Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gong
FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com,
Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/.
FALUN GONG FOUNDER LI HONGZHI MAKES HIS FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE IN OVER A
YEAR IN SAN FRANCISCO PRACTITIONERS ASSAULTED DURING DEMONSTRATION IN SAN
FRANCISCO TWO MEN WHO SUED JIANG ZEMIN ARE MISSING
LI HONGZHI SPEAKS AT PUBLIC GATHERING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER A YEAR
Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, made his first public appearance
since July of 1999 on Saturday, October 21 at the US West Coast Falun Gong
Conference held at the San Francisco's Hyatt Regency Hotel. Mr. Li's
appearance was a surprise for the hundreds of people who had gathered to
share stories and raise awareness about the plight of the Chinese
practitioners. After receiving a warm standing ovation, Li gave an impromptu
address to the attentive audience, starting out by saying, "It's been a
long time!" Speaking to almost 1,000 attendees, Mr. Li spoke of his
support for the efforts of the persecuted practitioners in China, and
expressed his gratitude to the many governments and organizations that have
voiced their concern over the past 15 months to help end the crackdown. He
also showed appreciation for the various awards and recognition that have
been bestowed upon him and the group by Western governments.
The conference was part of a weekend-long event held to raise awareness of
the ongoing crackdown. On Friday, the group hosted a parade and held a press
conference. Guest speakers included Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and
spokespersons representing Rep. Tom Lantos and Rep. Eshoo. In the evening,
practitioners held a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate in
San Francisco, in memory of the 64 Chinese practitioners who have died from
brutality in police custody. The 15-month crackdown on Falun Gong in China
has drawn sharp criticism against Chinese president Jiang Zemin and other
top party officials by the US and many other governments. Also, it appears
that even inside the Communist party sentiment is growing that Jiang has
made a grave tactical error, and support for him may be waning. According to
sources inside the Communist party, during the first day of the 5th Central
Committee Plenum earlier this month, a number of Central Committee Members
voiced their doubts regarding the persecution of Falun Gong, demanding that
the leadership give a reasonable explanation to the entire Central
Committee. The questioning enraged Jiang Zemin, but not a single member
voiced support for him, according to those present. Jiang did not attend the
meeting held later that afternoon.
FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS ATTACKED ON AMERICAN SOIL
October 22 -- Linda Dai, a resident of Berkeley, CA, was handing out
Falun Gong flyers in China Garden Park near San Francisco's downtown on
Sunday while a group of about 75 Falun Gong practitioners sat in peaceful
meditation nearby as part of the week-end long activity. Suddenly, several
unkempt Chinese men approached her, shouting in Cantonese. They grabbed the
brochures out of her hands and began to tear them up. Two practitioners -
Jun Pan of San Francisco and Gary Wong of Fremont - took out their cameras
and began to take pictures of the men. According to Wong, the two were
immediately set upon by another, larger group of men, who knocked the men
down, punching and kicking them and ripping at their clothes. The men took
one of the cameras and smashed it on the ground. One of the assailants
grabbed the other camera. Pan's wife approached the group with another Falun
Gong practitioner to plead with the men to stop beating her husband, but
some of the men then started kicking her legs. Several minutes into the
incident, the police arrived and arrested one of the assailants. They found
the stolen camera hidden in his pants. One eyewitness reported hearing
someone saying, "beat them up and you'll get paid." Right now, we
have no way of confirming that this incident is related to Jiang Zemin's
recently-declared policy of "intensifying the struggle overseas"
against Falun Gong practitioners. However, over the past few months,
practitioners around the U.S. have met with an increasing amount of
interference from Chinese government representatives. Many of these
incidents were reported in the media and by this bulletin. We invite the
media to investigate this matter further.
PRACTITIONERS WHO SUED JIANG ZEMIN HAVE DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE
HONG KONG (AP, Oct. 19)- Two members of the Falun Gong spiritual sect who
were detained after suing Chinese President Jiang Zemin for banning the
group have mysteriously disappeared, followers in Hong Kong said Thursday.
The Falun Gong adherents said they don't know what happened to Chu O-ming or
Wang Jie, who were missing in Mainland China. Falun Gong followers and human
rights groups have made numerous allegations of other adherents dying while
in custody in China. But Sharon Xu, a spokeswoman for Falun Gong in Hong
Kong, said [group] members were not immediately assuming the worst for Chu
and Wang. "We don't know, but it's possible," Xu said. "It is
not very favorable for Mr. Chu or Mr. Wang. We're very concerned."
Falun Gong is banned in Mainland China but remains legal in Hong Kong, where
citizens enjoy considerably more freedom under a largely autonomous local
government. Falun Gong said Chu, a Hong Kong resident who worked as a
furniture dealer in Beijing, and Wang, who worked in a mapmaking bureau
there, were illegally detained more than a month ago after they mailed their
lawsuit against Jiang and two aides to the Chinese courts. Xu said Chu's
relatives in Beijing were notified Saturday that he had been released at 10
p.m. the night before from the Fang Shan Detention Center in southwestern
Beijing and that they should come to the detention center to pick up his
personal belongings. But Chu did not contact his family, and when relatives
went to the detention center asking what had happened, they were told only
that he was no longer there.
NEWS FROM INSIDE CHINA
Steep Rise in Death Toll -
More than half of all the reported deaths of practitioners resulting from
the crackdown in China have occurred in the last three months. We have
received several new reports of deaths in just the past week. AP reported on
three cases on Oct. 18, one of which was of a 62-year-old man who died
following his arrest by Chinese authorities. Government officials in Yuhe
Township in eastern Shandong province took turns pummeling Xuan Chengxi
after he was picked up for distributing Falun Gong literature on Oct. 12,
the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy
reported. The center also said that after his death, authorities cremated
Xuan's remains without informing his family.
Female Practitioners
Stripped and Put into Men's Jail Cells - In the Masanjia Prison of
Shenyang, Liaoning province, the prison guards forcibly stripped 18 female
Falun Dafa practitioners of all their clothes and pushed them into the men's
jail cells. The resulting abuse they suffered was reported as both
disgusting and terrifying. It was said that Luo Gan, a senior official from
the central Communist Party of China in charge of public security, was
monitoring the procedure in the prison at the time. To prevent leaking this
information to the public, the prison has not released any Falun Dafa
practitioners to date. Phone number of Committee of Discipline and
Investigation: 86 24 22875255; Public Security of Shenyang: 86 24 22826445
Practitioners Publicly Humiliated - On July 18, 2000, Hou Guoqing and
Yu Zhong were led out to the street in handcuffs and shackles and subjected
to public humiliation and verbal abuse. Hou Guoqing, 60 years old, had been
on a hunger strike for more than 30 days and was in poor physical condition.
Both were later sent to a labor camp. This kind of public humiliation tactic
reminded many onlookers of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER -
Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan
917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com,
Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/.