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Falun Gong is freely practiced in more than 50 countries around the world, but brutally persecuted in China. The peaceful courage of practitioners there has shocked their oppressors and moved the people of the world. While China continues to block information of the persecution, FGMtv brings you news that you may not hear anywhere else.
Hello, and welcome to the FGMtv weekly news review
on September 3rd, 2002
I'm Susan Mitchell,
and I'm David Tompkins
In this week's update from China...
The number of Falun Gong practitioners verified to have died while in detention is 458, with details of 6 deaths received this week. However, reliable sources inside China put the actual death count in the thousands.
In the last 7 days, reports of persecution have come in from 14 provinces and from the city of Shanghai, and finally
251 people solemnly declared their statements extracted under torture are null and void. They said they intend to continue to practice Falun Gong.
Our top story this week:
Yet another European country violates its own democracy. Police in the Ukraine obey Jiang Zemin's requests to persecute Falun Gong.
And some of our other stories:
- Beijing blocks Google, one of the most popular Internet search engines in China
- AIDS is leaving a generation of orphans in China
- Falun Dafa TV programs broadcast in Hebei province
- Jilin medical school professor murdered for talking about Falun Gong
- China's extreme weather. Could an ancient story hold the key to an explanation for snow in July?
and finally...
Another Dafa miracle: a practitioner injured in an auto accident completely recovers in two days
First, our top story:
Twenty three practitioners were detained in Kiev, capital of the Ukraine on August 24 with police citing pressure from China as the primary reason. The practitioners were doing their exercises in a park where they have a permit to practice and where they have practiced for the past two years.
Witnesses say the practitioners obeyed a police request to move, gathered their belongings and left the park. Shortly after leaving, however, they were surrounded by police and taken into custody. When asked why they were being detained, police replied they needed to "check the identity" of the practitioners and threatened to use force if the practitioners did not get into the police vehicles.
Witnesses say police cited pressure from Beijing as the cause of the arrest. They stated that China is "huge and powerful" compared with a developing country like the Ukraine and that the Ukraine "can't afford trouble with China relations."
According to the detained practitioners, police also mentioned that Chinese officials had struck a deal with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop Falun Gong activities in the Ukraine.
One Falun Dafa practitioner, Sergey Martinovich, was separated from the rest of the group and accused of "illegally organizing" a group and holding an event with "no permission."
Mr. Martinovich denied the charges, explaining that Falun Gong practitioners had always practiced in the park without trouble and that on Independence Day, he had obtained a permit for their activity. Mr. Martinovich refused to sign the document listing the charges, explaining he had "done nothing wrong."
All detained practitioners were released after being held for 3 hours. Mr. Martinovich, however, had to appear in court on August 27, at which time the presiding judge dismissed the case, saying it was "groundless."
Popular Internet Search Engine Blocked from Beijing
Reuters news agency has reported that the U.S.-based Web site, Google, has been inaccessible via Chinese servers as early as August 31st. Google has become popular among Internet surfers in China because of its simplicity and ability to run thorough Chinese-language Web searches.
"It's being blocked out of Beijing," said one industry insider, who follows China's regulation of the Internet closely and used his computer to confirm and pinpoint the block.
The government openly attempts to control Web content in China, where the Internet threatens Communist Party control over the media.
An article posted on Web portal NetEase.com said Google was being blocked because searches could bring up links to pornography, content associated with the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong and information deemed harmful to national security.
The New York Times reported that AIDS is leaving a generation of orphans in rural China.
At the start of 2001, there were no orphans in the village of Donghu in southern Henan Province. Today, because of AIDS, there are nearly 20, and within a year or two there will likely be hundreds more.
Residents estimate that 200 of the village's 600 families have one parent dead and the other ill, often too frail to work or even rise from bed. They receive little government help.
According to United Nations Development Program statistics that have not yet been published, the number of families living below the official poverty line in Xincai, the county that includes Donghu, skyrocketed last year, to 270,000 from 40,000.
Breadwinners fell ill, and families spent whatever they could scrape together for food and care.
Experts say the blow dealt by AIDS to villages like Donghu has been sharper and crueler than anywhere else in the world because of the unusual and efficient way the disease spread here.
Nearly the entire adult population of some villages was infected almost simultaneously in the 1990's as poor farmers flocked en masse to blood collection stations whose unsterile practices introduced hefty doses of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, directly into their veins. Now, the victims - including many married couples - are falling ill and dying almost at the same time.
Falun Dafa Programs Broadcast in Hebei Province
- Last week, we reported that Falun Dafa programs had been broadcast on cable TV stations in Gansu province. This week, we have received a report giving details of more broadcasts, this time, in northern regions of Baoding City of Hebei province on August 23rd and 27th.
- Shown during prime time, around 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., the video programs included, "Witness and Testimonies" and "Falun Dafa Around the World."
- Viewers in a number of counties, plus the regions around Baoding City were finally able to watch the truth about the illegal persecution for more than one hour and ten minutes.
- Under the current situation in China, the broadcast of Falun Gong truth-videos is upholding the freedom of speech given to the Chinese people by their Constitution. This kind of broadcast upholds the people's right to know the truth and presents an opportunity for the Chinese national media to deliver truthful information instead of lies and slander.
- After the broadcast, officials from Baoding City and places where the programs had been seen, set up a 24-hour patrol schedule and ID check points. They are now systematically harassing and disturbing the families of all Falun Gong practitioners in the area.
And over to Japan...
- Practitioners in Japan launched a drive to collect signatures in Nara City on August 24 and 25 to rescue Falun Gong practitioner Luo Rong, who goes by the Japanese name of Yoko Kaneko. She is the Chinese wife of Atsushi Kaneko, and was illegally sentenced to one and a half years of "re-education through labor" in China.
- Practitioners from Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, and Hiroshima joined in the effort that called on the Japanese government to help rescue Mrs. Kaneko.
- The people of Nara and nearby areas were very kindhearted and at times even stood in lines, waiting to sign their names.
- The local television station also reported on the signature drive on their evening news.
Medical School Professor murdered by police for telling people about Falun Gong.
- Mr. Piao Shihao, a professor of the Medical School of Jilin Yanbian University, was imprisoned for several months for telling people the facts surrounding the persecution of Falun Gong. On August 21, 2002, he was tortured to death.
- Professor Piao, who was in his 60s, was arrested and imprisoned in the Yanji Detention Center. He suffered tremendous torture at the detention center, but he remained steadfast in his belief in Falun Dafa.
- An official from Yanbian Medical School confirmed that Professor Piao died in the detention center and said that his body was cremated. A police officer from the Yanji Detention Center later claimed that he died after he
- was set free but refused to answer any more questions after learning the medical center had confirmed that he died in the detention center.
- Reports show that Professor Piao Shihao was not the first Falun Gong practitioner who was murdered in the Yanji Detention Center. Records show that in December 2001, practitioner Liu Hong, a teacher, suffocated and died when the police violently force-fed him.
moving back to the U.S.A. where Falun Dafa is celebrated...
- Recently, a practitioner originally from Evansville, Indiana returned to her hometown to visit her family and to re-introduce Falun Gong to the public. On the 4th of July (U.S. Independence Day), she went to a local fireworks event wearing her yellow Falun Gong t-shirt. She happened to see the Mayor of Evansville giving a short speech, so went up to him to thank him for issuing a Falun Dafa Day proclamation last December."
- The Mayor said with a smile, "So you were the one who had written the letter to me." The Mayor continued to say that, "I received a nasty letter from the Chinese Communist Party, saying I shouldn't have given you that proclamation. I wrote them a letter right back and said that our country was founded on the basis of freedom of religious belief." The practitioner was about to say something about the differences between religion and cultivation practice, but then the Mayor said to her, "As soon as I saw this information on Falun Gong, I knew that this is something very important to stand up for."
- The Mayor has since issued another certificate proclaiming the first week of September to be Falun Dafa Week in the city.
A sad look inside a Chinese prison where Dafa practitioners are illegally detained.
- Some reports that Dafa practitioners manage to smuggle out of China are very short. However, their content confirms the extent to which the human rights situation has deteriorated.
- In the prison of Deyang City in Sichuan province, Dafa practitioners are detained in the No. 2 and No. 3 Divisions. Two prisoners and one guard monitor each practitioner, and follow them around the clock.
- Practitioners are not allowed to talk with each other. If they do, guards would have several prisoners beat and kick them.
- Practitioners are forced to face the wall or are exposed under the sun for 3 or 4 hours everyday. They are often deprived of sleep, or given very little to eat.
- Brutal beatings happen daily. One 70-year-old senior's hands and legs were beaten until they fractured.
Those who persecute Falun Dafa are receiving retribution for their acts.
- Township leaders of Wanxi in Qianyang County, Hongjiang city, in Hunan Province, have virulently slandered Dafa and persecuted Dafa practitioners.
- On July 25, Party Secretary Xiao Ping, Political and Judicial Department Secretary Zhou Xigang, driver Yang Jiping, and cadre leader Zhang Yongquan were in a car accident and died on the scene. Also in the car was the Chair of the local People's Congress Yang Xiaobiao. He was severely injured and left in a coma.
China's extreme weather this summer. Could an ancient story hold the key to an explanation for snow in July?
- There is an ancient Chinese story about a girl named Dou E who was wrongly accused of poisoning someone, and was sentenced to death by a corrupt official. Before her execution she made an oath that it would snow in the hot summer of June for the injustice done to her. As expected, it really did snow. For three years Falun Dafa practitioners have endured slander, torture and murder by corrupt officials. And this summer it snowed in China.
- The Jiangnan Times reported that at about 3:00 p.m. on August 5, snow fell in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The sky became extremely gloomy, and surprisingly the rain was intermingled with snowflakes. When it snowed, several thunderclaps rumbled in the sky. This phenomenon lasted for about 10 minutes.
- The Peninsula Metropolis Newspaper reported that on the afternoon of July 29, Linzi District in Zibo City, Shandong Province had a heavy rain mixed with snow. It was reported that several dozens of people witnessed this incredible sight of "Snowing in July."
And finally... a practitioner in China experiences a miraculous recovery after being hit by a car.
- A 73 year-old man who has been practicing Falun Dafa for seven years reported that he was hit by a car on July 4, 2002.
- He said that when he regained consciousness, the driver was very nervous, and wanted to call his family.
- The practitioner told him, "If I were an everyday person, I probably would have already died. But since I am a Falun Gong practitioner, I have no problem. You don't have to call anybody."
- I told the driver, "As a practitioner, I will of course not ask for any compensation from you." Then I started to tell him the truth about Falun Gong and the facts around the staged immolation in Tiananmen square.
- At the time of the accident, he had seven very visible wounds, including a triangular shaped one on the side of his head. His elbow, knees and hips were severely swollen.
- The next day, he said he was able to do his exercise practice and study and everything else as usual. And two days after the accident, the wounds had completely healed, leaving no scars, and he was able to go back to riding his bike. He said, "It was Falun Dafa that saved me again."
Thanks for watching FGMtv, dedicated to breaking through China's information blockade, revealing propaganda and bringing you the truth of Falun Gong.
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