang told the reporter that more and more people are calling the hotline. On the busiest day, more than one hundred Chinese called in to quit CCP.

1) A middle school student called from Mainland China. He said that his school was now soliciting up to 5 students from his class to join the Communist Youth League and he was not sure whether he should join. Ms. Wang told him that people are now quitting the CCP and he should not join it. Wang also asked if he has the number of his teacher. The child's mother then gave Ms. Wang the number. Wang called the teacher and told her about the ongoing Quitting the CCP movement. The teacher immediately decided to quit the Youth League and thanked Ms. Wang.

2) A Mainland Chinese called in and asked what this number was for as he found the number on a RMB bill (Chinese currency). Ms. Wang told him that this number is to help people to quit the CCP. The man then said: "Do you know who I am? I am a police officer!" Ms. Wang replied that police have always been the unfortunate scapegoats in all the past political movements of the CCP and told him he should quit the CCP for his own sake. She also shared a comment from one of her classmates who is a police officer in China: "We are just a dog raised by Jiang Zemin (former CCP head) and we have to attack anyone that we are ordered to attack." The caller sighed and ended the call.