April 6, 2004

(Clearwsidom.net) The United Nations Commision on Human Rights concluded its debate on violence against women. During the debate, Falun Dafa practitioner Yoko Kaneko, from Japan, addressed the commission. The release states:

"Yoko Kaneko, of the Association of World Citizens, said that, as a member of Falun Gong, she had been held hostage in China for 548 days by the regime of Jiang Zemin. In those months, she had been moved back and forth from police stations to a detention centre to various hospitals, then to a labour camp. Among other mistreatment, there had been attempts, at the hospital, to make her renounce her beliefs, including through handcuffing her so tightly she was cut and bled, force feeding and the insertion of a catheter. She had subsequently been sentenced to one and one-half years forced labour reeducation. In the labour camp, she had been deprived of sleep and subjected to brainwashing. She had almost gone blind and had begun having heart trouble. However, she had been treated fairly easily in comparison to other Falun Gong practitioners, as it was known she had married a Japanese man. The possibility of being tortured to death hung over the detainees at every moment. Today, more than 951 Falun Gong practitioners had been confirmed dead, more than 100,000 had been sent to labour camps and prisons, several thousand had been sent to mental hospitals and countless others had been forced to attend brainwashing classes. The persecution had done much damage, was it not time to bring it to an end?"

Source: http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/42C5E21DBE8D7E36C1256E6E00500626?opendocument

From Clearwisdom:

To learn more about the persecution Yoko Kaneko endured, the link below is provided.

This link will bring you to a summary article; below the article you will find many other links that provide in-depth details about Yoko's journey to freedom.

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/9/45878.html