In and around the time of Hu's recent visit to France, China used economic incentives to lead a few people in the French government who were overcome by temptation to order the French police to arrest Falun Dafa practitioners for no reason. To those behind this incident--the people in China who ordered it, orchestrated it, and participated in it--you will be held responsible for all consequences. We will comprehensively investigate everyone involved both in China and abroad, and bring you all to justice in accordance with the law in the near future.

The Falun Dafa Association
The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong

"At the metro exit of Arc de Triomphe, I got a leaflet handed out by an air-hostess of Air France, but then I accidentally dropped it at the exit. Upon returning to retrieve the leaflet, I saw a few men standing next to my friends waiting for me, waving to me and gesturing me to go to them. As I got close, a few big men suddenly clamped both my arms very roughly. I asked them "why--" in English. They said they didn't understand English and they squashed my arms even harder, lifting me up, before pushing me into a police van that was parked nearby."

"...three or four plainclothes policemen approached me and demanded that I take off my yellow scarf with the words "Falun Dafa." When asked what the reason was for this unusual demand, their reply was something along the lines of "today Falun Gong is forbidden in the area around Champs Elysees" and they warned me to take it off or I would be in trouble."

"...we would like to call on the government of France to immediately initiate an investigation of this incident, and to ensure that essential human rights to freedom of association and freedom of belief are fully respected. France has been known as a democratic country with a long-standing history of liberty and freedom. What occurred yesterday brings doubt to the free world that France intends to respect that history."

'The New Year Parade on Champs Elysees Avenue on January 24th is a public cultural activity demonstrating Chinese culture for all the Chinese people in France. When the French Falun Dafa Association applied, the application was interfered with by the Chinese Embassy. This unreasonable action by the Chinese Embassy aroused a lot of attention in society. Many social groups and people expressed their opposition to the Chinese Embassy using the New Year celebration activities to export China’s persecution of different beliefs to France.'

On January the 28th 2004, Four Falun Gong practitioners entrusted a senior French lawyer, Ms. Hauser-Phelizizon, with the filing of a lawsuit at the Paris prosecutor's office against the Chinese Minister of Culture, Sun Jiazheng, for "incitement of massacre and persecution." He is currently visiting France.

The International Workshop on “Modern Genocide", which was jointly held by the “International Advocates for Justice" and “Friends of Falun Gong", convened in Stockholm, Sweden, on January the 26th 2004. The conference was scheduled to last three days. On the second day of the conference, lawyers from various countries spoke at the workshop.

The persecution of Falun Gong has been going on for several years now. The Chinese authorities fear that it will develop and become a strong grass root movement, which could be hard to control. Practitioners say that they have no political agenda, and that they just want to help people become better human beings with this method. There are several examples where western governments have kowtowed to the Chinese leaders, and prohibited demonstrations, says Giertsen. This has happened both in Iceland, Denmark and Germany.

Zhang Shuquan, Ju Wenyang and Gao Qian were among the most vicious persecutors. Other policemen whose names we never learned were also involved. Wang Wenqi, the deputy director of the centre was responsible for issuing the orders. In addition to the use of the rubber batons, another torture instrument called "running" was also used. It consisted of a square metal frame about 1 x 1 foot in dimension, with 4 handcuffs made of heavy steel at the four corners.

My name is Wang Liren. I am 52 years old, and I am a Falun Dafa practitioner who started practising in 1995. On January 31, 2003, I was arrested when distributing truth-clarification materials telling about the persecution of Falun Dafa. In the police station, they cuffed my hands and feet to a metal chair and punched my head with their fists. The police van driver used an electric heater to scorch my face. After being tortured for one day and one night, I was sent to the Administrative Detention Centre in the Shenyang City Police Department, where I was kept for 37 days.

For the resolute Dafa practitioners, the centre thugs came up with another means of threatening and stirring discord. They instigated Dafa practitioners' family members to come to the centre to pressure practitioners to give up their belief in Dafa. When practitioner Mr. Zhang Liang still did not yield to their brutal torture of many days, they made Zhang Liang's father, grandma and aunt come to the centre to put pressure on him. Even more cruel, the thugs gave no thought to human ethics and forced Zhang Liang's 70-80 year old grandma to kneel down to him.

"They stuffed a dirty towel into my mouth then started to drill into my armpits and behind my knees with a homemade drill that consisted of a hard plastic tube with four cuts at the end. They kept drilling this hard plastic tube into me for more than ten minutes while I was screaming with pain. When the policeman became tired he called in another assistant to keep drilling. The assistant thought I was dead, I heard him saying he could see the white bone through a hole they drilled under my arm."

The latest incident in France is a replay of the Jiang regime's reprehensible behaviour in Germany and Iceland. They are using economic interests to entice and threaten democratic governments. Of course, the relevant members of the Chinese government delegation must also bear responsibility for this act that sold out conscience for personal gain. Their actions are helping Jiang's dictatorship to persecute good people. France is a democratic country, and the actions on the part of a few French officials are going against the trust placed in them by the French people

"On 24 January 2004, more than a dozen people were arrested in Paris for wearing yellow sweaters or scarfs that bore the words "Falun Gong" or "Falun Dafa"...We trust that your government will understand the truth of the matter and stand firm on humanitarian grounds in resisting any diplomatic maneuvers in your country that attempt to legitimize or prolong Jiang's persecution of 100 million innocent civilians."

Falun Gong practitioners participated in the annual celebration of the Chinese New Year in downtown Melbourne. It was the first time that the Falun Dafa Association was given a booth after the settlement with the Federation of Chinese Associations in favour of Falun Gong, following an exclusion of the Falun Dafa Association from the New Year Celebration in 2002.

The students and professors who understood the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution signed the petitions to "Stop Hatred Propaganda in the Community" and the postcards "Rescue Falun Gong Practitioners' Family Members in China." Some people decided to even write their own letters. Some students said, "I also want to practice Falun Gong with you. I like this kind of peaceful practice."