Questions Posed to Sir Verwilghen, the Belgium Minister of Justice

Thursday, February 21 2002

An oral question was posed to Sir Verwilghen, the Belgium Minister of Justice, about erroneous reports on the People's Republic of China state run television concerning comments connected to the Belgian Department of Justice regarding the battle that the Chinese government is fighting against Falun Gong.

On January 9^th 2002 Chinese state run television broadcast a documentary about an exhibition held in the Chinese embassy in Brussels. What follows below is an excerpt in English:

"The director of the anti-xx[slanderous term omitted] Research Center of the Ministry of Justice, Mr. Brasseur, told reporters: "The human rights violations by [slanderous term omitted] and the danger that they pose to society is tremendous. I am very happy to have been able to see this exhibition. I want to better understand the harm that [slanderous term omitted] have done in China and understand in detail how the battle against [slanderous term] has been conducted. I hope that the anti-xx organizations of different countries willl coordinate more in the midst of this battle."

A telephone conversation with the official in question revealed that this transcript in fact does not accurately portray what was said or what happened. The Chinese video footage of the fabricated interview together with an English translation have been delivered to Belgium's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for investigation into the matter.

Therefore my questions today to the Minister of Justice:

• What is the Minister's evaluation of the Chinese news report?
• Does it not intentionally give a wrong impression of the attitude of the Belgian government toward Falun Gong? How does the Minister respond knowing that this issue is repeatedly in the public forum on the Belgian, European and global plane in regard to human rights violations?
• Doesn't a request for correction from the embassy of the PRC seem appropriate here?
• Is information being transferred from our embassy in China to the Belgian government in general, and the Ministry of Justice specifically, about the operation and the situation of Falun Gong abroad?

Ferdy Willems,

People's representative