June 29, 2005

Inspired by former diplomat of Chinese Consulate in Sydney Chen Yonglin and former Tianjin 610 agent Hao Fengjun, who openly renounced their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and exposed the inside stories about how the Chinese regime persecutes Falun Gong practitioners outside China, Mr. Ha Guangsheng, former Head of the Shenyang Municipal Judicial Bureau and third-level police supervisor, revealed more inside stories about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong to the Epoch Times and Canadian Press.

The Canadian Press reported on June 29 that a Chinese security official, Han Guangsheng, who is attempting to defect to Canada fears he could be executed if sent back to his homeland should he fail to win refugee status.

According to the report, last week Han approached the Epoch Times newspaper. Given his desire to reach the broadest possible audience, the Times referred Han to The Canadian Press. He told his story through a translator provided by the Canadian Press to both news outlets during a five-hour interview at a downtown Toronto hotel.

Han said he was inspired to come forward by two Chinese defectors, one a diplomat, the other a security official, seeking asylum in Australia.

Their stories about a global spy web run by Beijing and alleged details of the Chinese persecution of the Falun Gong movement have created an international stir.

According to the report, after studying world history and social science at a university, Han was hired in 1982 by the Public Security Bureau office in Shenyang, capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Han said he initially saw police work as a means to promote righteousness, protect people and fight crime.

But he began to realize that wasn't always the case.

The infamous June 4, 1989 assault by the authorities on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square left Han saddened and shaken.

Han said he wanted to leave the Public Security Bureau, but fear of punishment kept him there. By 1992 he was deputy head of the Shenyang office.

He finally left four years later, becoming deputy head of the city's Judicial Bureau. In 1999, he was promoted to head of the bureau, responsible for two jails and four labor camps in Shenyang.

That year the Chinese authorities began arresting devotees of Falun Gong, the spiritual practice denounced by the government.

Han is not a practitioner of Falun Gong but says he had sympathy for the plight of followers, believing they were breaking no laws. "I did whatever I could within my abilities to take care of them."

He compares himself to Oskar Schindler, portrayed in the film Schindler's List, who helped many Jews escape Nazi tyranny.

Han said he specifically ordered that Falun Gong practitioners in custody not be physically or verbally abused. He sought more space and medical equipment for them and in August 2001 approved the release of 159 prisoners because of overcrowding.

When he learned that a 15-year-old girl in a labor camp was punished with a series of electrical shocks after refusing to renounce her devotion to Falun Gong, Han fired the person responsible and transferred an administrator.

Han said in another case he was angry to hear 10 female prisoners at a Shenyang labor camp not under his control had been shocked, stabbed with needles, forced to do pushups on blocks of ice and made to crouch in pain for long periods.

He sent a letter outlining the women's complaints to provincial judicial authorities, incurring their displeasure.

In September 2001, Han made a trip to Toronto--ostensibly on a fact-finding trip about a school with links to China--but with the true aim of defecting.

"There is too much darkness and cruelty in the official circle," he wrote his superiors after defecting. "I only want to live in a country that really implements the rule of law and live out the rest of my life in peace and freedom," he wrote in the resignation letter faxed to his superiors two days after his arrival.