AFP: With Appeal for Data, Falun Gong Promises to Deploy U.S. Justice Against China

NEW YORK, Sep 6, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The Falun Gong spiritual movement on Wednesday promised to mobilize the full force of U.S. justice to hunt down Chinese officials it accuses of torturing and murdering its members.

Falun Gong, which is banned in China, issued an appeal for intelligence on Chinese officials and members of the security forces implicated in repression and pledged to launch prosecutions in US courts.

The group has already slapped U.S. civil lawsuits on several top Chinese officials during visits to the United States under legislation that extends U.S. jurisdiction over foreign cases of torture.

"Falun Gong practitioners are going to prosecute mainland Chinese officials who have participated in the campaign of violence and hatred against Falun Gong," the group said in a statement.

It called on Falun Gong adherents in China and elsewhere to provide detailed information of abuses allegedly carried out by state officials as part of the hardline drive against the group launched by the Chinese government in 1999.

It said it was looking for evidence of crimes including "arbitrary arrest and detention, murder and gratuitous killing, torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, rape, the pillaging and ransacking of practitioners' homes, forced brainwashing, and filing of false charges."

Hoping to hit offending officials in the pocket, the group asked for information on investments, real estate, bank accounts and equities held by Chinese officials abroad.

Falun Gong is targeting U.S. officials under the Torture Victims Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act.

The legislation gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over acts of torture committed outside the country but a suit can only proceed if defendants are served with legal papers while in the United States.

To that end the groups asked for information about travel plans of top Chinese officials.

Last month, the group served papers on Zhou Yongkang, [party's name omitted] Party General Secretary of Sichuan province while he was on a visit to Chicago.

In July, activists lodged a 50 million-dollar suit against Zhao Zhifei, Public Security Chief of China's Hubei province during a visit to New York and a similar lawsuit was filed against former premier Li Peng by survivors of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

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