(Clearwisdom.net)

October 13, 2002

Dear Senator:

We want to express our concern about the current state of worldwide terrorism. Although the world's attention and efforts have been on the control of terrorism after what happened on September 11, 2001 in the Middle East and Iraq, the ongoing state-run terrorism in China by Jiang Zemin is also a threat to world peace and it affects all of us. It is well known that Jiang Zemin and Saddam Hussein are two dictator-terrorists who use mind control on their populace and persecute the good and innocent. Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted in China for the last 3 years; many have been killed in jails, labor camps (concentration camps) and even in psychiatric hospitals. Female practitioners are raped and/or gang-raped and even children and infants have been murdered under the current communist [Jiang's] regime.

As psychiatrists and psychologists we want to describe to you the horrifying history revealed in investigations of China abusing psychiatry and medical science to persecute and torture Falun Gong practitioners, abuses also perpetrated by Chinese physicians and top scientists.

Psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, and other medical personnel use such methods as administering huge doses of psychotropic drugs and electric shock therapy to torture practitioners. Throughout China, the police widely use these methods on practitioners, to include burning the skin with electric-shock clubs and violent forced feedings. This problem is endemic. Human rights groups have identified 90 mental health institutions in all regions of China that are engaged in psychiatric abuse.

The damage suffered by these innocents is often severe and irreversible, the worst cases ending in death. To date, we know of at least 1,000 practitioners who have been sentenced to mental health institutions. At least ten formerly healthy and sane practitioners have died either in these institutions or shortly after release.

The following death case was reported in the Washington Post on June 23, 2000.

Su Gang was a 32-year-old computer engineer working at the Qi-Lu Oil Chemical Company. He was repeatedly detained by the security department of his workplace for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. His family has stated that Mr. Su was in good health and had no mental illness prior to his detention. The Washington Post reported: "After traveling to Beijing on April 25th to protest the ban on Falun Gong, he was arrested again; on May 23rd, his employer, a state-run petrochemical company, approved commitment papers that authorized the police to admit him to a mental hospital. According to Mr. Su's father, the doctors injected Mr. Su twice a day with an unknown substance. When Mr. Su emerged a week later, he could not eat or move his limbs normally." Nor could he remember what happened to him in the hospital, and he even stopped speaking. On June 10th the previously healthy young man died.

Many previous mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners including top scientists became insane after severe torture beyond the limits of human endurance.

Lin Chengtao, a top Chinese scientist, his mind has been destroyed and he can no longer take care of himself. This is the news that came from China just two weeks ago. Held in the notorious Tuanhe Labor Camp since September 2001, Lin has refused to give up the practice of Falun Gong. Thrown into solitary confinement, the guards tortured Lin daily with electric shock clubs that have a charge of 30,000 volts. This torture eventually took Lin's sanity. Incredibly, even though he has lost his mind, the guards there continue to torture Lin daily. Where before they tortured him for practicing Falun Gong, now they torture him because they say he is faking mental illness. Whether he is sane or insane, the guards seem to understand only one thing: they must torture Lin Chengtao.

Lin Chengtao graduated from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CAMS & PUMC), where he proved to be a brilliant medical scientist. As a key person in his research group, Lin worked on several national research projects. At a meeting in September 2000, the chief scientists from teams all over the nation praised the presentation Lin made. This is incredible because his research result was achieved under the constant harassment from both Chinese police and university administrators for over a year due to his practicing Falun Gong.

As human beings, we have a duty to aid those who are suffering. As doctors, we have made that duty our vocation. As psychiatrists and mental health providers we have a duty to preserve and enhance the ability of our profession to respond to human suffering. As scientists, we have a duty to the truth, and to assuring the responsible use of discoveries whose only legitimate purpose is to relieve suffering. In whatever guise members of the U.S. Senate choose to consider themselves in relation to the abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in China, we must all see ourselves as uniquely called upon to respond. Our compassion, our self-respect, our duty to our profession, and our responsibility for the future all call upon us to act.

We urge you to sponsor Resolution 188 in the Senate.

Thank you.

Psychiatrists and Psychologists in the US