Falun Gong Watch CHINA

12 March 2001

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Movements in China (ICHR) reported on 7 December the deaths of 2 Falun Gong practitioners in police custody. Wang Huachen, 32, a chemical factory worker, fell from a police station's fourth-floor window on 18 November in his hometown of Huludao, Liaoning Province, and died later in hospital. Wang had been repeatedly beaten with wooden poles since his arrest on 7 November, apparently for refusing to sign a document renouncing his beliefs in Falun Gong.Ms. Zhao Jing, 19, from Jilin City, Jilin Province, is thought to have died on 26 November. She was arrested in Hebei Province on 23 November with a group of other protestors, but jumped from the police car taking her into custody, receiving minor injuries. After being taken to a local police station, members of the group heard Ms. Zhao's screams as she was beaten in an adjoining cell. Police told her family she died on 26 November having never recovered from the injuries sustained when she jumped from the car. Relatives who saw her remains said her body was covered in lesions and bruises. She was cremated before her father could see her.

At least 2 dozen Falun Gong supporters, mainly in their 50s and 60s, were arrested on 10 December in Tiananmen Square. Eye-witnesses reported small groups emerging from the crowds shouting 'Falun Gong is not a crime' and unfurling banners bearing the group's tenets, 'Truth, Compassion, Forbearance.' The police were said to be notably less violent than on previous occasions when conducting arrests. The protests coincided with the 52nd anniversary of the UN's Declaration on Human Rights, and were mirrored by a demonstration in Hong Kong, where the group remains legal. Small-scale demonstrations by Falun Gong practitioners continue to be a daily event on Tiananmen Square.

300 Falun Gong practitioners in Macao were refused permission by the Macao Municipal Council on 11 December to stage a demonstration on 20 December, the 1-year anniversary of Macao's return to Chinese rule, coinciding with an official 3 day visit by China's President Jiang Zemin. The application was refused on the grounds that the route passed through areas already reserved or closed for other festivities, and it would have finished outside the Central Government Liaison Office. A man identifying himself only as Mr. Lam said the group would submit 3 further routes for consideration. In a letter dated 13 December to the Beijing-appointed Chief Executive of Macao, Edmund Ho, the group requested permission to conduct 'peaceful appeal activities' during the 20 December festivities, and to present President Jiang with a petition appealing for an end to the crackdown on Falun Gong The request was turned down.

Prof. Zhao Xin, 32, who sustained paralysing neck injuries, facial bruising and permanent breathing difficulties during police efforts to force-feed her in June (Falun Gong Watch, Index 4/2000) died on 11 December. Her family had removed her from hospital in November, believing police had ordered her medication to be tampered with. In a highly unusual display of public support, hundreds of mourners attended her funeral in Beijing on 13 December, unimpeded by 3 dozen attendant police officers. Apart from traditional Buddhist saffron-yellow pennants on Prof. Zhao's hearse, no Falun Gong iconography was seen. Foreign reporters were turned away by police and followed, apparently to prevent them from interviewing mourners. Police claim fractures to 3 of Prof. Zhao's neck vertebrae were self-inflicted.

Beijing reacted angrily on 12 December to reports that some 30 scholars and politicians from around the world nominated the exiled founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, for the Nobel Peace Prize. [Chinese government's slanderous words] The group's nomination was confirmed in Stockholm on 16 February.

Ms. Teng Chunyan, 37, a US green-card holder arrested and tried last year on charges of 'prying into state intelligence for foreign organisations' (Falun Gong Watch, Index 1/2001), was sentenced to 3 years in prison by a court in Beijing on 12 December. Ms. Teng, with an accomplice, released photographs to foreign news organisations of Falun Gong protestors detained at a psychiatric hospital in the outskirts of Beijing. Her sentence was less than the expected 10 years the result perhaps of repeated protests and demands for her release by the US government. US diplomats in Beijing are continuing to press for her early release.

Police in Macao arrested around 30 Falun Gong protestors for 'holding an illegal meeting' on 19 December the day President Jiang Zemin arrived in the region to take part in celebrations marking the return of the region to Chinese rule in 1999. Those arrested had organised a press conference calling on President Jiang to release Falun Gong protestors. 30 other practitioners who arrived from Hong Kong wearing T shirts bearing images of Falun Gong practitioners tortured in Chinese prisons and labour camps were refused entry at the ferry port. An Australian mother of 3, Kelly Kong Xo, claimed she and others were beaten by police when she tried to enter Macao, and then deported on 19 December from a hospital in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong-based spokesman for the group, Kan Hung-cheung, said 'Our activity in Macao is absolutely peaceful and follows the rule of law in Macao. Macao shouldn't prohibit these actions if they are a liberal government, not under the influence of Jiang Zemin.' Macao, like Hong Kong, is supposed to enjoy a large degree of autonomy under Chinese rule, an arrangement commonly known as 'one country, two systems.' During his stay, President Jiang was practically hermetically sealed behind tight security, leading to accusations by Falun Gong and democratic reform activists that their freedom of expression was, under Macao law, illegally curtailed. Chief Executive Edmund Ho later said claims of police brutality would be investigated, but that the police had 'by and large acted within the law.'

Amnesty International released a statement on 19 December criticising China's continued persecution of Falun Gongand voiced strong concern over the number of practitioners dying in police custody. According to Amnesty, since the crackdown began in July 1999, 77 people have died in custody or shortly after their release 'in suspicious circumstances.' 'It appears that many of them died as a result of torture or after force-feeding while they were on hunger strike' by untrained and inexperienced personnel. Despite numerous testimonies and witnesses to police abuses, said Amnesty, the Chinese government and police have never investigated a single report 'an appalling illustration of the authorities' callous disregard for the lives of people detained solely for their peaceful activities.' The statement also criticised the arbitrary detention and torture of practitioners, claiming in some areas, all known practitioners are rounded up into 'reform centres' where those who do not renounce their beliefs are then sent to jail. The recent jailing of 2 foreign-based practitioners (Prof. Zhang Kunlun, FGW, Index 1/2001 and below, and Dr. Teng Chunyan, see above) 'shows the Chinese authorities are not afraid of negative publicity abroad and are now more brazen in their crackdown.' [...] 30 Falun Gong protestors were arrested in Tiananmen Square on 26 December in familiar scenes of small groups unfurling banners and chanting slogans, only to be confronted by uniformed and plain-clothed police officers. Eyewitnesses report police kicked and dragged the mainly middle-aged protestors to waiting police vans.

China's official media reported on 27 December that a court in Beijing turned down appeals by 4 Falun Gong activists, upholding sentences passed on 5 December on charges of [Chinese government's slanderous words]. Pang You (8 yrs), Mu Chunyan and Chen Suping (7 yrs) and Zhang Lixin (3 yrs) together owned and ran a printing works north of Beijing producing leaflets, videos and CDs about Falun Gong for distribution in the capital. [...]

Ian Johnson, writing in the Wall Street Journal on 27 December 2000, penned an important article, 'How One Chinese City Resorted To Atrocities to Control Falun Dafa,' detailing the political and police methods used to suppress Falun Gongin Weifang City, Shandong Province. 12 practitioners have died in police custody in Weifang, constituting a disproportionate 15% of Amnesty International's estimated total of 77 deaths nationwide. Police in Weifang routinely try to intercept protestors travelling to Beijing at the city's bus and rail stations, while those arrested in the capital are detained and processed at a centre in Beijing staffed by officials from Weifang. Beijing authorities are happy for Weifang's office to lighten their workload, and Weifang officials enjoy the benefit of having ostensibly fewer arrests from their province appearing on central government records. Protestors are then sent back to Weifang and taken to one of 7 local 'transformation centres' where they are 'persuaded' to renounce their belief in Falun Gong. (All of Weifang's 12 reported deaths have occurred in such transformation centres.) Such measures were authorised in December 1999 by an order issued from central government's Bureau 610 the office co-ordinating the national crackdown against Falun Gong holding local officials responsible for protestors from their locale being arrested in Beijing. However, as the arrest of Weifang residents in Beijing continued to rise, political pressure increased on Shandong's provincial governor, Wu Guangzheng. As only one of two provincial governors in China's 21-member Politburo, Governor Wu is particularly anxious to curtail Falun Gongin Shandong in line with central government's policy. During a meeting of Shandong's provincial leaders last year therefore, the assembled city mayors and heads of counties were told they would be personally fined for each individual protestor from their locale arrested in Beijing. No legislation was passed authorising the system of fines. Higher level leaders extract the fines they are 'liable' for from their subordinates, who in turn fine officials below them, until the police themselves are suddenly liable for potentially huge sums of money. The police, therefore, are faced with a financial imperative in dealing with Falun Gong protestors in their custody. One such protestor was Ms. Chen Zixiu (Index Index 3/2000) who was arrested in Beijing in February 2000 and taken back to Weifang. She was beaten by police trying to extract a 2,000 yuan (US$241) fine from her family. They could not afford to pay and the following day Ms. Chen was beaten again, and died from her injuries on 21 February 2000. Police claim she died of a heart attack.

Despite a heavy police presence in Tiananmen Square on 1 January 2001, large numbers of Falun Gong protestors managed to conduct sporadic but conspicuous demonstrations before being arrested. Eyewitnesses again reported excessive police force used to arrest the mainly middle-aged and elderly protestors. A man attempting to resist arrest was repeatedly truncheoned on the head as several officers dragged him to a waiting van. Police immediately ordered street sweepers in the square to wash the blood from the ground. Western tourists saw police forcing a yellow banner into a woman's mouth to try and stop her shouting slogans. Estimates for numbers arrested varied from 100 to 700. Falun Gong websites later reported a woman died instantly when police pushed her to the ground and she hit her head on the flagstones. Police deny the claim.

ICHR reported on 2 January the deaths of 4 Falun Gong practitioners in police custody. Ms. Xu Bing, 33, and Ms. Lou Aiqing, 34, both from Weifang, Shandong Province (see above), were arrested in Qingdao, Shandong Province while pasting Falun Gong slogans on a wall. Police told their families on 24 December that the pair had died of heart attacks in a Weifang detention centre, but when family members tried to take photographs of wounds on their corpses, police confiscated the film. Xia Shucai, 63, from Laiying, Shandong Province, was arrested on 1 October while attempting to travel to Beijing for a demonstration in Tiananmen Square. Xia was beaten by police when he refused to pay a 2,000 yuan(US$242) fine, and died from his injuries on 22 December. Ms. Su Qinghai, 32, from Sichuan Province, died on 20 December following a bungled attempt to arrest her. She had locked herself into her 6th floor apartment, and fell or was pushed while struggling with an officer who had abseiled through her window. [...] A court in Beijing sentenced 3 Falun Gongpractitioners on 9 January to prison terms on charges of [Chinese government's slanderous words] Li Jinpeng (6 yrs), He Yuansheng (4 yrs) and Shi Xiufen (3 yrs) printed and distributed Falun Gongfliers last year. On the same day, Chinese Central Television reported the arrest of 6 practitioners in Shandong Province who had been printing and distributing fliers since June last year. The report gave no further details.

Prof. Zhang Kunlun (see above), was released on 10 January having served 2 months of a 3 year term in a Shandong labour camp, passed down for repeatedly protesting the crackdown against Falun Gong. It was noted that Prof. Zhang, a dual Chinese-Canadian citizen, was released prior to a planned visit to China by Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien 9-18 February. [...] Prof. Zhang returned to Canada on 18 January and gave a press conference the following day telling journalists police tortured him with electric shocks. 'They threatened me, [saying] "If you shout we will shock your mouth." My arms, legs and body were burned in many spots from the electricity. You could smell the burning skin.' Prof. Zhang said the police told him, 'If you were beaten to death we could simply bury you and tell the outside world you had committed suicide.' He said Falun Gong practitioners are regularly beaten by police in labour camps. Prof. Zhang denied he had renounced his belief in Falun Gong. A journalist thought to be from the People's Daily disrupted the conference by shouting questions and comments in Chinese.

ICHR reported on 11 January the deaths of 3 Falun Gong practitioners in police custody or as the result of police mistreatment. Ms. Yu Lianchun, 45, died in a labour camp in Jinan, Shandong Province. Her family was informed of her death on 30 December and claim her body showed more than a dozen bruises. Officials at the labour camp where she died refused to comment. Ms. Chu Congrui, 19, from Liaoning Province, was arrested on 1 December in Tiananmen Square and reported dead to her family 16 days later. Her family said her face was heavily bruised, but police claim she died of a hunger strike. Ms. Liu Jiamin, 30, was arrested on Tiananmen Square on 1 January and released from police custody on 5 January. She died 2 days later from internal injuries sustained during police efforts to force-feed her. Police at the detention centre where she was held refused to comment. [...] [...] Meanwhile a report appeared in Beijing on 15 January from the Hebei Daily,saying 3 practitioners had been sentenced to prison [Chinese government's slanderous words]' Li Congchun (5 yrs), a civil servant, organised meetings in his home. Liu Huimin (5yrs), also a civil servant, protested the crackdown outside government offices. Wang Mingdao (3yrs), distributed 3,000 copies of a self-penned article condemning the crackdown.

China's state media reported on 16 January that Luo Jianzhong, Standing Committee Chairman of Shiyan City People's Congress in Hubei Province, was expelled from the Party having been arrested during a Falun Gong protest on Tiananmen Square. Luo [Chinese government's slanderous words] said the report. Luo is the first high-ranking cadre to be publicly vilified leading to suggestions China is further broadening the crackdown. [...]

Philip P. Pun, writing in the Washington Poston 4 February (Human Fire Ignites Chinese Mystery p. A01), reported a visit he made to the Kaifeng neighbourhood of Liu Siying and her mother. While neighbours say the mother seemed 'sad' and estranged from members of her family, no one ever saw her practising Falun Gong.

ICHR reported on 6 February that an appeals court judge from Nancheng, Jiangxi Province, Hu Qingyuan, was sentenced to 7 years in prison having run an unregistered press producing 200,000 books on Falun Gong.Hu was arrested on 21 July 1999, the day Falun Gongwas officially banned, suggesting he was a 'backbone' member of the group. In a separate case, 9 Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to prison terms of between 2 and 7 years in Wuhan, Hubei Province, having downloaded Falun Gong material from the Internet and having tried to persuade others to join demonstrations. Apart from the names of 2 of the sentenced, Cui Hui and Peng Cong, no other details were available. [...]

ICHR reported on 7 February the deaths of 7 Falun Gong practitioners in police custody and as the result of police mistreatment. The family of Ms. Li Mei, 28, was informed of her death in a labour camp in Anhui Province on 2 February. Her family said her face was covered in bruises, there were traces of blood around her nose and ears, and her neck was bandaged. Ms. Li had regularly complained about beatings since her arrest for demonstrating against the crackdown on Falun Gonglast June. The family of Liu Rongxiu was informed of his death in a detention centre in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, on 16 January. He was arrested during a demonstration in Tiananmen Square on 6 December and started a hunger strike upon being returned to Shijiazhuang. His family managed to briefly view his remains before cremation and said his mouth was caked with blood and his head was bandaged. Wang Lixin from Jilin City, Jilin Province, was arrested on 24 November for distributing Falun Gongleaflets and immediately started a hunger strike in the local detention centre. 2 police officers beat him on 3 December and he died 2 hours later. Ms. Sun Shaomei was arrested in December during protests on Tiananmen Square and died in a labour camp on 12 December. Her family said her body was covered in bruises. Yu Wenjiang, arrested in Jilin Province on 18 December, died on 2 January in a detention centre in Siping City, Jilin Province following police attempts to force feed him. Xiao Yanglong died in a Fujian detention centre in July, also following police attempts to force feed him. Wang Yijia was practising Falun Gong exercises in his home in Hengyang, Hunan Province in January when police broke in and tried to arrest him. Wang resisted arrest, ran to his balcony and fell to his death.

2 Chinese newspapers, the Yangcheng Evening Newsand the Southern Daily, carried the same article on 8 February saying Beijing police may press 'accessory to suicide' charges against foreign journalists who witnessed the self-immolations in Tiananmen Square on 23 January. The article claimed police had evidence that journalists from CNN, Associated Press (AP) and Agence France Presse (AFP) knew in advance of the attempted suicides but did not inform the authorities or try to intervene. It claimed a surveillance camera above the square showed 6 or 7 foreign journalists arrive on the square 10 minutes before the incident and assemble near the protestors. CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, denied the CNN crew knew in advance of the incident and said the journalists were there only to cover any expected protests similar to those during New Year's Day 2000. AP and AFP say their journalists were not even on the square at the time of the incident. The article said the footage [...] was from CNN's camera, but Mr. Jordan pointed out the camera crew were prevented from filming before the 4 women set themselves on fire. The footage of Ms. Liu shown on Chinese television was taken without any apparent interference from police, and was taken from in front of and behind police lines. Furthermore, tape from the surveillance camera shows a man holding a small hand-held camera, and not a large TV news camera such as CNN use. Officials from both newspapers refused comment and the Ministry of Security did not answer phone calls and faxes from the news organisations involved. Unusually, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao later dismissed the article. 'I am not aware of any such thing. I don't know where they got this source of information,' he said. [...]

Various foreign newspapers and agencies quoted government sources as saying a two day meeting comprising the Central Committee, provincial, city and ministerial leaders convened on 12 February to discuss the next phase of the crackdown against Falun Gong. It is thought the campaign is set to focus on 'key defiant' members, and that intelligence and security organisations have collected information on 1,000 such people. [...] According to a paper by Robin Munro published in mid-February in the Journal of Asian Law, 'the Chinese authorities have a long-standing record of the misuse of psychiatry for politically repressive purposes.' Mr. Munro, a researcher at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), attributed a recent sharp increase in cases to the government's crackdown on Falun Gong, and backed the group's claims that as many as 600 practitioners are being held in 20 secretive institutions for the criminally insane run by police. In a review of official documents, he noted that certain types of 'political criminals' were more likely to be referred to psychiatrists: persistent petitioners, those who shout or post anti-Communist slogans and those who display what the police regard as 'a perplexing absence of any normal instinct for self-preservation' in the face of certain arrest. Robert van Voren, general secretary of the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry said, 'We hope that outside pressure can end this form of repression.' In the wake of Mr. Munro's paper, moves are afoot to exclude China from the World Psychiatric Association. Beijing angrily dismissed the report on 20 February. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said, 'Such accusations are totally groundless and unacceptable,' and insisted there was no evidence to support Munro's study.

Xinhua published an article on 20 February apparently softening the aggressive tone used against rank-and-file Falun Gong practitioners who have left and renounced the '[Chinese government's slanderous words]' [...] It was not immediately clear, said foreign commentators, whether the article marked a shift in policy towards the group, or if the gentler rhetoric was an attempt to mollify increased international attention and the visiting IOC inspection team. As much as China may wish to deflect international criticism, Beijing is keen to use outside enemies as a salvo in the arsenal against Falun Gong at least for the home audience. [...]

The China Securities News announced on 26 February the release of a new software package designed to block access to Internet sites 'promoting Falun Gong' [...]. 'Internet Police 110' (the number dialed for the police in China) can be programmed by network administrators to block sites containing specified keywords and 'information leading to violence', said the report. No mention was made in the report who developed the software or how much it will cost.

Amnesty International (AI) claim at least 77 Falun Gong practitioners have died as the result of police mistreatment, while the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Movements in China (ICHR) put the number at 102. Falun Gong's website, say 155 people have died at the hands of police since the group was outlawed in July 1999. [Chinese government's slanderous words] AI cites universal claims by adherents held in detention centres and labour camps that the torture by police of Falun Gong practitioners is standard practise, either to extract fines, to force renunciation of beliefs or as simple punishment. The government says 242 of the group's leaders have been sentenced through the courts but has not put a figure on how many practitioners are held in labour camps for up to 3 years under police administrative powers. AI and ICHR estimate there are 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners held in labour camps for their beliefs, and as many as 50,000 at any one time in police stations and detention centres. Some 600 practitioners are said to be held in secure psychiatric units.

Sources: AFP, Amnesty International, AP, Baltimore Sun,BBC, BBC Monitoring, Chinaonline.com, CNN, faluninfo.net, Hong Kong iMail, Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movements in China, New York Times, Reuters, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, Xinhua. (www.chinadaily.com.cn.net/) Falun Gong's Challenge to China A Report and Reader. (D. Schechter. Akashic Books. New York. 2000.)

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/news/china120301.html