Honorable Yoriko Kawaguchi
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Shiba Koen 2-11-1, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-8519 Japan

Date: September 23, 2002

Subject: Rescue Mrs. Yoko Kaneko, Stop the Persecution in China

Dear Honorable Yoriko Kawaguchi,

We are writing on behalf of a Japanese Falun Gong practitioner, Yoko Kaneko, who was arrested in China on May 24, 2002. Mrs. Kaneko, along with two of her friends, was distributing some Falun Gong materials at the time. As you may already know, Falun Gong is a peaceful practice of meditation and exercise that emphasizes high moral values. It was banned in China in 1999, although it is practiced and praised all over the world.

Mrs. Kaneko's two friends were deported to Japan, but Mrs. Kaneko was detained by Chinese officials because she is a permanent resident of Japan, not a citizen. She suffered horrible abuses while detained by the police. According to reports, she was shackled to a bed in a basement hospital, catheterized, force-fed through a nose tube, beaten and tortured often to the point where she lost consciousness.

On June 17, Mrs. Kaneko was sentenced without trial to 18 months in a forced-labor camp. Her husband, who is a Japanese businessman named Atsushi Kaneko, managed to go to China to visit her two months later in August. His visit was highly restricted and tightly controlled, however. He saw that she was extremely weak and had lost a lot of weight. Her wrists were badly bruised and she was "not in her right mind." Mr. Kaneko said his wife seemed to be an entirely different person and that the reports of the torture she suffered were true.

According to international law, as well as China's own constitution, the persecution of Falun Gong by the Jiang regime is illegal. It is in direct violation of the United Nations Covenant on Human Rights, and the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights has condemned this persecution. According to incomplete statistics, within the past three years beginning in July 1999, more than 480 practitioners have been verified as being tortured to death. However, according to the government's official internal statistics, the actual number of practitioners who died while in custody had reached 1,600 by this time last year. In addition, there are at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners who have been illegally sentenced to prison and over 100,000 practitioners sentenced to forced labor camps. Thousands more have been sent to psychiatric hospitals and brainwashing classes. The World Psychiatric Association at its 2002 international congress in Yokohama voted to send a mission to China to investigate these reports of psychiatric abuse.

Mrs. Kaneko's imprisonment is symbolic of the regime's gross violations of human rights on all levels. The Chinese government does not abide by its own laws and rules, and this is dangerous not only to victims like Mrs. Kaneko but also to all who visit China or who want to establish business or trade relations.

We are grateful for all the Japanese government has done for Atsushi Kaneko and all that you are doing to get his wife released. We are asking you and the international community to please do everything in your power to save her, as her condition is deteriorating very rapidly. Such abuse of innocent, kind people by the Jiang regime -- and such blatant abuse of the rule of law -- should not be allowed to continue.

Sincerely,

The Falun Dafa Association of New England, USA