Speech from Association for Threatened Peoples (Austria): This Persecution Is Completely Irrational and Illogical

The Association for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Voelker) cannot see any logic in persecuting people for practicing Falun Gong - a completely non-political meditation system. The brutality that has been targeted at the practitioners is almost unbelievable: forced labor camps and reformation centers, unimaginably cruel torture methods and many other things. The results after three years of this: tens of thousands incarcerated; many hundreds dead as a result of torture while in police custody.

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published August 01, 2002

August 01, 2002

UK Government Report Highlights Hong Kong Authorities' Suppression of Falun Gong and the On-going Court Case

On Tuesday July 23, the UK government published its 11th biannual report on Hong Kong. In the Foreword, the UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, stated that that the basic rights and freedoms afforded to the people of Hong Kong through the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law must continue to be upheld. Clearly referring to the Chinese government's interference and pressure on the Hong Kong authorities, Mr. Straw stated it is vital that this [Hong Kong's] autonomy continues to be respected. The report highlighted the on-going trial of innocent Falun Gong practitioners in Hong Kong and a number of incidents that were widely regarded as examples of the Hong Kong government's disregard for human rights when pressured by China. The report stated that there have been a number of controversial incidents related to the handling of the Falun Gong practitioners. On March 14, sixteen Falun Gong practitioners, including four from Switzerland, were arrested while appealing outside the Central Peoples' Government Liaison Office. All sixteen were charged with obstruction. The report explained how the Hong Kong government ironically later dug up pavement at the very spot where Falun Gong practitioners were arrested for obstruction. The SAR Government subsequently erected wooden barricades outside the CPG Liaison Office where Falun Gong had staged its daily appeals.

Director of Friends of Falun Gong, "This will be recorded in history as another great, nonviolent movement that changes the world"

I am an American and I do some business in China. I'm saddened to see how suspicion, fear and corruption have seeped into the whole society under Jiang Zemin's regime. The reality of China today is very different from most people's perception of the country and the one painted by those in power. Today I would like to ask everyone who has any business dealings with China to check carefully that your vendors and manufacturers are ethical and that they don't use slave labor from the laogai, or Chinese gulags. A vast number of innocent Falun Gong practitioners are being held in these "labor re-education camps" -- they are housewives and schoolteachers, engineers and professors.

Congressman Thomas Tancredo of Colorado: "We cannot gloss it over simply because China is a powerful country"

July 23, 2002

[Editor's note: For the sake of accuracy, we must point out that the persecution of Falun Gong does not reflect the will of the Chinese people as a whole, or even the will of the entire Chinese government, as many high ranking officials are opposed to the persecution. Jiang Zemin and a few of his political henchmen are totally responsible for this attempt to eliminate a group of people based on their spiritual beliefs.]