Media Summary: The Week in Review, August 22- 29, 2004

Canadian Newspaper Burnaby Now Reports on Falun Dafa Practitioners' Meeting with City Council

Burnaby Now (Canada): Group wants help

By Jullie MacLellan, Burnaby Now reporter

In its August 11 edition, correspondent Jullie MacLellan, writing for the newspaper Burnaby Now, reports from a recent City Council meeting at which Falun Dafa practitioners appealed for help against the state-terrorist policies of Jiang Zemin's followers in China. The main focus of the discussion centered around a recent incident in which Falun Gong practitioners were targeted by gunmen in South Africa. According to the report, Falun Dafa spokesperson Sue Zhang related the following facts:

"On June 28, nine Falun Gong practitioners from Australia arrived in that country to help raise awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong, as well as the role of two visiting Chinese officials.

While on the way from Johannesburg airport to Pretoria, a white car overtook them and fired at least five shots at their vehicle.

The driver, Australian David Liang, was hospitalized with bullet wounds after being shot in his feet.

Johannesburg police have characterized this incident as attempted murder," Zhang told the council, noting that a random shooting incident has been ruled out.

A number of factors backed up that suggestion: Liang was, at the time, the only passenger wearing a yellow jacket with the words Falun Dafa on it; there was no robbery; the gunmen were armed with an AK-47 assault rifle.

Sadly, Zhang told the council members,, it's not an isolated incident.

She said Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted and tortured in China. She said more than 1,000 people have been verified as dead from torture in custody, thousands more sent to mental hospitals for persecution and over 100,000 placed in labor camps.

And she noted that persecution has been "exported," with incidents happening around the world.

Noting that in Burnaby, practitioners gather at Central Park, Simon Fraser University and the Metrotown Library, as well as taking part in local celebrations such as the Hats Off Day parade, Ms Zhang urged the council members to become informed about the persecution of Falun Gong that is happening around the world, and to write to federal ministers in support of a case being brought by a Canadian citizen, Kunlun Zhang, against Chinese officials

Mayor Derek Corrigan said, "All of us encourage Burnaby citizens to learn more about the persecution."

He suggested that, if people find they want to get involved, they should contact their MPs and federal cabinet ministers.

"Hopefully, worldwide attention is going to be able to help bring these human rights abuses to an end," he said.

More information about Falun Gong and the Kunlun Zhang case is available online at www.faluninfo.net.

http://www.burnabynow.com/issues04/082204/news/082204nn2.html

Crosswalk (CNSNews.com) Reports that a Worldwide Campaign is Forming to Highlight Human Rights Abuses Ahead of the Beijing Olympics

Original report filed by Patrick Goodenough

CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief

August 24, 2004

CNS news is reporting that as the Olympic Games come to a close this weekend, many groups around the world are gearing up for a four-year effort to draw attention to the human rights record of the authoritarian government that will host the next summer event.

The article goes on to say: "At Sunday's closing ceremony, the city of Athens will hand over the Olympic flag to representatives of the city of Beijing. In 2008, China's capital will host what will likely be the most politically-charged Olympics since Hitler's Berlin hosted the Games in 1936.

Some human rights groups would like to see a boycott of Beijing 2008, but most are taking another approach, hoping that the event -- and the years leading up to it -- will provide new opportunities to highlight China's human rights violations and force improvements.

When the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in July 2001 picked Beijing over four other candidate cities vying to host the 2008 games, groups like Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF) called for a boycott.

The Paris-based watchdog said there were as valid reasons for boycotting Beijing as there had been to justify the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, when 60 nations stayed away to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Since the OIC decision, RSF says the repression of dissident movements and ethnic or religious minorities in China has not stopped.

That appears to be the view held by many monitoring bodies, including the U.S. State Department, whose annual report on human rights around the world enumerates "a broad range of abuses by the communist authorities."

The article stated that in its most recent report, the US State Department accused Beijing of "backsliding" on its rights record during 2003. It cited extra-judicial killings; the arrest of democracy activists, Christians, journalists and labor protestors and the repression of the Falun Gong meditation movement, among others.

China, the report went on, is very sensitive about international criticism of its rights record.

"For the past five years in a row, China's State Council has issued a report accusing the U.S. of abuses and slamming its foreign policies, just days after the State Department releases its annual global evaluation.

And whenever the U.S. has sponsored a resolution at the annual U.N. Human Rights Commission gathering in Geneva censuring Beijing for abuses, China mobilizes sufficient support to prevent the measure from being brought to a vote - or even debated.

It is this sensitivity that human rights organizations are hoping to exploit in the run-up to 2008.

As the Athens Olympics draws towards a close, an organization based in Prague called Olympic Watch says it is intensifying its campaign for human rights and democratic reform.

The group, which was established as a result of Beijing's selection as Olympic host, plans to draw attention over the next four years to the situation in the world's most populous country and press for improvement.

In New York, Human Rights Watch on Monday launched a new "China Olympics Watch" website, with the same aim in mind.

"Responsibilities come with the international prestige China receives by hosting the 2008 Olympic Games," said the organization's Asia division director, Brad Adams.

"An embarrassing record of continuing human rights abuses is no way to welcome the world to Beijing."

Human Rights Watch called on the IOC to press China for freedom of expression, not just for the thousands of foreign journalists who will visit for the event, but for all Chinese citizens before, during and after the Games."

Source: http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200408\FOR20040824c.html

Letter to the Editor of the Magic City Morning Star (Maine): Reporting on Falun Gong

By Lorraine Kabacinski

Aug 24, 2004, 21:59

In a letter addressed to the editor of the Magic City Morning Star, a Falun Gong practitioner from New York expressed her gratitude for the publication of another practitioner's letter which decried the lack of media coverage of the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China (1). After giving some background on the way the totalitarian government in China not only controls its own press, but also suppresses stories by western reporters, the author then goes on to talk about her personal experience of persecution as a Falun Gong practitioner. She states:

"I, myself, have been a target. I am a Caucasian female living on Long Island. I have practiced Falun Gong for over five years and have derived great benefit from the practice. However, after ten years of exemplary service at a local college, the college administration chose to dismiss me from my teaching assignment as they were actively setting up a relationship with the Chinese education system. This was in 2002. I have filed a complaint (August 2003) with the New York State Human Rights Commission. The Commission is in the process of investigating my complaint. It is more than

interesting to note that the Minister of Education at the time, Chen Zhili, has had to answer criminal charges related to the persecution of Falun Gong in a case filed in Tanzania on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners that have suffered during her tenure as Education Minister in China (http://www.faluninfo.net/displayAnArticle.asp?D=8843).

I hope that your organization will continue to follow up on this horrendous human rights violation situation, so that more people can become aware of the immense degradation that is being perpetrated by Jiang Zemin and his cohorts."

Sincere thanks to you,

Lorraine Kabacinski

Huntington Station, New York

(1) http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/8/25/51731.html

http://magic-city-news.com/article_1983.shtml