2. Large wave of resignation from the Chinese Communist Party is happening
More than 35 million Chinese have quit the CCP till Apr. 2008, people are continue quitting at a rate of 44,000 to 56,000 per day in April 2008.
- China: 35 Million Chinese Quit the Communist Party
10.Videos: Tiananmen Square Massacre - June. 4, 1989
Thousands of students shot to death by tanks and soldiers on Tiananmen square in capital city Beijing in 1989
Reporters Without Borders said in it’s 2005 special report titled “Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency”, that “Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party”, “particularly during the SARS epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.”
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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.
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.
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.
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 fromChina Aid)
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 detailsfrom AFP)
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)
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)
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 detailsfrom The Epochtimes)
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.”
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.
BEIJING-- At about two o’clock on Sunday afternoon (September 13, 2009), a crowd of strangers violently broke down the door to brother Xu Wenli’s apartment in Daqing district, Beijing. Brother Xu had previously denied entry to several strangers outside the residence before the violent break-in. According to the prayer request sent by members of the Tent-makers Christian Fellowship in Beijing, twenty local officials “swarmed into the living room with overwhelming scolding, and commanded that [Brother Xu] should stoop down, as about twenty people entered the living room, some with uniforms and some without.” Their uniforms and self admissions confirmed that the crowd included men from the local Public Service Bureau (PSB), National Security Bureau, and the Religious Affairs Bureau.
According to the Fellowship, Brother Xu was commanded to show the officers the rooms in his home and surrender the training materials produced by ministry. “Brother Xu would not comply with their commands and replied “Who are you for me to obey you? I am a legal residence of Beijing and a child of God.” He was not intimidated and pressed on the issue of legality. Brother Xu demanded that they show him the warrant for the raid, which they could not furnish. Some left for an hour or so and returned without the warrant, while the others kept questioning brother Xu and threatening him with violence. He refused to cooperate based on the illegality of their actions. Someone without uniform warned brother Xu that printing Bible verses and messages on scrolls and tote-bags is illegal and threatened to confiscate them. Brother Xu refused them entry into the rooms without the certified paper work.”……(more detailsfrom ChinaAid)
INNER MONGOLIA–Christians Li Mingshun and Zhang Yonghu were indicted by the Erlianhaote City People’s Procuratorate on July 31, 2009, for aiding North Korean refugees fleeing to South Korea through China. Li and Zhang were among several Christians helping to provide food, shelter, and transportation for the 61 refugees crossing Northern Chinese provinces into Mongolia, where neutral state laws permit residents to seek asylum in South Korea.
Alerted as the refugees crossed into Mongolia, the Border Brigade of Erlianhaote city traveled to Qindao, Heilongjiang province, and arrested Li Mingshun on April 29, 2009 [View Notice of Arrest]. The trial was held August 17, 2009 in the Erlianhaote City People’s Court. Human rights lawyers defending Li and Zhang hoped to raise awareness concerning the Chinese government’s treatment of North Korean refugees through this case. View earlier press release on Li and Zhang, 7/5/2009, and the English Translation of the Letter of Indictment, 7/31/2009.
On August 30, 2009, Ms. Li was found guilty for her humanitarian work by the Erlianhaote Procuratorate, officially for “human smuggling across the border.” She was sentenced to ten years in prison. Ms. Li’s family in Qindao City received the verdict the morning of August 30. Mr. Zhang received a seven-year sentence for organizing transportation for the refugees to Inner Mongolia. Li’s family reports they will be submitting an appeal for Li and Zhang’s lawful release. (Read more details and See the Official Sentence for Li and Zhang from ChinaAid website)
Family members of 56 Falun Gong practitioners in a jail in Heilongjiang Province, China, have published their complaint to the Chinese authorities online, demanding legal compensation and for perpetrators to be held responsible for alleged crimes.
On August 11 Minghui.net, a Falun Gong Web site, published the families’ complaint to the Chinese court system. The complainants are all direct family members of 56 Falun Gong practitioners detained in the Daqing Labor Camp in the northern province of Heilongjiang.
The letter takes a similar form to a previous one, lodged in 2006, after 1,061 family members of Falun Gong practitioners detained in Zhumalong Labor Camp, Hunan Province, wrote to international human rights organizations.
This time, in addition to having their complaints published on the Internet, the family members sent their complaint to the United Nations, several human rights groups concerned with the persecution of Falun Gong, and a number of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs, including the National People’s Congress and the Ministry of Justice.
The indictment states, in part: “Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted by the CCP physically and spiritually. They have even lost their lives. At the same time, we family members and friends are all affected by this persecution. This is a destruction of human conscience and morality. We do not understand this persecution and we cannot endure it anymore.”
They go on to lay out the alleged torture experienced by 16 of their relatives who practice Falun Gong, and detail the alleged crimes committed in Daqing Prison, which are opposed to the basic rights offered in the Chinese constitution and Chinese criminal law, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they argue.
One of the examples the families give is that of Zhu Hongbing, an employee of the 7th Gas Lift Factory of the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau. He was imprisoned for seven years, they say, where he was brutally tortured by police and prison guards. In September 2002, Zhu was beaten to the point where he had to be hospitalized, with one of his lungs ulcerated; a tube was then connected to drain the pus from his lung, and he fell into a coma for 24 days.
Later, In May 2005, police did not allow him to eat, sleep or use the restroom; and then, by way of force-feeding, poured diluted milk into his lungs, which caused serious ulcerations and eventually heart-failure.
Force-feeding is the leading cause of death of Falun Gong practitioners in custody, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. Because guards are untrained and apparently do not care for the health of those in their custody, feeding tubes are often wrongly inserted into the lung rather than stomach.
When Zhu was released in 2008, after serving his term in prison, his lung capacity was severely reduced, and he passed away soon after, according to family members……. (more details fromThe Epochtimes)
DHARAMSALA—A Chinese court has sentenced three Tibetans to prison for their roles in a disturbance in June in which over 30 were initially detained, according to Tibetan sources.
The sentence, two-year prison terms for each of the three men, was handed down on Aug. 4 in the Chamdo prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), sources said.
“The reason for the sentences was not made public,” Geshe Monlam Tharchin, a Tibetan living in Dharamsala, India, said, citing contacts in Tibet.
“Even their relatives had little information about their charges,” he said.
The three men—identified as Gyaltsentsang Jampa, 46, Buluk, 56, and Mutsatsang Tseten, 40—had been moved to a Chamdo detention center from Jomda county, also in Chamdo prefecture, prior to their sentencing, another source said.
“At one time, it was rumored that the three would be released in Jomda, but their attitude toward Chinese officials caused them to be transferred to Chamdo,” Dorje, a Jomda native now living in India, said.
“My contacts in Jomda are reluctant to give details,” Dorje added.
The three men sentenced had been part of larger group detained in Jomda following a disturbance at nearby Kyabje monastery at the end of June.
Calls seeking comment from authorities in Chamdo and Jomda rang unanswered.
Chinese authorities have imposed tight curbs throughout Tibet following widespread anti-China protests in the region in 2008, and detailed accounts of events in Tibetan areas are often difficult to obtain.
Within two weeks of being detained, Mr. Yang Guiquan was tortured to death while in police custody. (from faluninfo.net)
A middle-aged man in northeast China has died just sixteen days after being detained by security agents while speaking to passers-by at a shopping mall about the persecution against Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. Mr. Yang Guiquan (杨贵全) was reportedly brought to a local hospital on July 5, 2009 in critical condition with bruises and scars from electric batons visible on his body. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. He was 45-years-old.
“The speed with which this innocent man was picked up off the street, tortured, and killed highlights the mortal danger that hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in China face at this very moment,” says Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Gail Rachlin. “A year after Beijing hosted the Olympics, clearly the surrounding ‘strike hard campaign’ hasn’t let up if you’re a Falun Gong practitioner. Yang’s tragic death is a startling reminder of that reality.”
Mr. Yang was an employee of Rongxing Plastics Limited City (荣兴塑料有限公司) in Fuxin, a major coal-mining city of 782,000 people in Liaoning province. According to sources inside China, at approximately 6:00 p.m. on June 20, 2009, he was speaking to passers-by about the persecution against Falun Gong at a local shopping mall when he was detained by Wu Zhongqi (伍忠启) and other officers from the public security bureau branch of the Haizhou District Police Department. They interrogated Mr. Yang overnight at the police department compound, then transferred him to Xindi Detention Center (新地看守所).
Upon hearing of his arrest, Mr. Yang’s family members and employer went to the public security bureau on multiple occasions to request his release, but were repeatedly turned away and refused access to him.
During his detention, Mr. Yang reportedly embarked on a hunger strike to protest the illegality and injustice of his arrest. Rather than release him or grant him his legally enshrined rights, the guards tortured and brutally force-fed him. Such forced-feedings are routinely conducted by guards with no medical training and as a form of torture rather than nourishment. They are a leading cause of verified deaths among Falun Gong practitioners who have been killed in custody.
As a result of the abuse he was subjected to in custody, on July 5, 2009, Mr. Yang was in critical condition. He was first taken to the Public Security Hospital for treatment, then returned to the detention center. Several hours later, he was taken to the Fuxin City Mining Corporation General Hospital (阜矿集团总医院). Doctors at the general hospital said that Mr. Yang was not breathing and had no heartbeat when he arrived. They determined that he had died before arriving at the hospital.
Mr. Yang died at approximately 3:00 p.m. on July 5, 2009. The police notified his family members at approximately 8:00 p.m. that day. According to sources inside China who were able to view his body, Mr. Yang’s back and head showed bruises, and there were marks of beatings on his legs. Mr. Yang’s inner thighs also showed marks from shocks from an electric baton.
There are 3,292 known cases of Falun Gong practitioners who have died as a result of persecution in China. Liaoning province is one of the deadliest provinces for Falun Gong practitioners – at least 396 adherents are documented to have died there from abuse since 1999.
The Falun Dafa Information Center urges international media to visit Liaoning province and investigate first hand the circumstances surrounding Yang’s death.
Additional details:
Mr. Yang Guiquan’s home address: Room 604, No. 1 Building, Meihai Neighborhood, Beixin Village, Xihe District, Fuxin City, Liaoning Province (细河区新市北新村煤海小区一号楼604室)
By Loa Iok-sin, STAFF REPORTER, Taipei Times, Taiwan, Sunday, Aug 02, 2009-
Falun Gong practitioner Shao Yuhua (邵玉華) — who came to Taiwan 11 years ago after marrying a Taiwanese man and now holds Republic of China (ROC) citizenship — and her daughter were allegedly arrested by state security agents in China, members of the Taiwan Falun Dafa Association said yesterday.
“My wife went back to her hometown in Nanyang, Henan Province, with our 10-year-old daughter to visit her family last month soon after the summer vacation started,” Shao’s husband, Cheng Shu-ta (鄭書達), told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. “Her family in Henan told me yesterday [Friday] that she — along with our daughter — were arrested by state security agents.”
Cheng said his wife had been staying with her sister Shao Yuxiu (邵玉秀), who is also a Falun Gong practitioner, during her visit to China.
At about 6am on Friday, a few men who identified themselves as agents from the Ministry of State Security showed up at the door and took away Shao Yuhua and her daughter, Cheng said. The men also took Shao Yuhua’s cellphone, baggage and passport, he said.
“So far, we’re still not clear where she is,” he said.
Although it was not clear why Shao Yuhua was taken away, Taiwan Falun Dafa Association chairman Chang Ching-hsi (張清溪) suspected it had to do with her being a Falun Gong practitioner.
“We urge [China] to release the two kidnapped ROC citizens and their families and relatives in China immediately. We want promises that no such human rights violations will be committed again,” Chang said.
“As an immigrant spouse from China, Shao Yuhua is supposed to be protected by governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, but she is now missing because of her spiritual beliefs,” he said.
“How can the people of Taiwan believe there can be friendly exchanges between China and Taiwan?” he asked.
Chang called on the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) to intervene.
After the news conference, Chang and several other Falun Gong practitioners went to the Landis Hotel where China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) was scheduled to attend a dinner reception hosted by Taiwanese business leaders, hoping to deliver their petition to Yang.
However, Yang ignored the practitioners and walked straight into an elevator.
Contacted by the Taipei Times for comment, MAC vice-chairman Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said that as soon as the MAC learned the news from the media, it “asked the SEF to get in touch with the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait to see how we can help.”
Numbers are symbols; they represent anything and everything. But they also hide what they represent, like a mask. In ten years, the names of over 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been collected; they are the names of people who have been killed through torture by Chinese authorities. But, how many more people simply disappeared after the persecution began? And what is the connection to China’s booming organ transplant industry. Though the truth is still unknown, the evidence points to a disturbing conclusion about the new China, and of what the rest of the world is willing to ignore. In this original investigation, NTD attempts to discover: ‘what happened to the people who disappeared?’
Thursday, June 10th, 1999. To most of us, it’s like any other day. But ten years ago today, the Chinese communist regime created a Gestapo-style secret police agency, with the mission to destroy Falun Gong–by any means necessary.
With the tools of torture and the resources of the worlds most populous nation, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin thought he could crush Falun Gong in three months. But as history played out, many Falun Gong practitioners were able to not only endure the brutality of the persecution, but turn the tables on the Chinese government by exposing their persecution around the world. This is their story.
