New Book “Vaginal Coma” Exposes Inhuman Sexual Torture in China’s Masanjia Labor Camp

Vaginal Coma, a new book revealing the brutal sexual torture of female Falun Gong practitioners and petitioners detained in Masanjia Labor Camp in China, was published in Hong Kong on July 21.

The book is by former New York Times photojournalist Du Bin. In May 2013 he released in Hong Kong a documentary film on the same topic, Above the Ghosts’ Heads: The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp. In 2011 Du published the book Toothbrush in 2011 in Taiwan on the torture of Falun Gong practitioners.

China’s demolition campaign against Christian Cross hits two more churches

BEIJING — In another sign of the authorities’ efforts to contain one of China’s fastest-growing religions, a government demolition campaign against public symbols of the Christian faith has toppled crosses at two more churches in the coastal province of Zhejiang, according to residents there.

Three Tibetans Detained for Refusing to Fly the Chinese Communist Flag at Home

Chinese authorities in Tibet have detained three villagers for refusing to fly the Chinese national flag from their homes, as local officials continue to press a campaign forcing displays of loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Two More House Churches Raided by Police in China’s Xinjiang Region

China Aid has learned of two more police raids on house churches in Xinjiang.

Bo Xilai Rewarded for Torture in China, Awarded Journalist Jiang Weiping Says

The beatings police gave Falun Gong practitioners on July 20, 1999 on the streets of Dalian City were brutal, according to a report on Clearwisdom, a Falun Gong website.

Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners had gathered to appeal for the release of practitioners arrested the night before—the official beginning, in Dalian, of the nationwide campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong, launched by the then-head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Jiang Zemin.

The practitioners had formed themselves into four lines on the sidewalk near the city government buildings, held hands, and peacefully asked for the release of their fellow believers.

Chinese Officials Fears Falun Gong Lawsuits, Diplomatic Cables Show

Diplomatic cables show United States officials keeping an eye on the nearly 13-year-old persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice in China. The cables carefully note the often-panicked demands by Chinese officials for the United States to intervene in lawsuits that Falun Gong practitioners have brought against high-ranking figures implicated in the persecution.

A review of diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks from 1999 until 2010 reveals some little-known details about the persecution against the practice, Falun Gong practitioners’ responses, and the Chinese Communist Party’s reaction.

It also shows that Falun Gong is a recurring theme in the minds of Chinese officials. They worry ceaselessly about the lawsuits brought by Falun Gong practitioners overseas, and often nestle their complaints about it in dialogues on issues such as trade and economic policies, North Korea, or other issues of international significance.

China ‘the largest hypocrisy in the world’, says Richard Gere

The actor Richard Gere has labelled China the world’s “largest hypocrisy” and condemned the communist nation’s continuing occupation of Tibet during a television interview at a religious event in India.

Gere, a Buddhist who is a devotee of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, spoke out during an extensive primetime interview on English-language news channel NDTV 24×7 last night. The actor, who is in India for the 10-day annual Kalachakra Puja Buddhist celebration, said China had failed to gauge the level of cultural idiosyncrasy in Tibet.

“China is a very difficult place to live if you are a free thinker, if you are an artist, if you are a religious person, but especially in Tibet,” said Gere. “I think they (China) have so wrongly gauged the Tibetan people, thinking they could subvert the deep, deep, deep religious beliefs and make them true communists. It’s never going to happen. Their whole lives have revolved around Buddhism, around their teachers, around their gurus … the high ideals of Buddhism. They are not going to change that in a hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand years. That will never go away.”

11th Tibetan Buddhist Self-Immolates in Southwestern China

China says a Tibetan nun has died after setting herself on fire in southwestern China. It was the 11th such self-immolation protest this year involving Buddhist monks and nuns in the restive region.

Palden Chetso, 35, died Thursday in Sichuan province. A witness told VOA’s Tibetan service he found the nun drenched in gasoline on a local roadway moments before she set herself ablaze. She said she was prepared to sacrifice for greater freedoms and the return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Eight Buddhist monks and two nuns have self-immolated since a young protesting monk died after setting himself on fire in March at the flashpoint Kirti monastery. That death sparked months of protests by monks and nuns and triggered a major Chinese crackdown on area monasteries that included the arrests and disappearances of hundreds of monks.

Week 13: China arrests 19 more Christians in Beijing

BEIJING (BP)–Despite restrictions due to the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary, members of Shouwang Church in Beijing continued to meet outdoors July 3, leading to at least 19 arrests.

Church members defied the Chinese government for the 13th consecutive week with the outdoor service. The illegal church, which was evicted from its leased meeting space in April, reported in a translated statement on ChinaAid.org that police were waiting outside the church’s designated worship site, an open-air plaza in northwest Beijing, and “only a few dozen people” were able to meet because, “many believers were under stricter detainment at home. Some individuals were taken to be detained in hotels nearby.”

Organ harvesting Conference calling on Taiwanese to pay more attention to human rights issues in China

(Taipei Times)– Despite economic growth, the condition of human rights in China is still very bad — especially when it comes to the persecution of religious and minority groups by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — participants at a conference on human rights in China said yesterday, calling on Taiwanese to pay more attention to human rights issues in China.

“Taiwanese are not paying enough attention to issues related to human rights and democracy in China, and I think the first thing we can do to help China democratize is show more concern,” said Maysing Yang (楊黃美幸), deputy executive director of Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, a sponsor of the conference organized by the Association for Free Communication.

Week 7: China arrests 25 more Christians

BEIJING (BP)–They came hoping to sing hymns, read Scripture and worship together, but 25 members of Shouwang Church in Beijing were arrested May 22 during the seventh consecutive week that the congregation has bucked the Chinese government and refused to stop meeting.

Few other details of the latest round of arrests were available, but ChinaAid — which monitors religious freedom in China — reported that 18 of the church members had been freed by the end of the day.

In one possible sign that the confrontation is not nearing an end, the last two weeks have seen an increase in the number of church members attending the illegal service. After 13 members were arrested in the fifth week, 20 were arrested last week, and now 25.

Exiled Tibetans Claim CCP Detained 300 Monks in Sichuan

Tibetan exiles said on Monday (May 23) that, according to their sources, CCP security forces detained about 300 monks from the Kirti monastery in the Aba prefecture of Sichuan province. They say the roundup was part of the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown after a Tibetan Buddhist monk lit himself on fire in protest.

Two exiled monks and a Tibetan writer say their sources told them the monks were detained and taken away in covered military trucks on April 21. Supporters had gathered around the monastery, but police beat them and drove them away with dogs.

The head of the Kirti monastery, Kirti Rinpoche lives in exile in Dharamsala, India. He said his sources told him the conditions at the monastery have become “suffocating” due to intense pressure from the CCP.

Suit Claims Cisco Helped China Pursue Falun Gong

SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco, the maker of Internet routing gear, customized its technology to help China track members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week by members of the movement.

The lawsuit, which relies on internal sales materials, also said that Cisco had tried to market its equipment to the Chinese government by using inflammatory language that stemmed from the Maoist Cultural Revolution.

The suit was filed Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose by the Human Rights Law Foundation on behalf of members of Falun Gong. It contends that Cisco helped design the controversial “Golden Shield” firewall that is used to censor the Internet and track opponents of the Chinese government. The lawsuit names several Cisco executives, including the chairman and chief executive, John T. Chambers.

China Unlikely to Ease Crackdown on Shouwang House Church

Mission Network News,  China (MNN) ―  Making waves on NPR, CNN, BBC and the New York Times, the story of one persecuted house church has struck international chords.

The Shouwang Church in Beijing has been in a battle of rights with China for years, but the struggle has only just come into focus for most. The 1,000-member church was ousted from its building when their landlord was pressured by officials to evict them. For the six weeks following, Shouwang members have been meeting publicly outside.

China Continues Totalitarians’ Historic Oppression of Christians

by Bruce Walker –

Every incarnation of totalitarianism must eventually war with Christianity. Sometimes this is simply outright persecution of any type of Christianity. More often, though, brutal regimes have manifested their hatred of Christianity by rigorously oppressing genuine and independent Christian faith and replacing it with a state-sponsored and state-controlled “Christianity.”

Writers in imperial Japan before WWII documented this totalitarian control by their own government. In his book Darkness of the Sun: The Story of Christianity in the Japanese Empire, Richard Terrill Baker described the special, virulent hatred the Japanese felt toward Christianity:

hundreds of thousands of Underground Print Shops Deliver Truth to China’s Masses

For a decade in China hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, undaunted by the possibility of arrest and torture, have turned their homes into bases for what Chinese authorities regard as “reactionary propaganda,” and what everyone else regards as simple truths about the right to faith and freedom from persecution.

These bases, termed “materials sites” by their operators, produce fliers, booklets, and informational CD-ROMs. The wares are then slipped surreptitiously under doorsteps or nestled in mailboxes by practitioners of Falun Gong (also know as Falun Dafa), who travel at night alone or in pairs, in cities, towns, and villages across China.

A founding document for a new China

by Michael Gerson-

Over the past five Sundays, more than 100 members of the Shouwang Church in Beijing have been detained to prevent them from meeting. It is a confrontation between state and conscience with broad implications for the future of China.

A member of the church, speaking to me anonymously, described the congregation as mainly “intellectuals and professionals.” What began as a Bible study group for university students has grown to 1,000 worshipers — the Chinese equivalent of a mega-church. “The Christians are very serious Christians,” she told me. “They are not political at all. They respect the government, love the country, respect authority. But they want to follow God, to engage in normal Christian practice.” And they find such practice impossible in China’s state-sponsored churches, which were initially designed to keep religion a government-controlled monopoly.

5th week: China arrests more Christians

BEIJING (BP)–At least 13 members of a Beijing church were arrested Sunday, May 8, in the fifth straight week of its defiance of the Chinese government, which continued to force people out of their homes in an effort to pressure the congregation.

One family learned they were being kicked out of their home at 6:40 Sunday morning, before the service even began.

The high-profile clash between the government and Shouwang Church — one of the largest unregistered illegal churches in Beijing — has led to hundreds of house arrests or detentions. More than 500 church members were placed under arrest on Easter weekend alone, prevented from leaving their houses or apartments.

Human Rights Tribunal in Canada Finds Chinese Association Discriminated against Falun Gong

New York–In a decision challenging the Communist Party’s efforts to extend the persecution of Falun Gong beyond China’s borders, the Human Rights Tribunal in Ontario ruled on April 27 that a local Chinese association had discriminated against an elderly Falun Gong practitioner when revoking her membership and using demeaning labels to refer to her faith.

“I conclude that the respondents breached the [Ontario Human Rights] Code and discriminated against the complainant on the basis of her creed,” wrote tribunal vice-chair Ms. Michelle Flaherty in the decision. “The Tribunal orders the corporate respondent to pay the complainant the sum of $15,000 for loss arising from the infringement of her rights.”

Millions Worldwide Celebrate Falun Dafa Day

On May 13, 1992, in a humble schoolhouse in northeastern China, Mr. Li Hongzhi began teaching Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa), introducing to modern China a practice with roots extending back thousands of years. By early 1999, there were 70 to 100 million people practicing Falun Gong in China alone, their slow-moving meditative exercises visible at dawn in parks across the country.

Nineteen years later, Falun Gong has transcended cultural and national boundaries to bring physical health, joy and peace of mind to the lives of millions
 around the globe. From Cape Town to Cannes, Bangledesh to Berlin, Tokyo to Tehran, Falun Gong is practiced in over 100 
countries, its teachings freely available in 30 languages. Even under harsh persecution, tens of millions in China continue to practice.

Don’t pick a fight with China’s Christians

China’s security establishment is in a ruthless mood at the moment, taking on the “tall poppies” of the law, the media, the blogosphere and the arts without apparent fear of a backlash from a public that instinctively knows the value of compliance, and the price of defiance.

However, there is another, much larger grouping, that is also heading for a collision with the “Goon State” (that’s the Economist’s) and with potentially much more serious consequences – the millions of Evangelical Christians who choose to worship outside China’s official churches.

For the last four weeks one of Beijing largest unofficial churches, the Shouwang, or WatchTower, church has been in a stand-off with police over its desire to worship free from state control, with hundreds of its members detained and its leaders put under house arrest.

4th week: China arrests 30 church members

BEIJING (BP)— For the fourth week in a row, a Chinese “illegal” church refused Sunday to follow government orders not to meet, and this time at least 31 of its members were arrested.

Once again, reporters were blocked from the site.

The arrests of the members of Beijing’s Shouwang Church in a public square came after church leaders made clear in the preceding days that they would not buckle to pressure from the Communist Party. More than 160 were arrested the first week they tried to meet outdoors, about 50 were arrested the second week and approximately 40 on the third week, Easter Sunday. The declining number of arrests likely is due to the government placing so many other members under house arrest, which prevents them from even leaving their homes. On Easter Sunday, more than 500 church members — including every church staff member, lay leader and choir member — were under house arrest.

Who Opposes Falun Gong’s Persecution in China?

Nearly 12 years, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been brutally persecuted, which the world’s community widely condemns. Meanwhile many top officials in the Chinese regime also openly oppose the persecution on Falun Gong. They feel that it is a huge disaster for the Chinese and call for an immediate end to the persecution as well as holding Jiang Zemin legally accountable.

According to incomplete data, 3,400 Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death since 1999. More than half of them were elderly and women. Tens of thousands of practitioners have been treated inhumanely, including over 40 forms of torture, drugs destructive to the central nervous system, alive organ harvesting, forced labor camps and brainwashing.