Spanish Newspaper Publishes Three-Page Falun Gong Report

On September the 25th 2005, the Spanish newspaper El Correo published a three page article in their Sunday edition about the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese Torture

Almost 2,800 people have been assassinated since 1999, more than 200,000 are currently locked up in extermination camps; and 100 million have been illegally denied freedom of belief. The reason? They believe in Falun Gong, a practice of meditation and exercises that is based on an oriental tradition that improves health and personal values, something that the Chinese Communist Party does not allow for its people.

Truth, Compassion and Tolerance. These are the three principles that make up Falun Gong. Its practitioners do not have to pay anything, and it is today practised in 78 countries.

In all of them, except for one, one can practise it wherever and whenever one wants to. Additionally, many governments and important personalities have recognised that it benefits people. However in China, its country of origin, orders have been made to eradicate it. The persecution started in 1999, when the ex president Jiang Zemin ordered to have it eradicated, as it was seen as a big threat to the Communist Party due to its large number of believers. As a result of this decision, they created the Extermination Office (called the 6/10 office) that controls the hundreds of forced labour camps where torture and abuses that even lead to death are common. Increasing world condemnation of such barbarities brings ever more hope that change will come.

Hundreds of Chinese practised the exercises of Falun Gong in the open air, before the practice was prohibited by the dictator Jiang Zemin

The Chinese Governments Tortures Falun Gong Practitioners

Gao Rongrong was a woman of thirty seven years of age. She worked as an accountant at the Luxun College of Fine Arts in Shenyang City. For her affiliation with Falun Gong, she was stripped of her job in 1999, soon after the suppression of Falun Gong began. Gao then lodged legal, sanctioned appeals with authorities in Beijing calling for an end to the wrongful persecution. Authorities then, with total disdain for the law, detained Gao and locked her up for several months.

In July of 2003 Gao was sent to Longshan Forced Labour Camp. During her detention there, Gao was physically beaten by camp personnel, sources familiar with her case report. Almost one year later, on May 7th 2004 at approximately 3:00 pm, Tang Yubao, the deputy head of the No. 2 Brigade along with team leader Jiang Zhaohua, summoned Gao to the duty office and began to torture her with electric batons. Sources report that the torture continued for seven hours. Those detained with Gao in the labour camp say her face, head and neck were completely burned. Gao’s face was covered with blisters and her hair was matted with pus and blood. The injuries were so severe that Gao was left disfigured and with difficulties seeing.

In a desperate attempt to escape her torturers, Gao jumped from a 2nd floor office window of the facility, sustaining multiple fractures. She was subsequently hospitalised, during which those close to Gao managed to take photos of the injuries to her face and body. The shocking photos managed to escape China overseas, where rights activists publicised them all over the world. Details of her case were submitted to related government offices in the U.S. and other nations and presented to the United Nations.

During her hospitalisation, Gao was under constant surveillance from the Chinese police. The authorities declared she would be returned to captivity upon release from the hospital. However, on October the 5th 2004, Gao having recovered sufficiently to be moved was able to leave the hospital with the help of a small group of friends, thus avoiding abduction by police and the possibility of further torture.

After Gao’s escape, Shenyang City Police Department (State Security Division) began tapping the phone lines of all Falun Gong practitioners in the region, hoping to discover who had helped publicise Gao’s case and helped her escape from the hospital. A manhunt enfolded, as all individuals believed to have facilitated Gao’s hospital escape were ordered to be arrested. One of the individuals abducted, Mr. Feng Gang, had to be admitted to Masanjia Hospital after thirteen days of hunger strike protesting his unlawful abduction. Another individual, Mr. Sun Shiyou, was severely tortured by the authorities and, specifically, his genitals were shocked by electric batons. Mr. Sun’s family members were also abducted.

On March the 6th 2005, Gao was located by the police and detained once more. Her family never heard from her again until a few days before she died, this June, in the Emergency Room of the Medical University Hospital.

Gao’s story is only one horrifying example among the 2,781 Chinese people a confirmed number that have been tortured to death in extermination camps, although, according to information from the NGO Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners, the real number of deaths from this cause could rise to 20,000.

A Chinese practitioner’s injuries and burns inflicted by the Police

So that all this does not continue in secret and so that international pressure is applied to the Chinese Communist Party, thousands of people dedicate, altruistically, their time to generate awareness about what Falun Gong is and what is happening with the practitioners of Falun Gong in China. One of these people is Pia-Maria Sandas in the photograph on this page doing one of the meditation exercises and one of the deputy directors of the previously mentioned NGO.

Sandas is a former fashion model and is today the representative for a cosmetic label. She is not Chinese, but Finnish. She started practising Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, through a friend of hers who is also a practitioner of this discipline. “It is internationally a highly respected discipline that is now practised in over 78 countries worldwide, except for China. Its founder, Master Li Hongzhi, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price, has been the Ambassador of Honour in various states and has also received over 800 proclamations and awards from different organizations.”

And we are in fact speaking of a very ancient discipline, but of recent expansion. In fact, Falun Gong is a practice that existed since long ago in the mountains and remote places of China, where it was transmitted from Masters to disciples over the centuries. In 1992, it was brought to the public by the hands of Mr. Li Hongzhi and its growth around the planet has been very fast.

It focuses on working the body and the mind, something very important since 70% of illnesses are psychosomatic. The body is worked through five exercises, very similar to yoga, that promote at the same time internal peace of the individual. Then comes the meditation, always following the three principles of truthfulness, benevolence and tolerance in the daily activities of everyday life, with oneself as well as with others.

The practice is free, one does not have to pay anything or become affiliated to any association. The books and teaching materials can be obtained on the Internet (www.faluninfo.net or www.falundafa.org) and to practise it in company, thousands of people are teaching it in the parks of the major cities. In Madrid, for example, every Sunday morning in the Retiro Park, a group of people gathers, each time larger, to practise Falun Gong.

People practising Falun Dafa in the Retiro Park in Madrid

Some 30,000 people withdraw each day from the Communist Party

But the certain thing is, as was pointed out before, that while each day there are more citizens all over the world that practise Falun Gong, in China the torture is rising for this same reason. Seen from the dictatorial eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, this practice is dangerous, as any spiritual belief is to them seen as a danger. Therefore they outlawed it and ordered it to be eradicated. The ‘hunt and capture’ began on July the 20th 1999. Nevertheless, it is also certain that thanks to that these human rights violations in China are becoming known more and more. There is more pressure against the Communist Party, in fact, in July 2005, more than three million members of the party had already withdrawn from it, protesting in this way against the destruction of families, bodies and minds of a hundred million people.

The mother Dai Zhizhen, widowed since 2001, with her daughter Fadu

Three current lawsuits in Spain

In Spain, three lawsuits have been filed against officials from the Chinese Government. Carlos Iglesias is the lawyer who is in charge of directing these cases. He states that lawyers from more than thirty countries have initiated, just as he, lawsuits against these human rights violations. "Not even the dictator Pinochet had so many lawsuits," he argues, to give an idea of the magnitude.

The first of the lawsuits was presented on October the 15th 2003 before the National Audience of Madrid against the former president of China and current leader of the Chinese army, Jiang Zemin, and against the vice director of the 610 Office, Luo Gan, accused of genocide and torture. The lawsuit was filed by a group of fifteen people. One of them is a Spaniard who, during a trip to Beijing, was victim of beatings of all sorts for sitting in a plaza defending the principles of Falun Gong. Some of the women travelling in the group with him were even sexually molested. "What is pursued in China is the practice of Falun Gong, independent of the nationality of the practitioners", Iglesias explains. This lawsuit is now under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, awaiting a verdict.

The second and the third legal action in Spain were filed later against different leaders of the Chinese Government who it has been proved are responsible for the torture of Falun Gong practitioners, and that have visited Spain on different occasions.

Iglesias is hopeful. "The Spanish Justice system is competent under the principle of universal jurisdiction to carry these types of cases. In China it is not possible for the crimes of genocide to be indicted, because the defendants have highest official positions in the Government. If these crimes are not known in other countries, like Spain, they will remain unpunished,” he warns.

Police abuse against practitioners

The authorities of the entire world are against this genocide

The governments of the entire world have sent their impressions to the Chinese leaders about these human rights violations. "My administration and people of the U.S. continue to firmly support the defence of human rights everywhere, which includes religious freedom and freedom of conscience. We have repeatedly insisted to the Chinese Government that there is no justification whatsoever for the brutal repression of Falun Gong", assures the American president, George Bush.

From the European Parliament it has been stated: "we are very worried about the human rights situation in China. This institution denounced the actions of the Chinese Government in many occasions and, the resolution of July the 5th 2001 about Human Rights around the World in the year 2000 and the policies of Human Rights of the EU establish that all states should cease the repression and discrimination of peaceful philosophical and religious minorities. China must end the repression of Falun Gong."

It has received 1,200 prizes for being good for body and mind

Pia-Maria Sandas explains that Falun Gong has received 1,200 prizes all over the world for its contribution and benefits to the body and mind of the people that practise it.

Among the prizes, one of the most curious is the one granted by the National Police of Peru. The recognition was for Mei Jiang, "for her valuable instruction of Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese self-cultivation practice for the mind and the body which benefited the personnel of this Police Office ".

It is ironic that while the police services of certain countries grant prizes to the instructors of Falun Gong, the police services of the Chinese communist state practises all kinds of violence, and torture to death those that want to carry out these physical-mental exercises. Who are those harmed the most? The thousands of children and orphans that today remain in China.