Feb. 10, 2006
FALUN GONG TECHIE BEATEN AND BOUND IN ATLANTA HOME; COMPUTERS STOLEN
ATLANTA (FDI), 02/09/2006 - "The Falun Dafa Information Center has learned that Falun Gong practitioner Peter Yuan Li was assaulted and robbed by armed Asian men yesterday in his Atlanta home. Li is the Chief Technical Officer with The Epoch Times and has also been active in Falun Gong human rights advocacy over the past six years. The assailants bound and gagged Li, and then severely beat him about the head and face. He bled profusely. Half an hour later, they left. They had overturned his file cabinets and stolen two laptop computers and potentially other important documents, Li says, but no valuables. The wounds on Li's face required 15 stitches... What happened to Peter Yuan Li is part of a larger pattern of violence perpetrated against Falun Gong activists by Chinese agents in the United States. Congress has recognized the problem and in 2003 passed House Congressional Resolution 304, stating, 'over the past 5 years China's diplomatic corps has been actively involved in harassing and persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in the United States.'... Stated FDI spokeswoman Ms. Gail Rachlin, 'Thousands of us [throughout the U.S.] are having to look over our shoulders, lock our doors, and be wary of our surroundings at all times because agents of a foreign Communist regime may be lurking.'"
Full Story: http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9349
L.A. TIMES: POLITICS ON PARADE
LOS ANGELES (L.A.Times), 02/02/2006 - "Chinese New Year parades, scheduled for Saturday in downtown Los Angeles and in the San Gabriel Valley, should be an occasion to celebrate the richness of Chinese culture in this country. They should not be a chance for Beijing to decide who gets to participate. Organizers of the two parades are not embracing a spirit of openness; instead, they are blocking involvement by followers of Falun Gong... By bowing to Beijing's wishes, organizers in Los Angeles are staining their celebrations with controversy... When asked, they say they fear Falun Gong followers are too political and may use the parades to distribute pamphlets about religious persecution in China. But it is an open secret in Chinese communities here that preserving business ties with China, and avoiding criticism from China's consulate in Los Angeles, are the main concerns... Contrary to Beijing's line, eagerly repeated by diplomats at the consulate, Falun Gong is not dedicated to the overthrow of China's communist government. Its followers embrace a blend of Buddhist and Taoist healing achieved through exercise and meditation."
FORBES: CHINA'S FIGHT WITH FALUN GONG
NEW YORK (Forbes), 02/10/2006 - "The shocking reenactments of torture in front of Pennsylvania Station in New York and the Chinese Embassy in London publicly make the point: Falun Gong, a popular spiritual movement brutally suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party, is effectively waging its counterwar against the Chinese government, from the West. Overseas Falun Gong practitioners are, for example, leading an underground campaign to hack China's Internet firewalls, to counter the Chinese Communist Party's news blackout and propaganda in the Middle Kingdom... The Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong is allegedly run by the notorious Office 6-10, a specially created unit that has overseen a terror campaign that survivors say includes mass arrests, imprisonment in labor camps, brainwashing, torture and, in some cases, murder, for all those who failed to renounce their allegiance to Falun Gong. Gang Chen, a mild-mannered 34-year-old now living in southern New Jersey, tells Forbes that his 17 months in labor camp included many forms of torture, including being chained to a radiator and repeatedly electrocuted with electric batons ('like snake bites') and being crushed to near-death under wood, as guards ordered fellow inmates to stand on top of him. ('My friend was paralyzed this way.')"
CHINESE COMMUNIST REGIME'S STATE COUNCILOR SERVED WITH TORTURE LAWSUIT
VANCOUVER (FDI), 02/09/2006 - "During her visit to Vancouver, China's State Councilor and former Education Minister Chen Zhili was served with a lawsuit for torturing, persecuting and terrorizing practitioners of Falun Gong within the Chinese Communist regime's education system. The lawsuit was filed at the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The 5 plaintiffs are all practitioners of Falun Gong, and are Canadian citizens or residents of Canada. While in China during Chen's tenure as Education Minister from 1998 to 2003, they were students and teachers who were persecuted, terrorized, and tortured in Chen's campaign to perpetrate the policy of eradicating Falun Gong and using the education system. According to an investigative report by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, Chen saturated the Chinese school system's course materials and examinations with anti-Falun Gong propaganda. She also ordered mandatory pledging to identify administrators, teachers, and students who practised Falun Gong, most of whom were subsequently sent to brainwashing sessions or forced labour camps."
EPOCH TIMES: RELAY HUNGER STRIKES STARTED BY "CHINA'S MARTIN LUTHER KING"
NEW YORK (Epoch Times), 02/08/2006 - "Renowned Chinese attorney Gao Shizheng, who has been likened to Martin Luther King for his dedication to non-violent means of exposing the tyrannical rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has called for ongoing hunger strikes across China in protest against the regime's persecution of innocent people, including Falun Gong. Despite being under house arrest and having recently survived an attempted assassination for his outspoken stance on the crimes of the CCP, Gao published an article on Sunday announcing the establishment of the Hunger Strike Group to Support Human Rights... 'Once fully established, it will carry out symbolic hunger strikes to support citizens who have encountered violence and illegal persecution inside and outside of China,' he stated in his article, which highlighted the role of the judicial system in crushing people's basic human rights."