Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gong

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FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: [email protected], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/. FALUN GONG FOUNDER LI HONGZHI MAKES HIS FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE IN OVER A YEAR IN SAN FRANCISCO PRACTITIONERS ASSAULTED DURING DEMONSTRATION IN SAN FRANCISCO TWO MEN WHO SUED JIANG ZEMIN ARE MISSING

LI HONGZHI SPEAKS AT PUBLIC GATHERING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER A YEAR

Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, made his first public appearance since July of 1999 on Saturday, October 21 at the US West Coast Falun Gong Conference held at the San Francisco's Hyatt Regency Hotel. Mr. Li's appearance was a surprise for the hundreds of people who had gathered to share stories and raise awareness about the plight of the Chinese practitioners. After receiving a warm standing ovation, Li gave an impromptu address to the attentive audience, starting out by saying, "It's been a long time!" Speaking to almost 1,000 attendees, Mr. Li spoke of his support for the efforts of the persecuted practitioners in China, and expressed his gratitude to the many governments and organizations that have voiced their concern over the past 15 months to help end the crackdown. He also showed appreciation for the various awards and recognition that have been bestowed upon him and the group by Western governments. The conference was part of a weekend-long event held to raise awareness of the ongoing crackdown. On Friday, the group hosted a parade and held a press conference. Guest speakers included Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and spokespersons representing Rep. Tom Lantos and Rep. Eshoo. In the evening, practitioners held a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, in memory of the 64 Chinese practitioners who have died from brutality in police custody. The 15-month crackdown on Falun Gong in China has drawn sharp criticism against Chinese president Jiang Zemin and other top party officials by the US and many other governments. Also, it appears that even inside the Communist party sentiment is growing that Jiang has made a grave tactical error, and support for him may be waning. According to sources inside the Communist party, during the first day of the 5th Central Committee Plenum earlier this month, a number of Central Committee Members voiced their doubts regarding the persecution of Falun Gong, demanding that the leadership give a reasonable explanation to the entire Central Committee. The questioning enraged Jiang Zemin, but not a single member voiced support for him, according to those present. Jiang did not attend the meeting held later that afternoon.

FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS ATTACKED ON AMERICAN SOIL

October 22 -- Linda Dai, a resident of Berkeley, CA, was handing out Falun Gong flyers in China Garden Park near San Francisco's downtown on Sunday while a group of about 75 Falun Gong practitioners sat in peaceful meditation nearby as part of the week-end long activity. Suddenly, several unkempt Chinese men approached her, shouting in Cantonese. They grabbed the brochures out of her hands and began to tear them up. Two practitioners - Jun Pan of San Francisco and Gary Wong of Fremont - took out their cameras and began to take pictures of the men. According to Wong, the two were immediately set upon by another, larger group of men, who knocked the men down, punching and kicking them and ripping at their clothes. The men took one of the cameras and smashed it on the ground. One of the assailants grabbed the other camera. Pan's wife approached the group with another Falun Gong practitioner to plead with the men to stop beating her husband, but some of the men then started kicking her legs. Several minutes into the incident, the police arrived and arrested one of the assailants. They found the stolen camera hidden in his pants. One eyewitness reported hearing someone saying, "beat them up and you'll get paid." Right now, we have no way of confirming that this incident is related to Jiang Zemin's recently-declared policy of "intensifying the struggle overseas" against Falun Gong practitioners. However, over the past few months, practitioners around the U.S. have met with an increasing amount of interference from Chinese government representatives. Many of these incidents were reported in the media and by this bulletin. We invite the media to investigate this matter further.

PRACTITIONERS WHO SUED JIANG ZEMIN HAVE DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE

HONG KONG (AP, Oct. 19)- Two members of the Falun Gong spiritual sect who were detained after suing Chinese President Jiang Zemin for banning the group have mysteriously disappeared, followers in Hong Kong said Thursday. The Falun Gong adherents said they don't know what happened to Chu O-ming or Wang Jie, who were missing in Mainland China. Falun Gong followers and human rights groups have made numerous allegations of other adherents dying while in custody in China. But Sharon Xu, a spokeswoman for Falun Gong in Hong Kong, said [group] members were not immediately assuming the worst for Chu and Wang. "We don't know, but it's possible," Xu said. "It is not very favorable for Mr. Chu or Mr. Wang. We're very concerned." Falun Gong is banned in Mainland China but remains legal in Hong Kong, where citizens enjoy considerably more freedom under a largely autonomous local government. Falun Gong said Chu, a Hong Kong resident who worked as a furniture dealer in Beijing, and Wang, who worked in a mapmaking bureau there, were illegally detained more than a month ago after they mailed their lawsuit against Jiang and two aides to the Chinese courts. Xu said Chu's relatives in Beijing were notified Saturday that he had been released at 10 p.m. the night before from the Fang Shan Detention Center in southwestern Beijing and that they should come to the detention center to pick up his personal belongings. But Chu did not contact his family, and when relatives went to the detention center asking what had happened, they were told only that he was no longer there.

NEWS FROM INSIDE CHINA

Steep Rise in Death Toll - More than half of all the reported deaths of practitioners resulting from the crackdown in China have occurred in the last three months. We have received several new reports of deaths in just the past week. AP reported on three cases on Oct. 18, one of which was of a 62-year-old man who died following his arrest by Chinese authorities. Government officials in Yuhe Township in eastern Shandong province took turns pummeling Xuan Chengxi after he was picked up for distributing Falun Gong literature on Oct. 12, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported. The center also said that after his death, authorities cremated Xuan's remains without informing his family.

Female Practitioners Stripped and Put into Men's Jail Cells - In the Masanjia Prison of Shenyang, Liaoning province, the prison guards forcibly stripped 18 female Falun Dafa practitioners of all their clothes and pushed them into the men's jail cells. The resulting abuse they suffered was reported as both disgusting and terrifying. It was said that Luo Gan, a senior official from the central Communist Party of China in charge of public security, was monitoring the procedure in the prison at the time. To prevent leaking this information to the public, the prison has not released any Falun Dafa practitioners to date. Phone number of Committee of Discipline and Investigation: 86 24 22875255; Public Security of Shenyang: 86 24 22826445

Practitioners Publicly Humiliated - On July 18, 2000, Hou Guoqing and Yu Zhong were led out to the street in handcuffs and shackles and subjected to public humiliation and verbal abuse. Hou Guoqing, 60 years old, had been on a hunger strike for more than 30 days and was in poor physical condition. Both were later sent to a labor camp. This kind of public humiliation tactic reminded many onlookers of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-912-3301, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: [email protected], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/.