CHINA CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #86 [05/03/01]

Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gong

FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-337-5877, or Feng Yuan 917-912-3301. Email: [email protected], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/
  • WOMEN BEATEN ON TIANANMEN SQUARE, TOURISTS' FILM CONFISCATED
  • COMMUNIST PARTY LOBBIES ILLINOIS MAYORS TO RESTRICT FALUN GONG
  • THREE MORE DEATHS IN POLICE CUSTODY REPORTED FROM CHINA

32 DETAINED - TOURISTS WITNESS BEATINGS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE

BEIJING (AP) April 25 - Police detained at least 32 people on Tiananmen Square Wednesday, the second anniversary of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement's first large demonstration. Scattered protests broke out on the vast square in central Beijing amid crowds of thousands of Chinese and foreign tourists. Police forced American, German and French tourists who had taken pictures to expose film and record over video tape. "Falun Gong is good!" one man shouted before uniformed and plainclothes police shoved him and two female companions into a station wagon. Two women holding a bright yellow banner with red lettering were hustled into a police van. One stuck her head out a window, screaming "Police are beating people!" Two plainclothes police ran up and punched her in the face. Later, a woman and a man holding an infant started chanting Falun Gong slogans. Police grabbed the man around his neck and snatched the child from his hands. All three were bundled into a van. After the protests, police stepped up security, checking bags and identification of Chinese people entering the square.

COMMUNIST PARTY LOBBIES ILLINOIS MAYORS TO ENFORCE BAN ON FALUN GONG

DECATUR, Ill. (AP) April 26. A routine, seemingly harmless proclamation recognizing a Chinese religious group has thrust Decatur Mayor Terry Howley, and several other Illinois mayors, into the unlikely realm of foreign diplomacy. Howley, along with mayors from Urbana, Galesburg, Bolingbrook, Chicago and elsewhere, signed a proclamation this year honoring the meditation and spiritual discipline promoted by members of the Falun Gong - religious group whose struggles with the Chinese government have sparked international human rights concerns.... Chinese diplomats in the United States resent the proclamations. In 1999, mayors of Seattle, San Francisco and Baltimore rescinded such proclamations. Now Illinois mayors are getting correspondence, phone calls and visits from Chinese diplomats saying Falun Gong is an "evil cult" that incites suicide, murder and disorder.... Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite said Shishun Shen, a spokesman for Consul Wei in Chicago, visited him and asked him to rescind the city's proclamation. He refused. "The whole thing sounded like a propaganda pitch to me," Satterthwaite said....

ATHEISTS ATTENDEES ONLY IN BEIJING OLYMPICS?

May 1 (WASHINGTON TIMES) - China has increased its persecution of unauthorized religious worshippers in the last year despite having won favorable trading concessions from the United States, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a report yesterday. "The situation in China has grown worse over the past year as the government has intensified its crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, on unregistered Protestant and Catholic Christians, on Tibetan Buddhists, and on Uighur Muslims," said Elliot Abrams, chairman of the commission. The group called for greater linkage between human and religious rights and trade and asked the Bush administration to lobby against Beijing being awarded the Olympic Games until it improves its rights record. "In addition to the persecution of its own citizens, there is no reason to believe those going to Games in Beijing would be able to practice their religion," said Mr. Abrams, an assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration. ...

NEWS FROM CHINA

Mr. Ren Pengwu, 33-year-old technician, beaten to death by police in prison

On February 16, 2001, while Ren Pengwu, a technician at the Harbin City Third Thermal Power Plant in Heilongjiang Province, was distributing Falun Gong literature about the Tiananmen "self-immolation" incident, he was illegally arrested by the Hulan County police and thereafter detained in the Hulan County Second Detention Center. Before dawn on February 21, he was tortured to death. The officials declared that Ren Pengwu died due to heart disease. However, eyewitnesses confirmed that during his imprisonment, Ren Pengwu endured many long-lasting, merciless beatings and force-feedings by the police. Before dawn on February 21, the common prisoner in the cell with Ren Pengwu saw that he was near death and immediately reported this to the police, but the police didn't take any action until 4 hours later. Only then did they send Ren Pengwu to the hospital, but he was dead on arrival. The police didn't permit Ren's family members to take photographs of the body, and, under the guise of "legal investigation," they illegally removed all of Ren's organs, then hastily cremated the body without permission from the family.

Mr. Xu Zengliang, 29-year-old, beaten to death for handing out flyers about Falun Gong

Xu Zengliang, male, 29 years old, with a Bachelor's degree, was originally from Shuipo Village, Haiqing Town, City of Jiaonan. The Public Security Office and his unit forced him to leave his family in September 2000, and he was captured on April 14, 2001. Because he refused to tell them where his flyers were printed , the Public Security guards beat him to death on April 18. The Public Security Office lied, saying that he died in a car accident.

[Changchun City, Jilin Province] Jiang Zemin Allocated More Than 4,000,000 Yuan [about $0.5 million] to Construct a "Transformation Station" in Chaoyang District

Jiang Zemin has allocated more than 4,000,000 Yuan [about $0.5 million] to construct the "transformation station" (for forcing practitioners to renounce their faith) in the Chaoyang District of Changchun City. It is to be finished by the end of August 2001. Despite numerous unemployed workers lacking an assured source for their future livelihood, Jiang Zemin and his accomplices have willfully squandered the citizens' hard-earned money on this camp, which will be used to persecute good people.

[Tonghe County, Heilongjiang Province] Eleven Practitioners, Using Due Process of Law, Sued Their Persecutors and Were Arrested and Tortured

Recently, eleven Dafa practitioners from Nonghe Town, Tonghe County of Helongjiang Province, used their constitutional rights and, through normal procedures, filed a lawsuit against the local police, protesting their illegal conduct toward Falun Dafa practitioners. Since such conduct violates the Chinese constitution, they exercised their rights and approached the local Ministry of Justice, observing the letter of the law. However, instead of having their case heard in court, the local police sent all these practitioners to prison and tortured them while handcuffed and in shackles.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-337-5877, or Feng Yuan 917-912-3301. Email: [email protected], Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

Category: Accounts of Persecution