Broadcast: 20/06/2005
Reporter: Margot O'Neill
TONY JONES: Two weeks ago a former Chinese policeman came forward on this program to back the claims of the defecting diplomat, Mr Chen Yonglin. The second defector, Mr Hao Feng Jun, told us that when he came into Australia on a tourist visa, he smuggled a computer file carrying hundreds of Chinese security documents that he'd secretly downloaded from his police computer. Tonight, we've obtained some of those documents. If they are accepted to be authentic, they paint a disturbing picture of the surveillance and monitoring of Australian citizens and residents by a foreign power. The targets are members of the spiritual movement Falun Gong, and we report how the members of the movement in Australia believe they have been subjected to a sustained campaign of harassment by Chinese agents. Margot O'Neill has this report. The producer is Michael Edwards.
MARGOT O'NEILL, JOURNALIST: Before defecting from China, security agent Hao Fengjun claims to have downloaded hundreds of electronic documents from the notorious 610 Office.
HAO FENG JUN, CHINESE DEFECTOR: Back in China I worked in the 610 Office. A lot of my time I deal with all the reports that was sent from overseas and they send all the information that they collected from overseas. This intelligence information they send from Australia, also from North America and Canada, all over countries.
MARGOT O'NEILL: This is the first glimpse of some of Mr Hao's documents which Lateline has had independently translated. They are detailed but we're unable to independently verify them as authentic. This intelligence report, dated October last year, was apparently compiled in Beijing and circulated to senior Chinese officials. It details plans by the New South Wales Falun Gong to hold a conference in Sydney after Christmas and it names the organisers, including John Deller, an Australian Falun Gong practitioner, whom it describes as being behind "quite a few activities to disturb and damage the Chinese Government". John Deller confirms the broad accuracy of the intelligence report - Falun Gong did hold a conference in Sydney after Christmas - but he's horrified by the personal references.
JOHN DELLER, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: It's a little creepy actually to think that activities here in Australia are being monitored so closely by Chinese Communist officials. I think it's outrageous that an ordinary Australian citizen like myself is coming under such surveillance.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Chinese-Australian university student Yan Yan Che is also named in the report as a key Falun Gong organiser among Chinese students on NSW campuses. It describes her as "an overseas Chinese student, female, 22 years old, "from Shangdong province, second year student of NSW University." YAN YAN CHE, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: It's surprising, it's just sickening, it's scary. It pinpoints my name, where I came from, where my ancestors came from, my age, where I study. I never know that I am actually being monitored by 610. I never felt so close to China and the Communist Party as I do now.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Just who supplied the information in this Chinese intelligence report is unknown but it contains reference to Australian Falun Gong's plan to sue the Chinese Government for human rights abuses. This was supposed to have been a closely guarded secret among Falun Gong and its lawyers.
BERNARD COLLAERY, MR HAO'S LAWYER: The question of legal proceedings against the Chinese Government was kept in fairly close circuit by this office.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Another document, dated 24 January this year, names a Chinese woman presently seeking refugee status in Australia. It says the woman, named Chen Hong, was sentenced to a year in a labour camp in 2000 because of her Falun Gong beliefs and was expelled from the Communist Party. She applied for a visa from the Australian commission in Shanghai in 2003. It records that she's now in Australia.
BERNARD COLLAERY: We are going to provide this info to Chen Hong and her legal advisors to see if she wants to avail herself of this new material which clearly indicates that she may have a well-founded fear of persecution if she returns to China.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Bernard Collaery says, for the time being, he's not giving the documents to ASIO because of his concerns that Australian officials may have visited senior Chinese officials in the Public Security Bureau. However, he's already cooperating with another Western intelligence agency.
BERNARD COLLAERY: The thought of Australian officials going in the front door and 610 information going out the back door leaves us with some fears about making this information available to the Australian intelligence services.
MARGOT O'NEILL: John Deller and other Falun Gong practitioners were in Canberra today to show Federal MPs the results of a survey of nearly 400 of their members in which 80% report harassment from the Chinese Government in Australia.
KAY RUBACEK, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: It is a big issue, and it's a serious issue and it's been going on for a long time, and it backs up the claims by both Mr Chen and Mr Hao in the past few weeks.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Sydney Falun Gong practitioner Peter Ho says his garage was broken into in 2000 but the only items stolen were boxes of Falun Gong books and pamphlets.
PETER HO, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: At the time we also had some more valuable items such as heaters, electric fans and some other tools stored in the garage. All those things were untouched and it's only those Falun Gong books and pamphlets that were stolen.
MARGOT O'NEILL: William Luo is a leading Falun Gong organiser in Brisbane. A few years ago he was approached at a Falun Gong gathering by a man in Chinatown. The man seemed to know exactly who William was and could even identify his daughter.
WILLIAM LUO: He says, "Suppose you are the leader of the group here" "and what about if I kill you and see you still do it?" I just feel how can he know I am the contact person in Queensland. So I just feel very strange about this. He pointed to my daughter, my daughter just close with me with other children, then he say, "What about if I kill your daughter "and see you still want to do it?" Then I figure he know everything. He know my daughter. I have in my mind he is a spy.
MARGOT O'NEILL: The Chinese Embassy declined to comment on the claims in this story. Margot O'Neill, Lateline.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1396466.htm
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