5-year-old Rongrong (right) lives with her grandfather after her father (left) was killed in police custody and her mother (also left) sent to a detention center because they practice Falun Gong.

BOSTON (FDI) -- Along with the verified death toll of 1,089 Falun Gong practitioners has come the suffering of countless children in China. An international organization is now working to bring those children out of China to a warm home.

Five-year-old Rongrong is the kind of child this undertaking is for. The girl's dad was tortured to death because he practiced Falun Gong. To avoid the same fate as her husband, Rongrong's mother went into exile and was later arrested. Her grandmother soon died of grief, leaving only her grandfather to take care of her.

Another case is that of Yang Kai, 12, and Yang Hang, 11. Police had abducted their mother from home for practicing Falun Gong, and she was killed within six months. With father Yang Zhanjiu serving a seven-year sentence, and with the grandmother abducted six times and tortured for supporting Falun Gong, the two boys were left with the grandfather to take care of each other.

To help children like these, the Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners (website) is collecting and organizing cases in which Chinese children became orphans or lost parents due to Jiang Zemin's persecution of Falun Gong in China. The organization has issued an initial report (report) and is working with other NGOs to open up channels that will allow these children to be received in safe countries.

In addition to losing their family and the care required for their age, says the Global Mission's director Dr. Elizabeth Wang, "These children have lost their dignity as human beings. They've been discriminated and awfully defamed in society, in schools, and even in kindergartens. They were labeled as bad kids, or the kids of bad people."

The international organization, with chapters in 16 countries, has also documented cases in which children have had to watch the abuse and beating of their parents.

For instance, in July 2000, as two-year-old Wang Shujie was being fed by her mother, police officers broke into her home and abducted all the adults. A few months later, the infant watched as police hit her father across the face with a book during interrogation. She immediately passed out. After regaining consciousness she began sweating and had a fever. She swayed from side to side and became restless, banging her head against the wall. She stopped growing and stopped eating, became skin and bones, and died in July 2002.

"There are also children who have been beaten, sent to labor camps, and expelled," says Dr. Wang. "These children have lost everything. They have no money to support themselves for school or day-to-day needs.

These needs and warm, loving homes are precisely what the organization is striving to provide these children, who have already lost so much.

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NEWS - Oct. 31, 2004

Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net

Background

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa (about), is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the universal principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Practiced in over 50 countries world-wide, Falun Gong has roots in traditional Chinese culture. With government estimates of as many as 100 million practicing Falun Gong, China's Communist leader Jiang Zemin outlawed the peaceful practice in July 1999 (report). Since that time, Jiang's regime has intensified its propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against the practice while imprisoning, torturing and even murdering those who practice it. The Falun Dafa Information Center has verified details of 1,089 deaths (reports / sources) since the persecution of Falun Gong in China began in 1999. In October 2001, however, Government officials inside China reported that the actual death toll was well over 1,600. Expert sources now estimate that figure to be much higher. Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced labor camps, typically without trial.

http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9011