Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Xiong Wei, who was interviewed by Radio Free Asia during activities on the World Human Rights Day, said that two years of detention in a forced labor camp made her realize that the Chinese Communist Party not only abuses human rights but has done something even worse: the Chinese Communist Party makes the Chinese people completely forget their basic rights as human beings through years of propaganda and suppression. The following is an edited version of a report by Radio Free Asia's Tian Yi.
December 10 was World Human Rights Day. Ms Xiong Wei, who was arrested and imprisoned for two years after distributing leaflets disagreeing with the Chinese government's suppression of Falun Gong, took part in activities held by international human rights organizations and Falun Gong practitioners. According to her personal experiences, she called on the Chinese people to recognize human nature and human rights, as well as calling on international society to stop human rights abuses in China. Concerned about this issue, Ms. Xiong Wei accepted RFA's interview.
"Recently, I read an article called 'Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party', which gave me a great shock. Due to accepting communist education from birth, my mind has been distorted unconsciously by many notions produced under the Communist Party's unbalanced education - for example, my knowledge of human rights. In China, there are no human rights guidelines for treating people. Human rights violations don't only happen in prisons and labor camps, and they don't only happen to Falun Gong practitioners. In Chinese society and the treatment Chinese people receive, there is no sign of respect toward human rights or education leading to basic knowledge of human rights."
According to the Chinese Government's propaganda, "Chinese people don't need human right as Westerners do." Ms. Xiong Wei said emotionally, "Of course Chinese people need human rights. Chinese people need even more knowledge of basic human rights than people in other countries. The Communist Party's evil propaganda and education benefits its own domination. Chinese people don't even know the meaning of human rights and what kind of rest and food we need for our basic subsistence. This has been reflected even more prominently in labor camps. The food we ate was so filthy: it was hardly washed and there were many insects. We didn't even know whether we had the right to sleep. We never got paid for that heavy physical work. Where could we get our human rights from?"
With regard to this, Ms. Xiong Wei believes that to the Chinese society and people, the worse damage was, "The Chinese Communist Party's control of the media with its power to give people unbalanced information for years, which has concealed basic respect towards human rights and human nature. This was much worse for people than being hurt physically."