Scotsman.com Reports on the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in China

The U.K. on-line newspaper, Scotsman.com, reported on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in a July 9, 2005 article:

MEMBERS (1) of the Falun Gong [...] movement have called on Western leaders not to ignore the plight of practitioners in China, after being told of the horrific torture which takes place in the country's labor camps.

Rosemary Byfield and Christina Ha, who are both members of the Edinburgh Falun Gong group, want to see the problem raised by the British government.

On a visit to Edinburgh, Haping Li, 35, from China, told of the torture he had to endure. Mr. Li was a member of the Falun Gong movement in China four years ago, when he was snatched by the government, taken away from his wife and daughter and removed to a labor camp. He said: "We were tortured, kept without sleep and without food for weeks. They would beat us and I saw people killed from exhaustion in the camps.

"The whole idea was to break us mentally, to re-educate us, and they would show us films about the Chinese government, trying to brainwash us. After two years, I was released, as they said that was enough time to re-educate me."

Beijing banned the group in 1999 as a possible threat to the Communist Party's monopoly on power and, since then, China has detained thousands of Falun Gong practitioners.

(1) Editor's note: Falun Gong is not a membership organization. There is no membership roster and anyone is welcome to practice, and to come and go as they wish.