Reuters: Group Says Three Falun Followers Die in Custody

Wednesday October 18 6:54 AM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Three Chinese followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have died in Chinese custody, a Hong Kong human-rights group said Wednesday.

The three deaths in northern China took to at least 57 the number of Falun Gong practitioners to have perished during detention since the group was banned last July, the Information Center for Human Rights

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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/

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ááááááá JIANG ZEMIN'S NEW ORDERS: DISRUPT FALUN GONG OVERSEAS

ááááááá ANOTHER PRACTITIONER BEATEN TO DEATH FOR SPIRITUAL BELIEFS

ááááááá CHINA TRIES TO SUPPRESS AUSTRALIA'S CRITICISM OVER ILLEGAL JAILING

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MEDIA ALERT: ORDERS FROM P.R.C. LEADERSHIP TO TARGET FALUN GONG OVERSEAS

As a spiritual practice deeply rooted in Chinese society, Falun Gong practitioners in China often have access to non-public documents and information. Obviously these sources must remain confidential, but a recently "leaked" missive has given us cause for genuine alarm: Reliable sources inside China have revealed that Jiang Zemin and his group of supporters within the Chinese government are implementing a new policy to "intensify the struggle [against Falun Gong] overseas."

According to these same sources inside China, on October 12th, a highly classified document was sent out from the central government via an internal telegram to the military and top officials at the Ministry level. Sources report that the document now classifies Falun Gong as 'counter-revolutionary,' as 'anti-Party,' and as an 'anti-socialist organization' -- the same terms used against the student protesters just prior to the Tiananmen Incident in 1989. Perhaps the most insidious item in the document, however, is one that explicitly calls for "intensifying the struggle overseas," indicating greater actions may be taken beyond Chinese borders in the months to come.

Practitioners in Australia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere have long reported harassment from Chinese consulate officers and government agents. In the U.S, Chinese consulate and other government officials have contacted a number of mayoral offices around the country as well as major universities (including Cal-Tech) in an effort to block Falun Gong activities. Additionally, there have been many documented cases of practitioners, including American citizens, being followed on U.S. soil and having their email systems attacked from inside China. In one of the more blatant and outrageous incidents in recent days, a homeless Chinese woman in Tokyo told police that she had been given money by P.R.C. agents to pretend that she was a Falun Gong practitioner and to engage in illegal actions so as to smear the image of Falun Gong.

The Falun Dafa Information Center is asking governmental and news agencies around the world to closely monitor this situation. We anticipate an increasing amount of activity of this sort in the months to come as P.R.C. personnel attempt to carry out their new orders. We can only guess at what kinds of tactics Jiang Zemin and his associates will use in the near future, and just how far they will go to extend their campaign of intimidation and defamation overseas.

We encourage you to contact the Falun Dafa Information Center if you have questions or need clarification regarding any particular incidents of this nature.

FROM BEIJING TO BANKSTOWN, PRC TRIES TO INFLUENCE AUSSIE INTERNAL AFFAIRS

Sydney Morning Herald, 11/10/2000: The Chinese consulate has tried to block a Sydney council criticising the jailing in China of an Australian practitioner of Falun Gong, which is banned there. It was backed in its attempt to influence Bankstown City Council by an Australian-Chinese lobby group whose patron is the former prime minister Mr Bob Hawke. Two officials from the Consul-General of the People's Republic of China on Monday sought and were given an interview with the council, expressing concern about a proposal that the council "condemn" the Chinese Government. The Aus-China Sports Friendship Committee, cheer leader for the Chinese Olympic athletes and Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics, wrote to the mayor, saying it would be disappointed if the council made the criticism. The focus of the lobbying is 39-year-old Mrs Cui Ying Zhang, of Yagoona, who has been jailed in China for seven months and is due for release on November 4. She and another Australian, Mrs Ziomei Feng, 45, of Hornsby, were jailed for entering China without visas to protest against the suppression of Falun Gong, which the Chinese Government brands as a dangerous religious sect but which practises peacefully in Australia and elsewhere.

FAMILY SEEKING COMPENSATION IN DEATH OF PRACTITIONER

AFP, BEIJING, Oct 10, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Guards in a northeast Chinese labor camp organized the beating to death of a follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, relatives and Falun Gong sources charged Tuesday. Wang Bin, 44, was severely beaten after he refused to write a confession retracting his belief in the group's teachings, a Falun Gong follower in Daqing city, Heilongjiang province told AFP. Prison guards at the Dongfeng Reform Through Labor Camp in Daqing ordered other prisoners to beat Wang and two other Falun Gong followers after they refused to sign written retractions of their beliefs, she said. Wang's beating was so severe he was finally sent to a local hospital where he died on October 6, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Relatives at Wang's home in Daqing confirmed that Wang had died... After consultations with lawyers, Wang's family was seeking CNY 500,000 (USD 60,000) in compensation for Wang's death... The Dongfeng Reform Through Labor Camp already had an impressive record of getting Falun Gong followers to recant their beliefs, she said, a record that had been praised by Chinese leaders. This summer China set up two labor camps to hold the hardened Falun Gong followers, in a further sign of the government's concern over the spiritual group, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said earlier.

NEWS FROM CHINA

[Jilin] Hu Wenzheng, a young lecturer in the Foreign Language Department of Jilin University, has been arrested. At about 10 pm on October 6, four plainclothes policemen with no official documents broke into the apartment of Hu Wenzheng, a popular lecturer in the Foreign Language Department of Jilin University. They forcibly took her from her home with the charge of "distributing flyers" and confiscated her computer equipment. It is known that she is currently detained at the Public Security Office of Jilin City and her family members are not allowed to visit her. Her husband is in the United States. Her sickly mother and her 5-year-old child have been left at home with no one to care for them.

[Tangshan] Female practitioner given forced injections and electric shock in mental hospital for refusal to recant spiritual beliefs. Zhang Deyi, female, from the Seaport District, started hunger striking on May 23rd and was then sent to Tangshan psychiatric hospital (Fifth Hospital of Tangshan). She was sent back home on July 5th. Zhang Deyi was severely mistreated in the psychiatric hospital: she was forcibly administered injections of drugs and shocked with electric needles. Zhang Deyi said to the physician-in-charge: "We are Falun Dafa practitioners, not psychiatric patients, so we do not need psychiatric treatment." However the physician replied: "You refuse to eat, you resist the government, and you resist us, so you definitely are psychiatric patients." Zhang Deyi and a fellow practitioner, together with two other psychiatric patients were 'treated' with electric needles. When the actual psychiatric patients in the hospital would cry out in pain during such treatments, the physician said: "What are you crying for? Falun Gong practitioners don't even cry with the needles on the 2nd level. You cry with it just on the 1st level."

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/

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