Issued by Clearwisdom Net

NEWS - Apr. 17, 2006    Falun Dafa Information Center [ http://www.faluninfo.net/ ]

NEW YORK (Falun Dafa Information Center) - A newly-formed international coalition of organizations announced today that investigators from North America, Europe, and Australia will begin applying for visas today as part of a plan to enter China and conduct a "broad and rigorous" investigation of China's concentration and labor camps.

The coalition also plans to investigate medical facilities throughout China that conduct organ transplants in light of mounting evidence that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are being killed for their organs there. (news)

Led by the Falun Dafa Association and MingHui website researchers, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) includes media, non-profit organizations, and legal professionals that have expertise in uncovering details of human rights abuses in China.

"We have very specific and extensive information on labor and concentration camps throughout China," says Coalition spokesperson Dr. Sherry Zhang. "We know where the atrocities are taking place, and in many cases we have detailed eyewitness accounts."

"If the Chinese regime is serious about allowing investigation of these matters, it must open the doors to all transplant hospitals, concentration camps, and labor camps, and do so immediately," says Zhang. "Anything short of that would indicate, without a doubt, a cover-up."

The MingHui website receives daily over 500 communications from throughout China detailing human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners. This is more than any other organization in the world. Since it first went online in 1999, MingHui has built a vast communication network in China. It therefore has an unparalleled ability to collect eyewitness accounts from China, verify their contents and even safely arrange meetings in China between Falun Gong practitioners and human rights workers.

Zhang says the Coalition plans on putting the knowledge and techniques developed by MingHui and other Coalition members to work on the ground in China. "If the leadership of the Chinese communist regime is at all sincere about investigating these atrocities," adds Zhang, "it will allow us into the country and guarantee our safety. The situation right now could not be more urgent."

#  #  #

NEWS - Apr. 17, 2006
Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net

Background
Founded in 1999, the Falun Dafa Information Center is a New York-based organization that documents the rights violations of adherents of Falun Gong (or "Falun Dafa") taking place in the People's Republic of China. In July of 1999 China's autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda with the intent of "eradicating" the apolitical practice; it is believed certain leaders feared the influence of the practice's 100 million adherents. The campaign has since grown in violence and scope, with millions having been detained or sent to forced labor camps. The Center has verified details of over 2,800 deaths and over 44,000 cases of torture in custody (reports / sources). Falun Gong is a traditional-style Buddhist "qigong" practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for health and spiritual growth.

In order to protest the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s crimes of harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners, on April 14, 2006, practitioners started a 72-hour hunger strike in front of the Chinese Embassy in Riga. Mārtiņš Rubenis, a bronze medalist in the Turin Winter Olympic Games and the first Olympic medalist in the history of Latvia, participated in the hunger strike.

Rubenis indicated that he participated in the 72-hour hunger strike to raise awareness, and that he would spend 24 hours in front of the Chinese embassy in protest himself. He said that, "I think it is my responsibility to let people around the world to know about this matter. The CCP regime tramples human rights, but will hold the Olympic Games. As an athlete, this is unacceptable!"

A spokesperson for the Baltic Sea Falun Dafa Association said, "We call for help from the Latvian government and people to stop CCP persecution of Falun Gong, and hope to conduct an immediate investigation into the CCP atrocities against Falun Gong."

The organizer of the activity said, "To support efforts to rescue Falun Gong practitioners in danger of being killed by the CCP to eliminate eyewitnesses, Latvian Falun Gong practitioners will hold 3-day hunger strike activity in front of the Chinese Embassy in Riga."

On the same day many Latvian mainstreams media reported this activity in detail.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/4/16/125393.html