Please Pay Attention to the Persecutions against Falun Gong Practitioners in One of the Best Universities in China

Since last July, Falun Gong practitioners in universities and colleges have been suffering severe persecutions. More and more students and faculty members in the universities all over the country have been or are to be expelled from school or dismissed from their posts. The large-scale persecutions against such highly educated people have been unprecedented since the notorious Culture Revolution. Among all the universities, Qing-hua University is one of the most famous universities in China. Therefore, it has become a focus of the Chinese communist regime in their persecutions against Falun Gong practitioners.

Since last July, the vice premier of the Chinese communist government, Li Lan-qing, has come to Qing-hua University to investigate and handle the "Falun Gong problem". Under the pressure from the central communist authorities, Qing-hua University has severely punished those students and faculty members who are determined about Falun Gong. Most of those persecuted practitioners are excellent students and teachers.

On October 21 of 1999, 14 students were taken away by the police when they were attending an experience sharing conference on the campus. They had been beaten up, handcuffed, and tortured physically. A PhD student who was thought to be an "organizer" was detained for 30 days. A female faculty member is now still being detained in the Qi-li-qu detention center because she had held up a Falun Dafa banner on Tiananmen Square. She might be sentenced.

After October 25, the situation became even worse. The Qing-hua University forced 25 students including 10 undergraduate students, 7PhD students, 7 Master students and one MBA student to withdraw from school for two months. The university also telegraphed to their parents asking them to take these students back home. A young faculty member was also taken back by her parents. Basically all students who are determined about Falun Gong were taken back home by their parents. Two graduate students wrote the letters to quit the communist party under the pressure. One of them was a female graduate student from the institute of microelectronics. The institute had transferred her certificate of residency and other documents away even before she went through the formalities. Another male PhD student from the department of electrical mechanics was detained by police because he had posted his statement of quitting the communist party on the Internet in July. After he was released from the detention center, his mother and brother came to Beijing to persuade him to give up Falun Gong. Moreover, the university held a special "transformation class" just for him alone, with a team consisting of more than 20 people working on him everyday. The communist party secretary of the university, Zhang Zhai-xin, was the head of the team. Later, an article "exposing and attacking" Falun Gong authored by this PhD student was published on the People's Daily (the official newspaper of the Chinese communist regime). Obviously the university authorities had played a big part in cooking up this article.

After the PhD student was "transformed", the central authorities "praised" the Qing-hua University and also ordered the university authorities to find a "model" from the faculty members who are determined about Falun Gong. Therefore, practitioners in Qing-hua University are facing even greater pressure. Up to December 18, the university had held a "transformation" or "re-education" class for one female faculty member as well as three students who are determined about Falun Gong. These three students had been under surveillance and isolated from the outside. The "transformation class" was usually held like this: on each day, they were forced to study materials slandering at Falun Gong, then the university's officials talked with them, and after that they were required to write reports about their "thoughts". The class lasted for about 20 days. It was said that the above-mentioned PhD student was "transformed" like this.

At the beginning of December, the university required all the practitioners who had been sent home to write "self-examination". The self-examination must satisfy the university's requirements including defaming Falun Gong as "evil religion". If one refused to write the self-examination or one's self-examination did not satisfy the university's demands, one would be required to go through a formal procedure to withdraw from school. One could resume one's study only after one's self-examination satisfied the university's demands.

It was said that the university had transferred practitioners' documents to the local police departments of their hometowns in order to control them tightly. A female student once went back to school without the permission of the school. She said her identification card had been confiscated by the local police department in order to prevent her from going out of town. The police department required her to write a "satisfactory" report to the school. If she agreed to do so, she could pick up her ID card from the school; otherwise, she would be dismissed from the school. The police station even threatened her that once she was dismissed from the school, she would be arrested and required to write the pledge promising that she would not practice Falun Gong. If she dose not "cooperate" with the police station, she might be sent to labor camp.

Currently, the three students would be dismissed from the school if the "transformation class" could not "transform" them. A faculty member in the department of electronics is not allowed to work and is waiting for authorities' decision because his "thoughts" do not satisfy the university authorities. He might be removed from his post if his "thoughts" still do not satisfy the university's demands before next semester.

The wife of a PhD student was taken to the street office with the excuse that "her working permit was not valid" and then she was missing.

Before July 22, there were about 200 practitioners in Qing-hua University who often practiced Falun Gong on campus. 150 of them were faculty members and their family members; 50 of them were students.

We appeal to the international human rights organizations and international education organizations to pay attention to practitioners in Qing-hua University, and to help those students and faculties to getaway from the current harsh situation.