Human Rights Watch Slams China Over "Repression" of Falun Gong

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Human Rights Watch Slams China Over "Repression" of Falun Gong

Feb. 15, 2002 | By Robert J. Saiget

2002-02-06 17:02 (New York)

BEIJING, Feb 6 (AFP) - China has brutally repressed the Falun Gong spiritual group through widespread torture, deaths in custody and a massive campaign of detention without trial, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday.

In a lengthy document cataloging alleged abuses carried out against Falun Gong, the New York-based group said Beijing's attempt to equate the group with terrorists or other threats to national security was "ludicrous".

The 117-page report further accused the Chinese government of using the law as "a malleable weapon" against individuals whose opinions differed from the ruling Communist Party and against "organizations it wants destroyed". "Serious human rights violations, including restrictions on freedom of thought, belief, and expression, wrongful detention, unfair trials, torture, and deaths in custody have accompanied the Chinese government response to Falun Gong," HRW said.

Falun Gong, which HRW said once claimed 40 million adherents in China, was outlawed as an "evil cult" in July 1999, and by September 2001 it had mostly been driven "underground", the report said.

"Substantial evidence" showed that tens of thousands of followers were detained and thousands put into labor camps without trial, with hundreds more convicted of crimes, said the report, entitled "Dangerous Meditation: China's Campaign Against Falun Gong".

Early pre-ban calls to eradicate Falun Gong were justified by Beijing on the grounds that followers refused medical treatment.

However, as the Falun Gong continued to grow and defy government efforts to curb the group, the government raised the stakes by calling Falun Gong a threat to social stability and then more recently a terrorist organization. "China's efforts to equate the Falun Gong with terrorists are ludicrous," HRW executive director Sidney Jones said. "The charge that Falun Gong threatens the stability of China does not hold up, and its claim that belief in Falun Gong is a public health menace is equally bogus."

Without disputing the government's claim that Falun Gong is a highly organized "sect", the report maintains that law-abiding citizens have a right to peacefully practice their beliefs.

HRW said it had documented widespread police torture against incarcerated followers.

"There is evidence of a range of serious abuses against Falun Gong members in custody, including beatings, electric shock and other forms of torture, forced feeding and administration of psychotropic drugs, and extreme psychological pressure to recant," the report said.

As of June 27, 2001, exiled members of the Falun Gong organization claimed that 234 practitioners had died suspicious deaths in custody or immediately following release, and that countless others were victims of torture and mistreatment. Chinese public security officers either had "no comment" on the deaths or offered alternative explanations such as heart attacks, the report said.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin had ordered the eradication of Falun Gong, either out of fears that it rivaled Communist Party power or as an effort to build his political legacy ahead of his expected retirement in the coming year, it added. "By altering laws and creating new laws with the expressed intention of dismantling Falun Gong, the Chinese leadership has succeeded only in undermining its claim that the judicial system is rooted in a 'rule of law' principle," HRW said. In many respects the government's tactics were strikingly similar to various extrajudicial campaigns previously waged against "imperialists", "counter-revolutionaries" and other suspect elements, it said.

Since banning the Falun Gong, the government had used these methods to wipe out other groups, including several underground Protestant groups, HRW said.