Eyewitness to Organ Harvesting in China: ‘It was extremely horrible’

Epoch Times Staff,  Dec 14, 2009 -

An eyewitness has recounted in vivid detail the story of a woman in China—a high school teacher in her 30s—who was detained, tortured, raped, and finally operated on to extract her organs while she was still alive.

“I have witnessed all these with my own eyes, but I regret that I didn’t take any photos,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It is the first time investigators have spoken to an eyewitness in a case of harvesting organs from a living Falun Gong practitioner.

A 30-minute interview, in two separate conversations, was carried out by an investigator from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), and a recording is available on its Web site.

The events took place in 2002, and investigators located the policeman only this month.

According to the English transcript, the witness worked for the public security system of Liaoning Province in 2002 and said he himself had participated in torturing and interrogating Falun Gong practitioners “many times.”

No Anesthetics

On April 9, 2002, two military surgeons came to the makeshift “black jail,” a small hotel rented as a “training center,” according to the witness. One of the military surgeons was from the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region of People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the other one was a graduate of the Second Military Medical University, he said. They took the woman to a hospital.

“At that time, we had been interrogating and severely torturing her for about a week,” he said. “She already had countless wounds on her body. Also, [we] used electrical batons to beat her. She had already become delirious.”

“Prior to this, she suffered even greater humiliation,” he said. “Many of our policemen were perverted. They were using pincers and other equipments that I don’t know from where they got them, to molest her. I have witnessed all these with my own eyes. … She had some good looks, relatively beautiful, (so the policemen) were raping her. … This was far too common.”

The policeman said he was on armed guard duty in the room while he watched the surgeons cut the woman’s chest open while she was still alive. No anesthetics were used, he said.

“They cut her chest with a knife,” he said. “She shouted ‘Ah’ loudly, saying ‘Falun Dafa is great.’”

“She said, ‘You killed me, one individual.’ [I think] it roughly meant, ‘You killed one individual like me. Can you kill several hundred million of us, people who are being persecuted by you for our true beliefs?’

“At that moment, that doctor, that military surgeon, hesitated. Then he looked at me, then at our [policemen’s] superior. Then our superior nodded, and he continued to do the veins. … [Her] heart was carved out first, next were the kidneys. When her cardiac veins were cut by the scissors, she started twitching. It was extremely horrible. I can imitate her voice for you, although I couldn’t imitate it well. It sounded like something was being ripped apart, and then she continued ‘Ah.’ After that, she always had her mouth wide open, with both her eyes open wide. Ah … I don’t want to continue.”

The organ harvesting took place in an operating room on the 15th floor of the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region, the witness said. It began at 5 p.m. and lasted 3 hours…….(more details from The Epochtimes)

China: Two Young Tibetans Get Three Years in Jail for Posting Dalai Lama Photos on Internet

Reporters Without Borders, Dec. 4, 2009-

Two young Tibetans, identified as Gyaltsing and Nyima Wangdu, have just been given three-year jail sentences for posting photos of the Dalai Lama online. The exact date of their conviction is not known but it is believed to have been three or four days ago. They were convicted on charges of “communicating information to contacts outside China.”

They have been detained in Lhassa since 1 October. Their families, who have not been able to visit them in prison or obtain any information about them, are concerned for their health.

Three other Internet users, identified as Yeshi Namkha, Anne (a pseudonym) and Thupten, were arrested for similar reasons on 1 December but have not yet been tried. It is not known where they are being held.

“All these young Tibetan Internet users did was exchange photos of Tibet’s spiritual leader,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We call for their immediate release and the withdrawal of all the charges. These convictions are absurd. These young people should not be made to pay for the tension between the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama.”

- Reporters Without Borders

Organ Pillaging and Falun Gong in China (2): Speech by David Kilgour

By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels, Via MWC News, Dec. 2, 2009 - (cont’d)

<< previous

Our conclusion is that many of the disappeared were killed for their organs, which were sold to transplant tourists.  It would take too much time to set out how we came to that conclusion.  We invite you to read our report, which is on the internet (accessible at www.david-kilgour.com), or our book. Briefly, three of the dozens of evidentiary trails we followed which led to our conclusion are these:

1) Only Falun Gong practitioners in work camps and prisons are systematically blood tested and physically examined. This testing cannot be motivated by concerns over the health of practitioners, because they are also systematically tortured.  Testing is necessary for organ transplants because of the need for blood type compatibility between the organ source and the recipient. Crystal Chen, for example, during three years in a camp was medically tested several times, including two blood tests.

2) Traditional sources of transplants-prisoners sentenced to death and then executed, voluntary donors, the brain dead/cardiac alive-come nowhere near to explaining the total number of transplants in China. There is no organized system of organ donations. There is a cultural aversion to organ donation. There is no national organ matching or distribution system in China.

The only significant source in China of organs for transplants before the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners began was prisoners sentenced to death and then executed.  The volume of organ transplants in China went up dramatically shortly after the banning of the practice of Falun Gong. Yet, the numbers of those sentenced to death and then executed did not increase.

We estimate that 41,500 organs transplanted over the period of persecution up to 2005 came from Falun Gong practitioners. How we reached this conclusion is explained on page 96 of our book.

3) We had callers phoning hospitals throughout China posing as family members of persons who needed organ transplants. In a wide variety of locations, those who were called asserted that Falun Gong practitioners (known to be healthy because of their exercise regime) were the source of the organs.

Since our report came out, laws and practices in China have changed. A law on transplants in May 2007 required that transplants be performed only in registered hospitals. The Ministry of Health announced that from June 26, 2007 Chinese patients would be given priority access to organ transplants over foreigners.  The announcement also banned all medical institutions from transplanting organs into foreign transplant tourists. The government announced in August 2009 that it was launching an organ donation system as a pilot project.

With these changes, however, the crime against humanity continues. The recipients have changed from foreign to local, but the sources remain substantially the same. The government denies that organs for transplants are being sourced from prisoners who are Falun Gong practitioners. Yet, it accepts that organs for transplants are being sourced from prisoners. The only debate we have with the Government is which group of prisoners is the source of organs.

“Non consenting parties”

Sourcing of organs from prisoners is done without consent.  Deputy Health Minister Huang Joyful at a conference of surgeons in Guangzhou in November 2006 said in a speech, “too often organs come from non consenting parties”. The government of China accepts that sourcing of organs from prisoners is wrong. Huang at the time of the announcement of an organ donor pilot project stated that executed prisoners “are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants”.  This principle, that prisoners are not an acceptable source for organs, is followed by the Transplantation Society and the World Medical Association.

So what is the rule of law world going to do about the Chinese party-state’s abuse of global transplant ethics?  Our report and book have a long list of recommendations.  Given the shortness of time, I mention here only two.

One possibility is extraterritorial legislation.  The 2007 policy giving priority to Chinese patients has cut down on transplant tourism to China, but such legislation would be a useful statement of universal principle. The sorts of transplants in which the Chinese medical system engages are illegal everywhere else in the world. But it is not illegal for a foreigner from any country to go to China, obtain a transplant which would be illegal at home, and then return home.  Foreign transplant legislation everywhere is territorial; it has no extraterritorial reach. Many other laws are global in their sweep. For instance, child sex tourists can be prosecuted not just in the country where they abuse children, but often at home as well. This sort of legislation does not exist for transplant tourists who pay for organ transplants without bothering to determine whether the organ donor has consented.

A second recommendation is that any person known to be involved in trafficking in the organs of prisoners in China should be barred entry by all foreign countries.

Conclusion

The attempted crushing of Falun Gong, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and other independent faith groups, human rights lawyers and other civil society and democracy communities in recent years indicates that China’s party-state must still be engaged with great caution despite the severe ongoing world economic problems. If it stops the systematic and gross abuses of human rights and takes major steps to indicate that it wishes to treat its trade partners in a mutually-beneficial way, the new century will bring harmony for China, its trading partners and neighbours. Its people have the numbers, perseverance, self-discipline, intelligence and other qualities to help make this new century better and more peaceful for the entire human family. (END)

- By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels. Published via MWC News

Organ Pillaging and Falun Gong in China (1): Speech by David Kilgour

By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels, Via MWC News, Dec. 2, 2009 -

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about organ pillaging from Falun Gong practitioners in China as a new crime against humanity.

The earlier witness, Gao Wenqian from Human Rights In China (HRIC) in New York, told us in part that the overall human rights situation in China today is worsening. The experiences of another Gao (no relative), Gao Zhisheng, illustrates this phenomenon well.

In 2004, Gao Zhisheng, then one of China’s top lawyers and since nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, defended a Falun Gong practitioner who had been sent to a labour camp without any form of hearing. Gao learned that the court refused to hear the case because of “orders from above”, so he courageously wrote to the National People’s Congress and later sent three letters to the top leadership in Beijing. One of them referred to the “indescribable violence done to kind (Falun Gong) practitioners”.

Gao’s permit to practise law was subsequently removed and his office was closed by the government. His wife and daughter were harassed by police. He was imprisoned and tortured during a horrific five-week period and is now being “held incommunicado at an unknown location”, according to Amnesty International.

Forced Labour Camps

In doing our final report on organ pillaging from Falun Gong, David Matas and I visited about a dozen countries to interview practitioners sent to forced labour camps since 1999, who managed later to leave the camps and the country itself. They told us of working in appalling conditions for up to sixteen hours daily with no pay, little food, being cramped together on the floor for sleeping, and being tortured. They made export products, ranging from garments to chopsticks to Christmas decorations at times as subcontractors to multinational companies.

The camps, which were created in the Mao era and modeled closely on those in Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Third Reich, allow the party to send anyone to them for up to four years with neither any form of hearing nor appeal. One estimate of the number of the camps across China as of 2005 was 340, having a capacity of about 300,000 inmates. In 2007, a US government report estimated that at least half of the inmates in the camps were Falun Gong. It is the combination of totalitarian governance and ‘anything is permitted’ economics that allows such inhuman practices to persist.

Take Falun Gong practitioner Crystal Chen, a former assistant to the president of a leading import export corporation in Guangzhou and an amateur actor, for example, who spent three years in a camp. She experienced beatings, being shackled and stretched, and prolonged sleep deprivation. In a detention centre, she was thrown on the floor of her cell and four large men held her down. A water bottle was cut in half to be used as a funnel. A one-pound bag of salt was poured inside the bottle, a small amount of water added. Guards shoved the opening of the bottle against Chen’s teeth and tried to pry her mouth open with a dirty toothbrush.

She resisted, knowing the salt could kill her. Chen: “The salt went everywhere into my mouth and up my nose… I vomited salt and blood for days and could not eat. My gums were full of blood, I could hardly talk. They still handcuffed me.” A male practitioner, university teacher Gao Xian in, died after being subjected to the same salt torture in the same detention centre.

Chen, now a refugee living outside China, stresses that Falun Gong practitioners, while understandably unsympathetic towards the Party, seek no role in Chinese politics: “only to stop the persecution which has continued for more than ten years… I love China. I’m proud of thousands of years of Chinese civilization and proud of being Chinese… I look forward to the renaissance of genuine Chinese values and dignity, including truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.”

Killing of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs

David Matas and I came to the dismaying conclusion that Falun Gong practitioners in China have been and are being killed for their organs on a large scale. We wrote a report that came to this conclusion, which came out in July 2006. There was a second version in 2007. A third in book form was published last month as Bloody Harvest.

Falun Gong is essentially a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline, consisting of principles for living, meditation and exercises which began in China in 1992.  Initially the government encouraged the practice as beneficial for health. By 1999, it had grown so popular that the Party became afraid that its own ideological and numerical supremacy were being threatened. The numbers of persons practising Falun Gong across China had grown from virtually none in 1992, according to a government estimate, to 70-100 million. The practice was accordingly banned.

Practitioners were asked to recant. Those who refused and continued the practice and those who protested the banning were arrested.  If they recanted after arrest, they were released.  If they did not, they were tortured.  If they recanted after torture, they were then released.  If they did not recant after torture, they disappeared into the Chinese detention and forced labor system. (To be cont’d……)

China: 2,000 Church Members in Shanghai Hunted, Interrogated and Threatened after Stand-off with Police

China Aid, November 13, 2009 -

SHANGHAI–Tensions reached a high when Public Security officials sealed off the doors and locked down Wanbang Missionary Church the evening of Thursday, November 12. Church members banded together at the doors as  officials barred the entrance to protect the associate pastor as he tried to leave the premises. PSB officials blocked their way, creating a standoff until church members agreed to leave after meeting for a short prayer service. Under the protection of the crowd, the associate pastor of Wanbang Church was able to escape.

Preparing to welcome President Obama, local Shanghai authorities have  launched a city-wide man-hunt for the members of Wanbang church, endeavoring to disband all religious meetings with the efforts of multiple agencies, including PSB, RAB, SSB (State Security Bureau) and Offices from District, Building management, and more. Already, many of the 2000 members have been severely questioned and threatened. These attacks followed the PSB’s unsuccessful attempts to break up the church gathering the morning of Sunday, November 8th, in their building and the first attack on November 2nd. Authorities broke in and banned the church on Sunday, November 2 (See the press release), (the first attack since banning the church in February) and issued the formal Notice of Abolishment to senior Pastor Cui Quan on Tuesday, November 10. All of seven church pastors also received official notices declaring their pastoral status as “self-claimed illegal preachers” and were ordered to stop their “illegal religious activities.”

The church website was also forcibly shut down by government censorship services the morning of November 8, to prevent any negative reporting on human rights prior to President Obama’s visit to China. Pastor Cui’s cell phone number is “no longer in service.” These restrictions are another step in clamping down on all communication of churches in the days before President Obama visits China, illustrating how bold the Chinese have become in blatantly ignoring religious freedom and human rights. Due to the intense central government-led crackdown, ChinaAid has been unable to obtain a copy of the Notice of Abolishment or any formal documentation of these attacks. Click here for a translation of the Chinese report on the incident, 11/12. …… (more details from China Aid)

Shanghai Church Banned by State Agencies

China Aid, Nov. 4, 2009-

SHANGHAI– On November 2, more than 30 officials from Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, the State Administration on Religious Affairs (SARA) and two other government agencies forced entry into the Wanbang Missionary Church of Shanghai. They singled out Cui Quan, the senior pastor of the church, and the leaders from the different agencies interrogated him one by one. They accused the church of holding an illegal gathering and ordered the members to cease their meetings indefinitely. Meanwhile, Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau police stations around the city conducted interrogated other major church partners affiliated with Wanbang Missionary Church. They police officers unanimously concluded that the church was meeting illegally, and they subsequently threatened the church leaders, banning the church, and forbidding them from meeting in the future.

Wanbang Missionary Church came under fire by the local authorities earlier this year, when SARA officials tried to disband the 4th Seminar of the Chinese Urban House Church Pastors Fellowship, hosted by the church in February. Under the threat of cancellation, Wanbang Church moved their conference to another location, and later discovered their landlord was being pressured to terminate their rental contract withing the following 30 days. View the Press Release from February 14, 2009.

Wanbang Missionary Church of Shanghai has a congregation of about 1,200 and is one of the most influential urban house churches in China.  The brazen persecution of the church by the government is a sign that the government’s persecution of house churches is escalating.

- China Aid

Survey of blocked Uyghur websites shows Xinjiang still cut off from the world

Reporters Without Borders, 29 October 2009 -

Reporters Without Borders has surveyed access to websites dedicated to the Uyghur community, including sites in the Uyghur language, in Mandarin and sometimes in English. These sites, operated by Uyghurs for Uyghurs, are for the most part inaccessible both to Internet users based in Xinjiang and those abroad. More than 85 per cent of the surveyed sites were blocked, censored or otherwise unreachable.

“The discrimination to which Uyghurs have been subjected for decades as regards their freedom of expression and their religious and economic freedom now applies to their Internet access as well,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Four months after the violence in Urumqi, the Chinese authorities continue to keep the province cut off from the rest of the world. We must not be duped by the illusion of normality. Most Uyghurs still cannot go online, send SMS messages or even make phone calls.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The official reason given for this blackout, that ‘terrorists used the Internet and SMS messaging,’ is unacceptable. Do the Pakistani or Afghan authorities suspend the Internet because terrorists sent email messages? No. The Chinese government seems more interested in preventing Xinjiang’s inhabitants from circulating information about the real situation in the province, especially about the crackdown after the July riots.”

Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to restore Internet and phone connections in Xinjiang without delay. “The dozens of websites in the Uyghur language and websites about Xinjiang that have been closed must be allowed to reopen and those who edit them must have freedom of movement,” the organisation added.

Carried out in October, the survey examined around 100 Uyghur websites, portals, forums, blogs and other kinds of online platform. Various factors were considered, such as the country in which the site is based, the type of site (such as forum or blog), the type of content (such as news, politics, culture or sport), the language, and the problems encountered when the attempt was made to visit the site (such as change of address, overly long delay in opening or error message)……. (more details)

China: Christian Minor Expelled from Xinjiang High School for His Faith

China Aid,  October 26, 2009 -

XINJIANG–Second-year high school student Chen Le stated emphatically, “I would rather be forced out of school, than deny my faith.” On October 20, 2009, the High School Division of the Huashan Middle School officially expelled Chen for signing a document confirming his identity as a Christian. The Official Notice of Expulsion reads as follows:  (report from China Aid)

More Tibetans arrested in China in connection with Internet activities

Reporters Without Borders, 22 October 2009 -

Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of three young Tibetans from the village of Dara who have been held in Nagchu county since 1 October, when they were arrested in nearby Sogdzong county for allegedly sending information about Tibet to contacts abroad via the Internet.

The police have not allowed the three – identified as Gyaltsen, 25, Nymia Wangchuk, 24, and Yeshe Namkha, 25 – to have any contact with their families since their arrest.

“The Internet is monitored, censored and manipulated more in Tibet than in other Chinese provinces,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Despite the risks, Tibetan Internet users continue to transmit information, especially to the diaspora and human rights groups. It is deplorable that the Chinese police devote so much energy to identifying and arresting ordinary Internet users.”

The three young people allegedly used QQ, a Chinese instant messaging service, to send photos of the Dalai Lama and speeches by him. It appears that the Bureau of Public Security had been monitoring their online activities for some time. The population of Sogdzong country complain of police harassment, including frequent ID checks.

The monks in Sog Tsandan monastery, for example, were forced by the police to attend patriotic meetings with the authorities and were forbidden to observe their end-of-summer retreat (in which they stay within the monastery to avoid harming the insects that emerge at that time of the year).

Several bloggers and other Internet users have been arrested in Tibet in recent months. They include Pasang Norbu, arrested in Lhasa on 12 August for looking at online photos of the Tibetan flag and Dalai Lama, and Gonpo Tserang, a guide sentenced to three years in prison in June on charges of inciting separatism and “communicating outside the country” for sending emails and SMS messages about the March 2008 protests in Tibet.

- Reporters Without Borders

My mother and sister, prisoners of China’s Communist Party

By Yi-Yuan Chang, The Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2009-

China’s leaders meant for the celebrations on Oct. 1 to remind the world of their country’s growing power and importance. But the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution, which Nina Hachigian wrote about in her Sept. 30 Times Op-Ed article, should also remind us of something else: The Chinese Communist Party is still very much an authoritarian regime whose nature remains quite the same as when Mao Tse-tung brutalized the nation.

I should know. About four months ago, my mother, Yao-Hua Li, and sister, Yi-Bo Zhang, were abducted by Chinese police officers simply because of their spiritual beliefs.

Just as millions of Chinese citizens did in the 1990s, my family embraced the Buddhist spiritual discipline of Falun Gong. The practice combines meditation and a moral philosophy based on the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance. It enabled my mother to find relief from severe back pains and gave us all a more positive outlook on life.

The Chinese Communist Party, however, viewed the growing spiritual movement as a threat and banned the Falun Gong faith in 1999. Since then, international observers have reported that more than 100,000 Falun Gong adherents have been sent to forced-labor camps, and thousands have been tortured (many to death) because they refused to recant their beliefs.

Though I had feared that my family members in China could be victimized under this persecution, I had assumed they were safe. After all, my mother has Hong Kong residency, and my sister was a successful financial manager with a well-known international corporation. I thought this would give them some level of protection.

I was wrong.

On June 4, exactly 20 years to the day after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, my mother and sister were taken from their home in Shanghai and sent to jail for no other reason than the fact that they practice the Falun Gong faith. They still haven’t been charged with a crime or brought to trial (even if they do get a trial, it would be a farce). I searched high and low in Shanghai, a city of more than 20 million people, and I could not find one lawyer with the courage to take their case.

Their fate will be determined by the local 610 Office, a Gestapo-like organization charged with persecuting Falun Gong adherents.

My family is not alone in our suffering. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2008 country report on human rights, Falun Gong adherents are estimated to make up as much as half of China’s labor camp population. They also account for two-thirds of the torture cases in China, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

All around the world, people and governments look to the United States for leadership on human rights. This is precisely why lawmakers and business leaders need to keep the countless number of people such as my mother and sister in mind when engaging with China’s leaders.

The values of human rights and freedom are not just American values; they are universal. A relationship can only be healthy and long-lasting when it is built on shared values, not just shared interests, which are temporary and ever-changing.

This is why I am very thankful that 77 members of Congress, including California Reps. Maxine Waters, Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Duncan D. Hunter, Dana Rohrabacher and Adam Schiff, have co-sponsored HR 605, which recognizes the ongoing persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and calls for an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison and torture its practitioners.

The resolution is being reviewed by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is chaired by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village). There are millions of people suffering persecution in China, not just my family and not just Falun Gong adherents. Every single one of them would join me in my hope for Congress to pass this resolution.

After his trip to China in August, Berman described Chinese officials as being “very open” to expanding human rights in their country. For the sake of my family and so many others, I hope he supports HR 605 and takes advantage of the openness to which he attests. My mother and sister are waiting.

Yi-Yuan Chang is assistant director of UCLA’s Center for Esthetic Dentistry.

- The Los Angeles Times

Woman Dies on National Day in Beijing From the Persecution of communist China

By Aifang He, Epoch Times Staff, Oct 7, 2009 -

Yang Xiaojing and her husband Cao Dong. (Minghui.net)

BEIJING— Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Yang Xiaojing died on Oct. 1 in Beijing as a result of the Chinese communist regime’s persecution.

Ms. Yang Xiaojing, 45 years old, was employed in the Beijing Power Supply Design Institute’s computer center. Because she refused to write a guarantee statement to give up the Falun Gong practice, she was removed from the computer center. The Institute’s stated reason for her firing was that she had “breached labor discipline.”

Ms. Yang had been arrested twice and detained in the First Division of the Beijing Women’s Forced Labor Camp, where she suffered brutal persecution.

To rescue his imprisoned wife Yang Xiaojing, Falun Gong practitioner Cao Dong met with the Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott on May 21, 2006. He informed Mr. McMillan-Scott about the severe persecution that the couple, and other Falun Gong practitioners, had experienced. Two hours after the meeting, plainclothes agents from the State Security Bureau arrested Cao Dong.

He was detained, illegally according to Chinese law, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment on February 8, 2007. He is currently held in Tianshui Prison in Gansu Province.

At the end of August 2006, Ms. Yang was released from the forced labor camp. She, along with Cao Dong’s friend, musician Yu Zhou, contacted lawyers for help. Yu Zhou later died from the persecution. It is believed the grief and pressure had a negative impact on Yang. Soon after that her health deteriorated.

In August 2008 a medical examination at the Xijin Hospital in Xi’an City of Shaanxi Province showed that she suffered from lymphoma. She was unable to lie down in bed or eat due to the severe pain.

On the day of Yang’s death, her father asked the Tianshui Prison to allow her husband, Cao, to pay a farewell visit to his wife, but they refused.

Ms. Yang Xiaojing and Mr. Cao Dong were married on February 24, 2000. They had been together for only nine days during their entire nine-year marriage. For the rest of the time they were either in prison, in forced labor camps or visiting each other in detention.

- The Epochtimes

The Oppression of Church Continues in Central China

China Aid, October 7, 2009 -

SHANXI– Huozhou City officials met on October 3rd to discuss results of the emergency meeting held on September 28th, where officials assembled to determine whether Linfen Fushan Church would be charged as an “evil cult.” Citing the need to preserve stability in the province, local officials had seized Linfen-Fushan Church’s Senior Pastor Wang Xiaoguang, his wife Yang Rongli, and more than ten co-leaders on September 25 for attempting to petition Beijing, and have since continued to hold them in detention. Three days after the arrests, the Fushan Government held the emergency meeting to determine whether the Linfen-Church violated Chinese laws on religion, which explicitly ban “evil cults.”

On October 3rd, the Religious Affairs Bureau of Huozhou (RAB) deemed the 50,000 member church to legitimate, but the government reported they would no longer tolerate the “gross violations and law-breaking actions” of Pastor Wang Xiaoguang and his wife Yang Rongli over the past ten years. The RAB reportedly listed these violations, but no legal record of these abuses have been issued or confirmed. According to an inside source, the officials expressed satisfaction that the ten church leaders were being held in their “rightful place” in administrative detention, and the government resolved that the situation must be fully “dealt with” in the upcoming weeks……. (more detals from China Aid)

Nepal’s Tibetans squeezed as China flexes muscles

By Claire Cozens (AFP) , Oct. 7, 2009-

KATHMANDU — As Beijing marked the 60th anniversary of Communist rule last week, police in Nepal quietly rounded up dozens of Tibetan exiles they said were suspected of planning to hold anti-China protests here.

The pre-emptive arrests in early morning raids across the capital Kathmandu were the latest sign of an increasingly hardline approach by Nepalese authorities to the country’s Tibetan population.

Nepal is home to around 20,000 exiled Tibetans, who began arriving in large numbers in 1959 after their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled Tibet following a failed uprising against the Chinese.

Those who arrived before 1990 were given permission to stay and have often integrated successfully, building profitable businesses selling carpets and other traditional crafts, although they do not have full citizenship rights.

But in recent months the exiles say their lives have become increasingly difficult as Nepal — reportedly under heavy pressure from Beijing — has sought to restrict their activities.

Tsering Thundup, a Tibetan craft seller who lives on the outskirts of Kathmandu in an area popular with the exiles, said that there used to be few police officers in his neighbourhood — but that has changed.

“Nowadays there is a heavy police presence around our area. They conduct regular patrols and interrogate Tibetans,” the 45-year-old told AFP.

“My friends have been interrogated by police over the past few months. It has created an atmosphere of fear and I am very unhappy with the way the situation here has changed.”

Landlocked Nepal upholds Beijing’s “one China” policy — that Tibet is an integral part of the country — and has said it will not tolerate anti-China demonstrations.

In August, the government reiterated its opposition to activities aimed at “undermining the friendship between the two countries,” seeking to preserve friendly ties with its northern neighbour, a major aid donor……. (more details from AFP)

China’s New Curbs in Tibet

Radio Free asia, 2009-09-28 -

DHARAMSALA—As authorities prepare for sensitive anniversary celebrations across China, a growing security presence in the country’s west is limiting the religious practices and travel of Tibetans, residents say.

The increased security, residents say, is targeting several areas within China’s Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), as well as other parts of the country inhabited by Tibetans.

On Oct. 1, China will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Many inhabitants of the TAR oppose Chinese rule in the region.

A resident of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, who asked to remain anonymous said security personnel had been posted around sites of cultural and religious significance to Tibetans.

“There is a huge presence of security forces in Lhasa around the Potala Palace and in the Jokhang [temple]. Fearing Tibetan protests, the Chinese authorities have closed all other shrines in Jokhang except the main shrine,” the Tibetan said.

“In the past you would not see any armed personnel inside the Jokhang shrine—only monks. However, on Sept. 24, six armed security personnel were stationed inside to keep watch on Tibetans who come to view and pray at the main shrine,” the man said.

‘A show of force’

Another Tibetan resident of Lhasa said both armed police and soldiers have been ordered to march around the Jokhang temple in groups of 10 “as a show of force.”

He added that Tibetans from other parts of the TAR were being refused entry to the Tibetan capital.

“The Tibetans from Kham and Amdo in particular are checked for their IDs, while those who do not have proper permits have been ordered to return to their hometowns,” the man said……. (Radio Free Asia)

Pastor Bike Forced to Vacate Home for China’s National Celebration

ChinaAid, September 25, 2009 -

BEIJING– Beijing PSB and Religious Affairs officers continue to crack down on house churches as the Oct. 1 National Day celebrations approach. Four authorities “escorted” Pastor Zhang Mingxuan (Pastor Bike) and his wife from his home on a “forced vacation” at 9:30 AM Wednesday morning, September 23. Concerned with suppressing any negative reports on the communist party during the festivities, the officials reportedly detained Pastor Bike in order to “preserve stability in the province.”

Pastor Bike was warned not to speak or communicate with anyone, especially with foreign media, for fear of jeopardizing the operation and raising awareness of his removal. He was taken to an undisclosed location in the mountainous area of Henan, and will allegedly be held there until after October 1st.

On the morning of September 24, President of ChinaAid Bob Fu spoke with him secretly on his cell phone, the sound of the guards playing cards loudly in the background masking their soft speech. Pastor Bike confirmed the incident, and informed Bob that the Beijing PSB officials had placed them under house arrest and were supervising all movements. …… (more from ChinaAid)

Chinese Protesers’ Messages for Hu Jintao at UN Meeting

By Phil Randell, Epoch Times Staff, Sep 22, 2009 -

Ms. Weidi Wang, a 20-year-old fashion design student (R), prepares to give a speech on behalf of her mother Shao Jie Qiu, 46, who is imprisoned in China for her spirtual belief in Falun Gong. (Aloysio Santos/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK— As ambassadors and heads of state on Tuesday prepared for the next day’s General Assembly meeting at the United Nations, hundreds of protesters gathered at Dag Hamarskjold Plaza, near the U.N. building. At least a dozen groups appealed for their causes, but most were protesting the human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist regime.

In attendance at the U.N. meeting is Hu Jintao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese military, during one of his rare visits to the United States. Hu met with President Obama on the sidelines on Tuesday during a meeting regarding climate change.

The largest group in attendance were practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that the CCP has been persecuting in China and abroad since July 1999. Several Falun Gong practitioners who have family members imprisoned in China spoke, including Ms. Weidi Wang, a 20-year-old fashion design student.

Wang spoke of her mother Shao Jie Qiu, 46, a middle school history teacher who was taken forcibly from her home in China last March by the Chinese authorities simply for practicing Falun Gong. First she endured a brainwashing center, and when she did not recant her beliefs, she was sent to the Shandong Province Female Prison, located in Jinan City, and the prison is known for its brutal methods.

“I’m standing here not just for my mother, but also for all the practitioners in the mainland, appealing to members of the international community who can save them and help stop the persecution.”…… (more details from The Epochtimes)

End religious persecution in China, families of jailed Falun Gong believers beg Canadian government

By Richard J. Dalton Jr., Vancouver Sun, Canada, September 21, 2009 -

A Vancouver woman who says her daughter has been persecuted and detained in China for practising Falun Gong called Sunday for the Chinese government to release her daughter.

Du Huiqing said her daughter, Yang Jinyan, 56, has been arrested seven times and has spent two years and five months in prison in three separate incidents. She hasn’t heard from her daughter, a Chinese citizen who is from Zhongshan City, in a month.

“For 10 years, she has been arrested and released, arrested and released,” Huiqing said through a translator. “She’s been persecuted for so long by the government.”

Meanwhile, two other practitioners of the religion — sisters who fled China and came to Canada as refugees in May — also appealed Sunday for an end to the persecution. They called for the release of their brother, who began serving a 10-year sentence in 2002 for practising the religion.

Sue Zhang, spokeswoman for the Falun Dafa Association of Vancouver, said the mother and two sisters decided to go public Sunday so politicians and the public would pressure the Chinese government.

Zhang said the Chinese government estimates that 70 million to 100 million Chinese residents practise Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. She said that’s more than the 60 million members of the Communist Party. She said the Communist Party sees Falun Gong as a threat and banned its practice in 1999.

Zhang released the arrest papers of Jinyan, which according to the translation, say she was arrested July 15 for “suspicion of organizing and using an evil cult to destroy the execution of the law.”

Huiqing said she and her husband Yang Huanwen, both 86 years old and 30-year residents of Vancouver, want to see their daughter before they die. She said the two are having trouble eating and sleeping.

“I really hope my daughter can be out of jail,” Huiqing said. “I am too old to go back to visit her, so I really hope she can be here and we can have a family reunion.”

In the other case, the two sisters said they never knew the religion would lead to such persecution in China.

Jing Cai, who was an administrative assistant in a bookstore, came across a book on the religion in 1995, began practising it and introduced the religion to her sister Jing Tian. Both were attracted by the religion’s promise of truth, compassion and benevolence, Cai said.

In July 1999, they heard that 45 practitioners were arrested in Beijing, and the two sisters travelled to the city on a nine-hour train trip from their town of Shengyang, appealing for the release of those arrested in a peaceful demonstration with 10,000 others.

In October 1999, the sisters appealed in Beijing again, unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square.

Ever since they began protesting, the police infiltrated their practice of the religion, showing up at gatherings undercover, and the government has persecuted them, both sisters said through a translator. They have been arrested, imprisoned, brainwashed and sent to labour camps, the two said.

Tian said the police have asked her to sign documents avowing she would not practise the religion.

The police came to Tian’s workplace, “so my boss was very afraid,” Tian said.

They said their brother, Jing Yu, is being held in a labour camp, and appealed for his release.

“We’re trying to stop the persecution,” Zhang said. “Their goal is to appeal, have their voice heard.”

- Vancouver sun

Chinese 53-year-old Woman Dies from Torture Six Days after Arrest

THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER, 15 Sep 2009 -

NEW YORK — A 53-year-old from China’s northeastern Hebei Province has died in police custody six days after being taken from her home.

According to sources in Hebei Province, Ms. Wang Huilan was taken away by police on Sept. 1, 2009 by Zhouzhou City police. Sources familiar with her case say Ms. Wang was force fed on Sept. 7, 2009 and died that afternoon from injuries sustained during the force-feeding.

Unlike force-feeding performed by medical personnel to provide vital nutrients to a patient who will not or cannot feed themselves, force-feeding inside Chinese prisons, labor camps or detention centers is often performed as a torture method and is frequently used on Falun Gong detainees. Force-feeding has been the cause of death in approximately 10 percent of all known death cases of Falun Gong practitioners inside China.

The force-feeding is most often carried out by labor camp staff with no medical training, or by criminal inmates who are coerced to assist. Unsanitary rubber tubes are shoved into an adherent’s nose and down the stomach, often rupturing or damaging tissue; sometimes the tube enters the lungs. Detainees are often fed irritants such as highly concentrated salt water, hot pepper oil, boiling water, detergent, or even human feces.

Ms. Wang had been detained at least once before in March, 2006. Her home was ransacked by police at the time of her arrest and she was held for seven days before being released.

Throughout China, practitioners of Falun Gong are subject to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and often torture as part of a systematic campaign waged by the Chinese Communist Party to “eradicate” the traditional Chinese exercise and meditation practice.

- THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER