Video: FGM TV News - 10/29/2002

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Script

• Falun Gong is freely practiced in more than 50 countries, but relentlessly persecuted in China.
• The peaceful courage of practitioners there has shocked their oppressors and moved the people of the world.
• While China continues to block information about the persecution, FGM TV brings you the stories you may not hear anywhere else.

Hello, and welcome to the FGM TV weekly news review on October 29, 2002

I'm David Tompkins

In this week's update from China...

• The number of Falun Gong practitioners verified to have died while in detention is 505, with details of 2 more confirmed deaths received in the past week. Reliable sources inside China put the actual death count in the thousands.
• In the last 7 days, reports of persecution have come in from 15 provinces and from the city of Beijing.
• 372 people declared as void all statements they had made under torture and at times when their minds were not clear. They said they intend to continue to practice Falun Gong.

Our top story this week:

The head of the PRC Jiang Zemin ended his visit to the United States having been met at every turn by peaceful Falun Gong practitioners.

And some of our other stories:

• Practitioners gathered at embassies and consulates around the world
• The Chinese embassy in the United States spent large amounts of money trying to form welcome groups
• A federal appeals court rules that a Chinese woman is eligible for political asylum, and
• Torture methods that are being used at a forced-labor camp in China
• As Jiang Zemin visited the United States, Falun Gong practitioners from 20 countries gathered there to show their resolve in the face of brutal persecution that has so far claimed the lives of at least 505 people.
• In a series of missteps by the Chinese department of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese media, the Chinese Department of Foreign Affairs said a joint statement would be issued at APEC by China and the United States.
• However, that had to be recanted as the White House immediately replied that a joint statement would not be issued.
• Furthermore, the New York Times pointed out that propaganda from Beijing was exaggerated.
• The Chinese media had claimed that it was the highest honour to have a barbeque at President Bush's Crawford ranch in Texas.
• However, Jiang was ushered out after a short meeting lasting only one and a half hours.
• The Chinese media reported that his Welcoming Group had been 400 to 500 people.
• However, in Chicago, Jiang was met by more than 1,000 people, most of whom were Falun Gong practitioners.
• But there were also human rights organizations, some advocates for democracy in China, the U.S. Independent Federation of Chinese Students & Scholars in the United States (IFCSS), and some Tibetan and Taiwanese.
• Jiang was so scared to see the protestors that he entered the hotel through the back door.
• This disappointed the "welcoming group," so the Chinese Consulate offered to give them T-shirts, hats and travel allowances.
• In Crawford Texas a town of 700 people, he was met by 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners.
• In Waco he was met by 200 practitioners, and in Mexico he was met by 70.
• At every step practitioners peacefully showed the beauty of Falun Gong and the brutality of the incomprehensible persecution.
• On the first day of his arrival in the U.S., he was served with a lawsuit from the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division that is located in Chicago.
• Falun Gong practitioners sued Jiang as the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, for his crimes of human rights violations and genocide against Falun Gong practitioners since July 1999.
• And at a press conference in Mexico, the husband of a Japanese practitioner named Yoko Kaneko spoke.
• His wife is still being detained in China, where she is being brutally tortured by the Chinese police.
• He called for governments to help in his appeal to free his wife and urged Jiang to stop the atrocities against Falun Gong practitioners.
• As the Head of the PRC traveled to the United States and to Mexico, practitioners gathered at Chinese embassies and consulates around the world.
• In Vienna Austria...
• In the Standard Garden in Hong Kong
• In Chicago USA
• In London England
• In Germany
• In Tokyo Japan
• In France
• In Australia
• In Auckland New Zealand
• In Sweden
• In Denmark
• The Chinese Embassy spent large amounts of money to create the false impression that Chinese people were pleased with the dictator's visit.
• In front of Chicago's Ritz-Carlton Hotel a small group of Chinese students formed a Welcoming Group.
• The Chinese Consulate offered money to buy clothes and provide a free lunch and cash to Chinese students so as to attract them to join the Welcoming Group.
• A Chicago University student said the Consulate offered to buy high-quality leather clothes to attract students to come.
• In a bit of irony that it seems only those who appreciate democratic principles would see, the Welcoming Group had a huge advertisement board behind them with the words "For Sale" written on it.
• The Chinese Consulate in Houston began mobilizing overseas Chinese associations several months ago. They provided the money and overseas Chinese associations contributed people and energy in order to complete the "mission" of welcoming Jiang.
• Bignews.org reported on October 21 that an organizer of a Chinese student group at a U.S. university sent emails requesting group members to "execute a 'Serious political task'" in welcoming Jiang.
• The email described how the members could get a free shirt from the Consulate if they went to welcome Jiang and if they followed the requirements of the Consulate.
• One of the requirements was to join the activity at 6:05 a.m. on October 23. If they only participated in the activity on October 22, they could only get a shirt worth half of the original offer.
• VOA reported on October 21, the Friendship Association of Chinese Students at the University of Houston said that all those who joined the welcoming group could not only get a free lunch, dinner and snacks, but also a free hat and T-shirt, and a ticket to a famous basketball player's match.
• Moreover, according to the VOA report, Chinese overseas students in Texas forwarded a document to the VOA.
• It revealed that the Friendship Association of Chinese Students & Scholars required that any student wishing to participate in the Welcoming Group during Jiang's visit first had to sign a document that required they "pay $5,000.00 as minimal damages" if they were to express a dissenting opinion or if they were to protest against Jiang Zemin.
• The San Francisco Chronicle reported that on October 24, a federal appeals court ruled that Mei Ling Gao, a young Chinese woman, is eligible for political asylum, when she fled to the United States after spending 17 months in jail.
• Mei Ling is not a practitioner of Falun Gong.
• She worked in her father's bookstore and she was fined and arrested in March of 2000 when police found two Falun Gong books under the counter.
• They had been left at the bookstore by a customer.
• The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco bars immigration authorities for the time being from deporting her.
• She is currently being held in the Sacramento County Jail.
• Mei Ling lived in China's coastal city of Changle in Shandong Province.
• Originally, a U.S. immigration board ruled that she did not qualify for asylum on the grounds of political persecution, saying that she had no connection to Falun Gong and noting that her father, who owned the bookstore, had not been arrested.
• But the appeals court said Mei Ling faced persecution because police believed that she belonged to the [group].
• The three-judge panel said that Mei Ling "showed that the police actually imputed membership in the Falun Gong to her personally", and "[t]here was no need to show that other members of her family were also persecuted."
• The Xishanpin Forced-Labor Camp is located in the Beipei district of Chongqing City, Sichuan Province. There, as with many other Forced-Labor Camps in China, the authorities coerce imprisoned drug addicts to torture Falun Dafa practitioners.
• The following are methods of torture that have been recounted by those who have survived.
• Around December 10, 2001, approximately 80 practitioners were detained in the brainwashing brigade, along with 250 drug addicts.
• In December 2001, more than 30 policemen had been transferred there. Beginning December 17, they started a new round of atrocities against Falun Dafa practitioners.
• Groups of ten policemen were each teamed with about 20 drug addicts.
• They punched practitioners and dragged them up and down the stairs.
• One elderly practitioner was tortured by more than 20 drug addicts.
• After one week, the policemen divided the group into four sub-groups
• The policemen named the fourth sub-group for "intensive monitoring."
• It had charge of four rooms.
• In each room there were 12 or more drug addicts who would torture practitioners one by one.
• First, they limited the food given to practitioners.
• Each meal was about one-fourth of the regular allotment (less than 2 oz).
• No hand or face washing was allowed.
• Drinking water was prohibited.
• Often, they forced Falun Dafa practitioners to sit, stand, squat or lie down for prolonged periods of time.
• For example, practitioners had to sit upright for up to ten hours.
• If practitioners slouched even a little, drug addicts, forced by policemen to monitor practitioners, would rush over and punch the practitioners.
• The more brutal torture methods included cursing, hitting, burning, scalding, pulling out eyebrows, gagging the mouth, and choking.
• Cursing: they used all the vulgar words they could think of to swear at Falun Dafa.
• Hitting: they kicked or punched both sides of people's thighs, targeting the ligaments.
• They forced practitioners to bend down, and then they hit practitioners' backs, with their elbow joints.
• Some were hit until they would lie on the ground, vomiting blood.
• This often caused severe damage to kidneys and other internal organs.
• They would hit the sides of practitioners' throats with their fists.
• One punch could cause a practitioner to vomit blood.
• Some of the other abuses included hitting the chest and torso, beating the ankles with hard objects, pummeling the tops of heads with stools, sticking fingers with needles, burning eyebrows, and pulling hair.
• Such atrocities were repeated almost hourly each day.
• The drug addicts were rewarded with 500 to 1,000 points for each Falun Dafa practitioner they forced to yield under pressure. The points were converted to sentence reductions of about 5-10 days.
• They would hit Falun Dafa practitioners until they were severely injured and had to be sent to hospitals.
• After practitioners had recovered somewhat, they were sent back to the camp for more rounds of torture.

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