Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the press:
As you all know, 19 months ago, the Chinese regime began a brutal crackdown on the meditation practice known as Falun Gong. The Falun Gong practitioners in China have since been going to Tiananmen Square almost every day, unfurling banners or doing their exercises, in an attempt to appeal to their government to lift the ban. These practitioners are quickly rounded up and placed in detention, where they are subjected to all forms of torture and mistreatment. Since we were here last year in Geneva for the Human Rights Commission, PRC President Jiang Zemin has escalated the persecution and has ordered that Falun Gong be "eradicated by any means," and the death toll from the crackdown has jumped more than 300% in the last six months to reach over 170. It is on behalf of the courageous practitioners in China that we are here today.
Throughout this session of the Human Rights Commission, you will hear countless stories of torture and injustice around the world, so you may wonder why the case of Falun Gong might deserve your special attention. The first reason is that the persecution of Falun Gong is occurring in China, the world's largest nation, which, for better or for worse, affects almost every other nation both economically and politically. The degree to which the People's Republic of China is belligerent or benign directly affects every nation's military spending, trade, investments, or foreign aid package. And China is at a turning point in its development as the people have more access to information and are thus expecting more freedom in every aspect of their lives than the PRC regime appears willing to grant. Will the Chinese regime begin to move towards a more open, civil society, or will it further step up its control and oppression for fear of losing power? In many ways, Falun Gong has become a litmus test of which path China will take. In addition, Falun Gong is helping to shine the international spotlight on the many, many crimes against humanity that occur on a daily basis in China -- torturing farmers and workers who are not able to pay hefty taxes, imposing forced abortion and sterilization on women who become pregnant again after they have had their first child. In these cases, we understand that the PRC government may have certain policy concerns, but very often, the punishment is unnecessarily brutal and far exceeds the offense.
The crackdown on Falun Gong has also brought to the world's attention the Chinese regime's intolerance of many unregistered churches and other religious groups. For decades now, priests and pastors in the underground churches have been quietly threatened and thrown into prison for their faith. These groups, too, are being labeled "evil cults" by the atheist regime and hundreds of these house churches were razed to the ground just before Christmas last year. This kind of callous religious oppression is ongoing and systemic, and Falun Gong is only bringing to the surface what has remained hidden for so long. Let us look at the toll this campaign of persecution against Falun Gong has taken in the course of 19 months. Human rights groups have reported that tens of thousands of people have been sent to labor camps without trial, and several hundred have been subjected to show-trials and given jail sentences of up to 18 years. And these are only the cases that have been reported and confirmed since information is obtained at great risk to those involved. To date, more than 170 practitioners are known to have died under police custody.
Just as Falun Gong practitioners are a cross-section of the mainstream Chinese population, a little more than half of the casualties are women. This is something I would like to emphasize today -- as you can imagine, female practitioners often face sexual abuse by unscrupulous policemen. Certain labor camps, the most notorious of which is the Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning Province in China, even encourage sexual humiliation as a way to demoralize female practitioners and intimidate them into renouncing their faith. In several reported instances, police have even gone so far as to use electric batons in the women's private parts, causing such shock and pain that the women often lose consciousness or lose control of their bowel movements. We think you will understand when we say that nothing we can recount here today can fully convey the trauma these female practitioners have suffered. Who are these women? They're women from all walks of life, ranging from teachers to nurses to housewives. Many are elderly and have grandchildren, while some are much younger -- just high school or college students. Most of the ones who have decided to go to Beijing to appeal will have no jobs or schools to return to when and if they're released from incarceration. And it's not just the practitioners themselves who have to suffer from the persecution. Entire families have been devastated. Mothers and fathers have nowhere to turn when police call to say that their daughter has "died of natural causes" while in police custody, and that the body will be cremated that afternoon. A recent report from Amnesty International on torture in China also discusses cases in which Falun Gong practitioners have been taken by police to mental hospitals where they are often forced to take drugs against their will. The report indicates that: "On 20 January 2000, Yang Yong, a spokesman for the Changguang police station... in Beijing, confirmed to a foreign journalist that around 50 practitioners, mainly women, were being held at the Zhoukoudian psychiatric hospital near Beijing. He said they are not patients, they are there to be re-educated ...'" Hundreds, if not thousands of completely sane and healthy practitioners have sustained permanent neural damage and others have died as a result of such "treatment." The many accounts of injections of lethal drugs and electroshock therapy are disturbing because they conjure up images of the tortures inflicted by Soviet police and the KGB under Stalin decades ago.
Most of you will have heard of the tragic incident earlier this month in which dozens of children died in an explosion in an elementary school in a small town in China. Before the authorities blocked off all access to the town, the parents told reporters that the children had been forced to make firecrackers to make money for the school and for the local officials, and it was the gunpowder that caused the blast. PRC leaders were quick to claim that the explosion was the work of a deranged man and that the children were never forced to manufacture firecrackers. One father who lost his 11 year-old in the incident pleaded with a reporter over the telephone: "The government is trying to cover the facts. Please do not believe them." The government only confirmed his suspicions to the world when they bulldozed the school that very night and then put up Wanted' posters of the alleged madman even though he was supposed to have already died in the blast. This is something that we Falun Gong practitioners have been trying to tell the world for the past 19 months -- the current PRC regime regularly uses its massive propaganda machine to twist the truth to serve its selfish interests. In doing so, the PRC government is denying the grief-stricken parents in this tragedy the right to know what really happened, the right to mourn their loss, the right to fair compensation. This kind of manipulation of the truth has been just as devastating for millions of Falun Gong practitioners and their families, but it is even more insidious because the Chinese regime is blaming the victims by slandering them first.
There are so many tactics used in this crackdown that are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. For example, PRC delegates are preparing to present to the Human Rights Commission a million signatures from Chinese nationals denouncing Falun Gong. First we must ask what business a government has in calling a petition drive since usually this is something that is done on a grassroots level, and then we must ask how they extracted the signatures from the populace. Sources from China say that schoolchildren and workers are being forced to sign at the risk of being expelled from school or losing their jobs. The signature drive itself has become a way for the police to pick out Falun Gong practitioners from the crowd. The Jews during World War II certainly knew all too well what it was like to be singled out and then to lose everything when the discrimination quickly took a deadly turn. Foreign media are already expressing concern that without sufficient outside pressure, China could very well resort to even more violence against Falun Gong than it did against the students in the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. Their concerns are not unfounded. The PRC has just raised its military budget by a tremendous 17.7%, which translates to tens of billions of US dollars. This increase should worry all of you, as it worries us since Falun Gong has been declared "public enemy number one." As Defense Minister General Chi Haotian indicated during a meeting of the National People's Congress earlier this month, the People's Liberation Army will do its utmost to smash internal foes such as the Falun Gong so as to "ensure the impregnability of the administration." Are we actually prepared to let the tanks roll into the Square and shed the blood of innocent civilians once again?
The practitioners in China are men, women, and children who have chosen to stand up against the forces of evil. Their cause is just, and their means are peaceful. We have received tremendous support from the United States, Canada, and the European Commission, and now it is time for the rest of the international community to step up. The members of the Human Rights Commission must realize that to vote in favor of China's inevitable no-action motion against the US resolution on human rights in China is to suggest that the fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people are not worth mentioning. It is also tantamount to saying that torture of Falun Gong practitioners, of Tibetan Buddhists and of Christians and Catholics is justified. Who's next? The Buddhists, Taoists, and Muslims? Is the world prepared to so nonchalantly betray its spiritual heritage for short-term interests?
We are not here in Geneva to censure China. We are here today to make an appeal for China's future. The PRC cannot hope to become a truly respected member of the world community unless it is willing to take steps to improve its human rights record. What nation in the world would not benefit from a more peaceful and stable leader in the Asia-Pacific region? The PRC as it is now has enemies on every front -- the current regime has done that to itself. Today, China's moral center is crumbling, and the divisions in the government are beginning to show. As we watch this epic drama unfold before us during this crucial period in history, we must all decide where we will stand. This year we can only hope that the world will choose wisely.
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. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com
(3/23/01 15:41)
Category: Rallies & Protests
