(Falun Dafa Information Center) Despite the international community's hopes that China's winning of the Olympics bid would improve its human rights record, China's Vice Premier Li Lanqing emphasized on Monday, July 15 that the government would continue persecuting Falun Gong, according to an RFA report from Beijing. These were the words of Li Lanqing as he visited an anti-Falun Gong exhibition that opened on July 15 in Beijing's Military Museum. He also said that Beijing's winning bid to host the Olympics proved that China's social stability had received international recognition. "Li Lanqing used the winning of the Olympics bid to prove the persecution of Falun Gong is justified," RFA reported.

Reports reveal that in the month before Beijing won the Olympics bid on July 13, there was a sharp increase in the number of cases in which Falun Gong practitioners died from mistreatment. Over 20 people reportedly died in separate group killings at two labor camps in Helongjiang Province.

Analysts believe Li Lanqing' statements were intended to send the message that there will be no improvement on the human rights issue by the Jiang Zemin regime.

Li Lanqing heads the Chinese XX Party Central Committee's "Leadership Group Handling the Falun Gong Issues," and the infamous "610 Office," an organization created specifically to persecute Falun Gong. It has been learned that after Beijing's successful Olympics bid, the Public Security Ministry of China approved the promotion of local "610 Offices" from the section level to the bureau level, which indicates that the Jiang Zemin regime has started to further escalate the persecution of Falun Gong.