(Clearwisdom.net) On July 30, a group of international human rights attorneys formally announced that State Councilor and former Education Minister Chen Zhili was sued in Tanzania on July 19. Chen was charged with conducting torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners within the Chinese education system. Chen was accused of political brainwashing of students and teachers by manipulating the Chinese educational system. She showed up in court on July 19 upon being subpoenaed in Tanzania. This was the first time that a defendant showed up in court in the series of lawsuits against Chinese officials for their crimes in the persecution of Falun Gong.

Chen Zhili had a four-day official visit to Tanzania beginning on July 17 after she visited South Africa and Zimbabwe. Her arrival in South Africa occurred less than two weeks after Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong's visit to South Africa, during which hired gunmen attacked Falun Gong practitioners on their way to protest his visit.

A main accomplice in Jiang Zemin's persecution of Falun Gong

During the Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Gong, Chen Zhili, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the educational system and former Minister of Education (from March 1998 to March 2003), has directed and enforced the persecution within China's educational system. Taking advantage of her special relationship with Jiang Zemin and the power derived from it, Chen has been responsible for a vicious persecution, affecting people throughout the education system. This included persecution of those in graduate and undergraduate schools, high schools, middle schools, primary schools, and even kindergartens. This persecution has claimed a huge number of innocent victims.

According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), Chen Zhili organized many anti-Falun Gong conferences and is responsible for the persecution against Falun Gong within the educational system. For example, while in charge of the Education Ministry, she forced teachers and students to watch films slandering and attacking Falun Gong, conducted the anti-Falun Gong "Million Signatures" movement, and included anti-Falun Gong contents in textbooks and written exams in primary schools and high schools. During her administration in the Education Ministry, at least 61 practitioners in the education system were tortured to death. Administrators in the Chinese education system applied systemic persecution by depriving teachers who practiced Falun Gong of their jobs, and students who practiced Falun Gong of the right to attend school. Since 1999, over 300 professors, instructors, and university students in Qinghua University were unlawfully detained, dismissed, or sent to labor camps. Based on estimates, in 2003 at least 435 practitioners in 210 universities and colleges in China were forced to attend brainwashing sessions or were sent to be persecuted in labor camps and mental hospitals.

Countless inhumane persecution cases

Under the direct control of Chen Zhili, teachers and students who are practitioners throughout China have been persecuted to various degrees. Below are some of the persecution cases.

Lu Hongfeng, thirty-seven years old, was the former vice-principal of the No. 1 Elementary School of Lingwu City, Ningxia Province. For speaking out about Falun Gong, local officials persecuted her mercilessly. During the period of the "Two Meetings", [the meeting of the National People's Congress and Political Consultative Sessions] she signed an open letter to the People's Congress, urging an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. As a result, she was dismissed from her job. On June 7, 2000, she was sent to the local mental hospital against her will, since she insisted on speaking out about Falun Gong. Lu Hongfeng was perfectly healthy when she was sent to the mental hospital. She passed away on September 6, 2000 after being severely tortured and injected with drugs normally used for mentally ill patients.

Close to the May 13 World Falun Dafa Day in 2003, Dafa practitioners at the Chongqing University campus set off balloons with banners attached. The university authorities immediately sealed off all exits to search for those responsible and arrested practitioners that they suspected. Twenty-eight year old Wei Xingyan, a third year graduate student in the Master's Degree program for high voltage power transmission, was one of them.

On the evening of May 13, the police took her to a room in the Baihelin Detention Center and ordered two female inmates to strip off all her clothes. Wei Xingyan admonished them, "You have no right to treat me this way!" Then a police officer in uniform came into the room, pushed Wei Xingyan to the ground and raped her in front of the two inmates.

After the assault, Wei Xingyan started a hunger strike in protest. After repeated force-feedings by the police, on May 22, Wei Xingyan, who was already on the verge of death, was sent to the Southwest Hospital in Chongqing City. Due to an extremely tight information blockade, little is known about Wei Xingyan's current situation.

The crime was exposed on the Clearwisdom website and other places on the Internet. In order to cover up the heinous case of a female student being raped by a policeman in front of eyewitnesses, Chongqing University went so far as to remove mention of high voltage power transmission from its website, and then claimed that there was no such student.

Ms. Zhu Hang, Associate Professor of the Department of Humanities, Dalian Polytechnic University, was arrested when practicing the Falun Gong exercises in a park on August 30, 1999. The persecutors detained her in Yaojia Detention Center in Dalian City, where she was tortured with the "underground cell" device, which held her immobile for long periods of time. She could neither use the toilet nor eat on her own. She fasted for 7 days and nights, after which the perpetrators force-fed her. The force-feeding severely injured her mouth and caused her to lose consciousness. Zhu Hang was then sent to the People's No. 2 Hospital in Dalian City. She was first sent to the Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Institute of Medical Science for treatment of her physical injuries. After she had recovered, some government officials transferred her to the Dalian Psychiatric Hospital in order to cover up their crimes of torturing her in the detention center. In the psychiatric hospital, she was forced to take narcotics that numbed the central nervous system. When she refused, the doctors tied up her arms and legs and forcibly injected her with the drugs. As a result of the torture, she now looks totally different from how she looked three years ago. She can no longer take care of herself, let alone return to the university to teach.

Instigating hatred towards Falun Gong practitioners, mobilizing and exploiting students to join in the persecution of Falun Gong

Chen has been exploiting national resources to brainwash hundreds of millions of children and young adults by spreading lies and instigating hatred towards Falun Gong practitioners. In line with Jiang Zemin's goal of "eradicating Falun Gong," Chen has launched massive anti-Falun-Gong movements by mobilizing those who did not know the truth about Falun Gong to turn against Falun Gong. For example, on February 1, 2001, just after the government-staged "Tiananmen Square Self-Immolation" incident, Chen, leading the Party Committee in the Ministry of Education and together with the Party Youth League of the Central Government, issued an order to launch a widespread "anti-Falun-Gong movement" in every college and university directly associated with the Ministry of Education. The national anti-Falun-Gong movements, which swept the country, started subsequently, even igniting vigilante and mob-like violence against some Falun Gong practitioners.

As a result of the campaign in schools, many student or teacher practitioners are expelled from school, detained or even sentenced to prison terms. Another result of the campaign is that a huge number of students are deceived to harbor hatred towards Falun Gong.

According to a Chinese government report, on February 6, 2001, based on direct orders from Wang Maolin, head of the central "610 Office," Zhou Qiang, the First Secretary of the Youth League Central Committee and Zhao Yong, head of the Youth League Central Committee, nearly eight million young people in 100 cities throughout China were directly exploited to participate in anti-Falun Gong propaganda activities. Within one day, they posted more than 500,000 propaganda pictures, distributed more than ten million flyers and held more than 200 gatherings. In the month of February 2001, over 1500 youth groups in over 100 cities under the impetus of the brainwashed young students who didn't know the truth about Falun Gong, mobilized over 12 million community residents to sign their names on the guarantee that they "won't believe or spread and will resist" Falun Gong. Jiang's regime made use of the impressionable youths to spread the anti-Falun Gong campaign throughout society.

Chen Zhili appearing in court causes shock among Chinese officials

Chen's showing up upon subpoena in the Tanzanian court shocked many Chinese officials and diplomats. Recently, senior Chinese officials participating in the persecution have kept their presence low key when visiting other countries, fearing lawsuits from practitioners.

Recently, a Jiangsu Province economic and trade delegation visited San Francisco, and changed the location of a meeting with business people from a hotel to the Chinese Consulate. Consulate staff spread a lie, saying that the delegate was not led by governor, but a bureau director. Officials involved in the persecution of Falun Gong have been busy destroying evidence of their participation.

International human rights attorneys involved in this lawsuit said that this marked a big step forward in gaining the attention of the international community with respect to the persecution of Falun Gong. They applauded the progress of a lawsuit, which marks a positive contribution from the Tanzanian government and legal system.

A Falun Gong practitioner who had just returned from Africa said, "Chen Zhili is being sued in Tanzania. We are encouraged by this, and we will continue to do our best to help end the persecution."