(Minghui.org) A Vietnamese radio station in Sydney, Australia, broadcast an interview with a representative from the Australian Falun Dafa Association about the tens of thousands of lawsuits logged recently against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
Since early May, around 43,000 Falun Gong practitioners have posted criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin to China's Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Jiang is the target of the lawsuits because he launched the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999 and established the 610 Office that implements his persecution policies nationwide.
Lawyer and human rights advocate Than Nguyen, an attorney for the Supreme Court of New South Wales for more than 20 years, conducted the interview that aired on 2VNR radio station on July 1, 2015, in the late afternoon.
“I fully support efforts like this to bring human rights violators to justice,” Nguyen said in his introduction to the program. “Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China have been arrested and detained, and thousands of them have died due to torture.
“This kind of atrocity is unacceptable. Plus, the live organ harvesting is a crime against humanity. All the perpetrators involved in this, especially Jiang Zemin, must be held responsible.”
Nguyen told his audience about an upcoming event in Sydney regarding the lawsuits against Jiang.
The representative from the Falun Dafa Association then told the listeners that, in 1999, an estimated 70 million to 100 million Chinese were practicing Falun Gong. The number of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members was only 63 million.
“As head of the state and top leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin launched the persecution in July 1999,” the practitioner explained. “Jiang ignored the mental and physical benefits of Falun Gong. He chose to ban Falun Gong out of jealousy and did so to further his political agenda.”
Nguyen asked what the situation in China was like after the suppression started. The practitioner recalled that the state-run media broadcast hate propaganda almost every day and that those who continued to practice Falun Gong were arrested and detained.
“According to information received by the Minghui website, more than 3,800 practitioners have died so far from torture in custody. And the actual number could be much higher,” the practitioner said. “Even now, many practitioners are still being held in prisons and brainwashing centers.”
“I've heard that organs have been harvested from living practitioners. Could you tell us more about that?” Nguyen asked.
“That has been confirmed by independent, third-party investigations,” the practitioner replied. “Jiang gave that order not only to eliminate Falun Gong, but also to generate enormous profits by supplying on-demand organs.”
Research by Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian politician David Kilgour that was published in 2006 showed that about 45,000 practitioners were killed in China for their organs. Investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann found evidence that the killings were still taking place in 2013.
Before May of this year, people had been too fearful to file lawsuits against Jiang Zemin while they still lived in China, but a policy issued in early May gave Chinese citizens more rights to have their cases heard in the courts.
“The situation has changed, and it is time to end the brutality. People should be able to freely practice their belief,” the practitioner said.
