CHINA CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #72

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RELIGIOUS FREEDOM... PRC-STYLE: "Razing churches before Christmas? I'm incredulous..."
-- U.S. diplomat in Beijing [Washington Post Foreign Service, Dec. 12]

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CHINA CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #72 12/20/2000
Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gong

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FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301. Email: [e-mail], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

• CYBER-TERRORISM AND COMPUTER VIRUSES LINKED TO P.R.C.'S POLICY
• BEIJING PREPARES FOR CHRISTMAS BY RAZING CHURCHES AND TEMPLES
• ...MEANWHILE ACROSS THE STRAIT, TAIPEI INVITES FALUN GONG FOUNDER TO ATTEND MASSIVE INT'L FALUN DAFA CONFERENCE; R.O.C. GOV'T PONDERING

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CHINA-BASED CYBER ATTACKS AND COMPUTER VIRUSES AIMED AT FALUN GONG IN U.S.

NEW YORK, December 20, 2000 (FDI Report) Perpetrators of the crackdown against Falun Gong in China are sending out computer viruses to practitioners in the U.S. in yet another attempt to disrupt communications amongst Falun Gong practitioners. Today, Cheng Wang, the webmaster on www.falundafa.org, had his computer attacked by a virus in a Chinese email. The email message said: "Firmly support the Central Party's decision concerning the ban on Falun Gong. Oppose the maligned teachings and evil sayings of Li Hongzhi (translation)." The webmaster said his computer detected the virus but was unable to repair it before it infected the hard drive and completely disabled his computer. This kind of 'wscript.kakworm' virus is particularly insidious and disruptive because it automatically activates when an email is read instead of working through an attached file. The virus will also infiltrate the email address book and send itself to everyone on the contact list. The Falun Dafa websites are often attacked using advanced techniques employed by hackers against larger corporate sites, and the source of the attacks can usually be traced back to the P.R.C. Public Security Bureau or companies in China. (Cheng Wang can be reached for interviews at 516-523-9761)

CHINA RAZING CHURCHES AND TEMPLES, TO STAMP OUT "UNAUTHORIZED WORSHIP"

SHANGHAI, December 19, 2000 (AP) - China is demolishing hundreds of churches and temples as it cracks down on unauthorized worship in a southeastern coastal area known for its flourishing religious life, officials said Wednesday. The demolitions began at the start of December in rural areas around the port city of Wenzhou, said a spokesman for the city Foreign Affairs Office. "In rural areas, religious superstition is still very rampant," said the spokesman, who would give only his surname, Zhou. "The government's goal is to demolish those illegal buildings as well as correct those decadent rural lifestyles." A spokesman for the Wenzhou city propaganda department, Lu Tianlei, said as many as 450 buildings have been destroyed... A Hong Kong human rights group put the number of destroyed buildings much higher, at 1,200. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the buildings, some more than a century old, were being dynamited. China's communist government, which recognizes only five religions, is in the midst of a crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation sect and other unauthorized religious activity... Nonetheless, a religious revival has swept China in recent years.

WILL TAIPEI RISK THE WRATH OF BEIJING AND GRANT MR. LI HONGZHI A VISA?

Hong Kong iMail 18 December 2000: TAIPEI has still not decided whether to allow the founder of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, Li Hongzhi, to visit the island, because of the risk of angering Beijing. Taiwan Falun Gong Research Centre Deputy Secretary-General Huang Chun-mei yesterday said the centre had invited Mr Li, whose group was outlawed by Beijing, to attend a conference scheduled for December 23-24. She said, however, that until yesterday they had not heard from the Taiwan government as to whether it would allow entry to Mr Li, a move which could infuriate Beijing. An official of the cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, which formulates and regulates the island's mainland policy, said all mainland visitors' entry applications were discussed with the Ministry of the Interior... The organiser of the Falun Gong seminar, Professor Chang Ching-hsi, said the Falun Gong centre had liaised with Taiwan's government for months on Mr Li's visit without obtaining a final decision. The government has apparently tried to play down the incident as it had told the group Falun Gong was not considered a religion because it did not meet the criteria of a religion according to its regulations, Professor Chang said. The Sing Tao Daily yesterday said Mr Li was applying as a scholar, but not as a religious leader. Professor Chang said he had heard that but could not confirm it. Government organs, including the Ministry of the Interior and the Mainland Affairs Council, were still working on it, despite the fact that authorities had granted an entry permit to Mr Li last year. Professor Chang said Taipei last year granted the visa to Mr Li. But he had later decided to cancel a trip to the island after Falun Gong was banned in the mainland last July...

MACAU SEEMINGLY EAGER TO RELINQUISH 50 YEARS OF FREEDOM FOR JIANG'S VISIT

HONG KONG, December 20, 2000 (iMail Editorial) Yesterday, the long arm of China's security apparatus stretched into the Macau Special Administrative Region on the first anniversary of the handover of Macau. President Jiang Zemin arrived for the anniversary celebrations yesterday afternoon, bringing with him a climate of tension and repression. In the hours before Mr Jiang's arrival, about 25 Falun Gong members were rounded up by the police. Plainclothes police stormed the house of Macau's Falun Gong leader, claiming that he possessed banned items, perhaps even firearms, but they found nothing. A group from Hong Kong, including Falun Gong members and human rights activists such as "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung from the April 5th Action Group and the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democracy, were turned away by Macau immigration officials. Inside the Macau ferry terminal, the Hong Kong activists were taken into a room for questioning. "We have no concrete record now of how many are being detained. We just have a blacklist ... no, a list of 'unwelcome' people," said a Macau police spokesman. What does this say about Macau, one year after the handover? The first thing it says is that freedom of expression there has been dramatically eroded. Religious or political groups that are banned and repressed in the mainland can no longer find freedom in Macau. Second, and perhaps more significant, yesterday's events underline for Hong Kong the importance of ``one country, two systems'', and highlight the fact that we still have basic freedoms. The same principle is supposed to apply in Macau, but clearly it does not. In Hong Kong we still enjoy, for the time being at least, the freedom to express our political and religious views. Falun Gong members have been able to hold protests; mainland dissidents have been able to stay here and remain active; the long arm of China's security has not yet silenced Long Hair. Yesterday's events in Macau should make us cherish the freedoms we have in Hong Kong, and fight to preserve them.

NEWS FROM INSIDE CHINA

Accounts of daily torture at the Liuchangshan detention center of Jinan City in Shandong Province -- One female practitioner at the detention center was forced to wear handcuffs with metal shards inserted under the cuffs, then the guards whipped at her with a belt to force her to march rapidly. The faster she walked the tighter the handcuffs became and the more the metal shards cut into her flesh. The woman was forced to march for 24 hours without stopping. Other female practitioners have been brutally beaten for hours then chained in their cells for several days without permission to use the bathroom. Some have been chained inside small iron cages, some have been chained hanging from windows or kept in other brutal positions whereby they can neither sit nor stand up straight for days at a time. One female practitioner was dragged outside and strung up by her handcuffed wrists. The superintendent put a stranglehold on her throat until she lost consciousness, after which she was left lying unconscious on the ground. Practitioners at the Liuchangshan detention center are repeatedly tortured with stun batons and beaten daily. After a period of suffering through this kind of treatment, they are then sent without legal procedure to a 'laogai' or forced labor camp where they are tortured further.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301. Email: [e-mail], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/