October 13, 2000
Welcome to the Press Conference organized by practitioners of Falun Gong in Singapore. We thank you all for your show of support. Through this conference, we hope to present the truth about Falun Gong, and its plight in China, to you in the hope that you can spread our call for humanitarian support for the peaceful and innocent victims of a relentless persecution to people around you, your readers, your country and the world.
Since July 1999, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the minority few in the Chinese government has escalated. According to the world media and human rights groups, over 50,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested or detained. At least 10,000 have been sent to labor camps without trial, and some 600 persons have been forced into mental facilities where they have been abused through anti-psychotic or sedative drugs and electric shocks. At least 59 Falun Gong practitioners have reportedly died from maltreatment in police custody. Millions of Falun Gong books, videotapes, and audiotapes have been confiscated and burned. Chinas regime has conducted show trials for over 500 Falun Gong practitioners, handing out stiff sentences of up to 18 years in prison. On October 1st this year, Chinese policemen battered and arrested at least 1,000 practitioners who went to Tiananmen Square to express the truth about Falun Gong to the Chinese government and the world.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice rooted in ancient Chinese culture. The practice is peaceful and apolitical. It consists of meditation, gentle exercises, and the guiding principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Today, Falun Gong is practiced in over 50 countries and regions worldwide and has brought physical and spiritual well-being to many people. People who practice Falun Gong are no different from you and I; they have families, they work for a living, and they contribute to the society in one way or another.
To this day, the only so-called "crime," practitioners in China have committed, was their attempt to exercise their rights to freedom of belief, assembly, and speech; yet these rights are constitutionally enshrined in China and are guaranteed by the two international treaties China signed in 1997 and 1998. As we in Singapore practice the same exercises as our fellow practitioners in China, we are in this human tragedy together; we empathize in agony with the pain that they suffer in the hands of torment.
The atrocity must not last any longer. This is a persecution of not only Falun Gong practitioners in China, it is a blatant destruction of humanity; that which represses the good must be evil. To the governments around the world whom have given recognition to Falun Gong in their countries, it is an insult. To the dignity of those who have spoken out righteously, it is nothing less than a mockery. The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners will go down in history as the greatest good-versus-evil struggle of the new millennium.
We call upon the minority group of people, within the Chinese government, who is directly responsible for the brutal suppression of Falun Gong, to engage in genuine, peaceful dialogue with us to resolve the present crisis in China. We call upon all kind-hearted people to reach out your hands of justice to stop this human catastrophe, for your eternal destiny and for the future of humanity.
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