Falun Dafa Press Statement (Canada) -- June 22, 2001

We are delighted at Ying Zhu's release and safe return to Canada. To the thousands of Canadians who spoke out to free Ying, we thank you sincerely. More than 80,000 Canadians have signed our petitions to support Falun Gong practitioners in China. Your voice truly makes a difference and the fact that Ying is here today is evidence. We hope for your continued interest and caring. However, on this happy occasion, we cannot forget Shenli Lin, an accountant and the husband of Canadian Citizen Jinyu Li, who has suffered in a labour camp for more than 17 months. Nor can we forget the tens of thousands of other practitioners of Falun Gong who continue to suffer in labour camps, detention centres, psychiatric hospitals and elsewhere in China.

Although we are here today in celebration of Ying's release, the simple fact is that she should never have been arrested in the first place. Ying only wished to visit her ailing mother. Instead she was arrested, detained, monitored 24 hours a day, interrogated, threatened, mentally tortured and completely deprived of her freedom and basic human rights. We can see the horrifying stage that this crackdown against Falun Gong has reached from what Ying has endured. The Chinese President Jiang Zemin has made it a crime for Falun Gong practitioners to simply exist.

To further eliminate Falun Gong practitioners, Jiang Zemin has desperately implemented a new declaratory statute that permits the arbitrary detention, torture and even execution of Falun Gong practitioners. In the 10 days after the new law was passed, more than 11 practitioners have died under Jiang Zemin's new law. As it is difficult to get information out of China, this number is probably low. It is clearly an attempt to provide a legal basis for organized killing of Falun Gong practitioners and the number of deaths is escalating.

Just this month a handicapped man was dragged forcefully, and unwillingly from his home by Chinese police while his neighbours protested. Within three days of his arrest, he was beaten to death because he was a Falun Gong practitioner. An eight-month-old child and his mother were tortured to death because she was a Falun Gong practitioner. A woman was brutally beaten and raped in public by a Beijing police officer. A sixty-year-old woman was tortured to death while in detention.

Ying Zhu was threatened by an official who said, purposely making injustice cases, false cases and wrong cases in China is not impossible, even the marshal He Long (a famous Chinese leader) had been sent to prison with false accusation and died there.

Across China, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are forced into labour camps, detention centres, and psychiatric hospitals where they are abused, raped, tortured, and killed. Now, forced brainwashing classes can be set up at any location, thus making all of China a prison where Falun Gong practitioners live in constant horror. It is no wonder that Amnesty International has proclaimed President Jiang Zemin a Human Rights Scoundrel.

In 1940 Adolf Hitler's rule of Law stated, This people must Disappear from the face of the earth. Now, in 2001, The President of China, Jiang Zemin's rule of law states, Use all means necessary to exterminate Falun Gong or it will be seen as a major weakness to the communist party. Together we must stand to stop genocide from happening again. We thank you all for your continued support in helping to stop these crimes against humanity.