March 20, 2006

(Posted March 3, 2006) While U.S. corporate elites export technology to Communist China's cyberpolice, the U.S. government allows China to export brutal repression to our shores.

Executives of America's leading Internet companies were looking decidedly uncomfortable and sounding pathetic as they faced a well-deserved grilling from congressmen and human rights activists. The interrogators and witnesses wanted the titans of hi-tech wizardry to explain their justification for helping Communist China's cyberpolice censor the Internet, block access to websites disapproved of by the regime, and track down "cybercriminals" who visited "subversive" sites or expressed views at odds with the Communist Party line.

Standing against oppression: Practitioners of Falun Gong (a Chinese spiritual movement) gathered across the street from the United Nations building on September 22, 2004 to protest the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China. [The Epoch Times' Photo]

Standing against oppression: Practitioners of Falun Gong (a Chinese spiritual movement) gathered across the street from the United Nations building on September 22, 2004 to protest the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China. [The Epoch Times' Photo]

Republicans and Democrats on the House International Relations Subcommittee on Human Rights took turns lambasting representatives from Yahoo!, Google, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft during a seven-hour hearing on February 15 that was carried on the C-SPAN television channel.

Yahoo! has come under fire in recent months following revelations that the company provided the communist police agencies information that led to the convictions of Yahoo! e-mail users Li Zhi and Shi Tao, both of whom are Chinese journalists. As a result, Li Zhi is serving an eight-year prison sentence and Shi Tao was given a ten-year sentence.

Google has caved in to the Communist Chinese leadership and set up a special search engine for China's Internet users (Google.cn) that filters out websites and search terms (such as "democracy," "human rights," or "Tiananmen massacre") that the communists have forbidden. Microsoft has taken down a blog from its MSN network because Chinese officials disapproved of its critical political content. Cisco Systems has provided the People's Republic of China with hardware specifically designed to assist China's cyberpolice in conducting surveillance of electronic communications. The international human rights group Reporters Without Borders says it suspects that Cisco Systems has also trained Chinese engineers in the use of its products to more efficiently censor and police the Internet.

The executives representing the exalted superstars of the dot.com firmament were reduced to squirming and stammering as Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, repeatedly asked if they "are proud or ashamed" of their business decisions to aid communist authorities in suppressing freedom in China.

"Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," said Rep. Lantos. "These companies tell us that they will change China, but China has already changed them," he added.

Importing Thuggery

However, the above-mentioned companies are not the only ones being changed. Even more alarming than the revelations of U.S. companies exporting technology that helps China's secret police suppress freedom is the fact that our government is allowing Beijing's communist regime to export its vicious police-state thuggery to America!

At the February 15 subcommittee hearing, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) introduced one of the most recent victims of Communist Chinese brutality on U.S. soil, Dr. Peter Yuan Li, who was seated in the audience. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University and for years worked as a scientist for Bell Labs, where he is credited with many inventions. In 2003, Dr. Li began working full time as chief IT specialist for The Epoch Times, a newspaper he had helped found two years earlier. The Epoch Times is associated with the Chinese exercise and meditation [group] known as Falun Gong, which since 1999 has been systematically targeted for persecution by the Chinese Communist Party. Tens of thousands of peaceful Falun Gong practitioners have been rounded up and sentenced to prison or forced labor camps. According to Falun Gong press releases, there are more than 2,838 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners being beaten and tortured to death while in detention.

Falun Gong martyr Gao Rongrong was arrested on May 7, 2004, and brutally tortured for seven hours, leaving her face horribly disfigured. She died in prison on June 15, 2005. [The Epoch Times' Photo]

Falun Gong martyr Gao Rongrong was arrested on May 7, 2004, and brutally tortured for seven hours, leaving her face horribly disfigured. She died in prison on June 15, 2005. [The Epoch Times' Photo]

The gruesome torture/murder of Gao Rongrong, a 37-year-old accountant at the Luxun Fine Arts College in Shenyang City, is an especially egregious case that has been well documented. Arrested on May 7, 2004, she was taken to the Longshan Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, where she was tortured for seven hours. The torture included the use of an electric baton on her face, which left her face horribly burned and disfigured. In October 2004, Gao Rongrong was rescued by Falun Gong practitioners from a hospital where she had been transferred in grave condition from the prison. Recapture of the "criminal" Gao Rongrong became a top priority of China's national secret police unit known as the 610 Office. She was discovered and rearrested on March 6, 2005, and died on June 16, 2005, after more prison abuse.

But Beijing's totalitarian thugs do not confine their brutality within their national borders; they have become increasingly brazen about physically attacking and terrorizing their critics in foreign countries, including in the United States. Over the past several years, agents of China's "diplomatic corps" have carried out a systematic campaign of terror and intimidation against Chinese nationals and U.S. citizens in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities -- without any apparent opposition from the Bush administration.

The recent attack on Dr. Li took place on February 8 in his home in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. In an interview with THE NEW AMERICAN, Dr. Li described his harrowing ordeal.

Just before noon on February 8, he answered the doorbell at his front door. His visitor was an Asian man approximately 30-40 years of age who said that he was there to deliver water. Dr. Li said he hadn't ordered any water. Just then, another man, also Asian, who had been hiding around the corner of the house, jumped out and the two men rushed the door and forced their way into Dr. Li's house before he could close the door. One of the men had a knife and the other a gun.

"They pushed me against the wall and I thought they were going to kidnap or kill me," Dr. Li told THE NEW AMERICAN. He tried to escape but "they grabbed me, punched me, and threw me on the floor and covered my head with a quilt from the sofa." He thinks one of them put a foot on his mouth over the blanket because he couldn't breath and nearly passed out. "Then they took off the blanket and began beating my head and face, especially around my eyes and temple, with a blunt metal object, the gun, I think. My face, my eyes were bleeding, there was a lot of blood on the floor and the quilt. I was very weak and nearly fainted. They tied my hands and feet with electrical cord and put duct tape over my mouth and eyes."

Dr. Li believes the two attackers were Korean, since he heard them speaking Korean, a language he recognizes but doesn't understand. After he was blinded by the duct tape, he heard two more men, who spoke Mandarin Chinese, enter his home. The assailants searched the home and took his two laptop computers and his home phone and answering machine. "I believe they wanted the phone and answering machine because of the caller I.D. function, to see who I was calling and receiving calls from," Dr. Li said.

This was not a robbery-motivated home invasion; Dr. Li points out that the invaders used military precision and left many valuables that ordinary robbers would have taken. Dr. Li believes he was targeted because he has been in the forefront of helping The Epoch Times develop computer programs that enable Internet users in China to break through the firewalls and filters the communist authorities use to deny them access to the truth.

Dr. Peter Yuan Li was brutally attacked in a shocking home invasion in Atlanta, Georgia. It is believed that his assailants were enforcers from Communist China's "diplomatic corps." [The Epoch Times' Photo]

Dr. Peter Yuan Li was brutally attacked in a shocking home invasion in Atlanta, Georgia. It is believed that his assailants were enforcers from Communist China's "diplomatic corps." [The Epoch Times' Photo]

After about 30 minutes, the assailants left his home and Dr. Li was able to untie his hands and feet. He stumbled outside, where a neighbor saw him, came to his assistance, and called 911. The local police and the FBI both opened investigations into the shocking incident, but according to Dr. Li have turned up nothing so far. "This is a very nice, quiet, low-crime community I live in, so this was very unusual and the police were treating it as a serious matter," Dr. Li told this reporter.

Terror Call From Beijing

Dr. Li is not the only resident of the Atlanta area to experience the Gestapo tactics of China's agents. Mitch Gerber, a junior in international business at Georgia State University and a practitioner of Falun Gong, has been harassed and terrorized, though not physically assaulted. A Jewish immigrant from South Africa, Mr. Gerber began practicing the Falun Gong exercises and meditation several years ago and then became active in exposing the persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China.

On June 29, 2005, Mitch Gerber had a very chilling experience. While at work, he had received seven calls on his cellphone from an out-of-state number he did not recognize. When he received an eighth call from the same number, he decided to answer it. He described the call to THE NEW AMERICAN.

"A man who spoke English like an American, without any foreign accent, informed me that the call was a 'relayed chat from Beijing' and asked me whether I would accept it," says Gerber. Mr. Gerber accepted the call and said he could hear a female voice speaking Chinese from a third location. The male, whose telephone number was from an area code in Minnesota, then translated a very frightening message. He said: "Mitchell Gerber, you are an enemy to our great nation of China, and must be dealt with properly. Everything is fine in China, especially with the Children of China, there is nothing going on here." Mr. Gerber says the vehemence and vicious tone of the voices of both the female and male callers was very disturbing to him.

"I told them, 'We [Falun Gong] are not against the Chinese government, we are not against China, and we think China is great and her people are great. We just want to stop the brutal persecution against innocent Falun Gong practitioners in China.' I felt very intimidated, but I needed to stand up for what I believe in and I needed the courage to speak out about what I stand for. It was truly frightening to me and my heart began to beat very fast."

The Beijing caller and her American translator stopped Gerber with a harsh rebuke. "Shut it, you stupid fool. If you don't stop what you and your organization are doing, there will be severe consequences. We know where you are and who you are. If you don't give up what you are doing, we will kill more practitioners and come after you." The translator was not merely a neutral interpreter, says Gerber, but someone who was very involved in the issue and put great emotion and anger in his voice.

The call sent chills down his spine, says Gerber, but he would not consider giving in to the terror threat, even though he knows from the history of attacks in China, Australia, the United States, and elsewhere that the communist regime in Beijing is fully capable of following through on its threats. The attack on Dr. Li has underscored the reality of this danger. Mr. Gerber reported the threatening call to the local police, to the FBI, and to the U.S. State Department, but has received no progress report on any investigation by any of the authorities.

A couple of months after the death threat call, someone broke into his car and destroyed his Falun Gong literature but left other valuables untouched. He reported this incident also to the police. "It seems so incredible that this kind of thing could be happening here in the United States," he told THE NEW AMERICAN.

Like Dr. Li, Mr. Gerber believes, with good reason, that the threats and attacks are being orchestrated by Chinese "diplomats" under direct orders from Beijing and operating through China's embassy and consulates here in the United States. On June 4, 2005, Chen Yonglin, the 1st Secretary of the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney, Australia, made headlines when he went public with his defection from China at a press conference in Sydney. Mr. Chen revealed that in Australia he ran a network of 1,000 spies and enforcers, whose assignments included harassing and attacking Falun Gong practitioners.

The Beijing communist regime, which our political leaders prefer to think of as a "trading partner" and "ally," no doubt, has thousands of similar spies and thugs operating here in America. On October 4, 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution initiated by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and cosponsored by 75 House members condemning the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and the United States. House Concurrent Resolution 304 also cited several incidents of physical attacks on Falun Gong practitioners inside the United States, and called on the U.S. attorney general to investigate reported involvement of Chinese consular officials in these criminal acts and, in consultation with the secretary of state, determine an appropriate legal response.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_3484.shtml