First Batch of China’s Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 2, Wang Xinchun

victim-wangxinchun

First batch of 7 (seven) videos documenting the tortures suffered by Falun Gong practitioners in China has been released by WOIPFG (World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong). Most of these video recordings were done after 2007, with the latest ones done on August 2008.

Some of the victims could no longer speak, some of them died shortly after video taping was done due to severe injury.

The personal account of the victims reflects just how savage and brutal the torture has been over the past 10 years and is still going on today in China.

Case 2

Name: Wang Xinchun (王新春)
Gender: Male (男)
Status: released from police custody
Location: Yichun city(伊春市), Heilongjiang province (黑龙江), P.R.China (中国)

Brief (简介):

Mr. Wang Xinchun was a Falun Gong practitioner from Yichun city, Heilongjiang province. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After he started cultivating Falun Gong in 1998 his health was completely recovered.

He was sent to labor camp after he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. In early 2002, while Wang Xinchun was distributing Falun Gong truth clarification flyers, the police spotted him and chased after him. He ran into a remote mountain area in minus 30 degrees Celsius weather and his two feet suffered frostbite. The police later captured him.

Wang Wei, the police station chief and others forced Mr. Wang to put his injured feet into hot water (which is the wrong thing to do and will aggravate frostbite and cause severe injury). As a result he lost both feet.

After Wang Xinchun became handicapped, the police continued persecution by harassing and beating him, as well as cutting off his financial support.

Detail reports of this case:

English: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/9/21/65138.html
Chinese(中文) :http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/9/4/109741.html

Related:
– International Investigation Organization Releases First Batch of China Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 1

China Exports prison labor on overseas projects in the developing world

By Brahma Chellaney, from New Delhi — Globe and Mail Update –

hina has devised a novel strategy to relieve pressure on its overcrowded prisons: Use convicts as labourers on overseas projects in the developing world. The practice has exposed another facet of China’s egregious human-rights record, which, when it comes to the overseas operations of Chinese companies, includes the government’s failure to enforce its own regulations.

Not only is China the world’s leading executioner – it puts to death three times as many people every year as the rest of the world combined – it also has one of the largest prison populations: 1.57 million inmates in 2009, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College, London.

The forced dispatch of prisoners to work on overseas infrastructure projects raises new issues regarding China’s human-rights record. It also adds a new element – the dumping of convicts – to its trade and investment policy, which has been much criticized for dumping goods.

Thousands of Chinese convicts, for example, have been pressed into service on projects undertaken by state-run Chinese companies in Sri Lanka, a strategically important country for Beijing as it seeks to enhance its regional position in the Indian Ocean. After providing Sri Lanka’s government with weapons systems that helped end the country’s decades-long civil war, China has been rewarded with port-building, railroad and other infrastructure projects.

Chinese convicts also have been sent to the Maldives, where the Chinese government is building 4,000 houses on several different islands as a government-to-government “gift” to win influence. So far, however, China has failed to persuade the country’s President to lease it one of the 700 uninhabited Maldivian islands for use as a small base for the Chinese navy.

Chinese companies’ operating practice for overseas projects is to keep the number of local workers to a bare minimum and to bring in much of the work force from China, including convicts “freed” on parole for project-related overseas work. Convict labourers, like the rest of the Chinese work force on such projects, are housed near the project site. That way, if any convict worker escaped, he would be easy to find in an alien setting.

In theory, such practices run counter to regulations promulgated by the Chinese commerce ministry in August of 2006, in response to a backlash against Chinese businesses in Zambia after the death of 51 Zambian workers in an explosion at a Chinese-owned copper mine. These regulations called for “localization,” including hiring local workers, respecting local customs and adhering to safety norms. In October of 2006, the State Council – China’s cabinet – issued nine directives ordering that Chinese overseas businesses “pay attention to environmental protection,” “support local community and people’s livelihood cause” and “preserve China’s good image and its good corporate reputation.”

But Chinese regulations are sometimes promulgated simply to blunt external criticism, and thus are seldom enforced (except when a case attracts international attention). In 2003, for example, China enacted a law on environmental-impact assessments that was followed in 2008 by “provisional measures” to permit public participation in such assessments. Yet, Chinese leaders remain more zealous about promoting exports and economic growth than in protecting the country’s air and water…….(more details from The Globe and Mail: Exporting convicts stains China’s reputation)

Missing Chinese Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Honored With International Human Rights Award

By James Burke/Epoch Times Staff, Aug.7, 2010 –

Gao Zhisheng's 17-year-old daughter Grace accepted the International Human Rights Lawyer Award on his behalf at an event held in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 6. (Huang Yiyan/The Epoch Times)

Gao Zhisheng, a missing Chinese attorney, has been honored with an international human rights award from the American Bar Association (ABA). With Mr. Gao missing in China, his 17-year-old daughter Grace accepted the International Human Rights Lawyer Award on his behalf at an event held in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 6.

The annual award is given to lawyers well-known for taking on human rights cases and who have in turn, suffered persecution because of their efforts.

Coming from an impoverished background, Mr.. Gao was self-educated and would go on to be described by Chinese officials as one of China’s ten best lawyers. A dedicated Christian, he was well known for his work in assisting China’s poor and marginalized but he met the wrath of Chinese state security once he began defending the rights of persecuted Falun Gong practitioners.

“Because of that work, his law license was taken from him in 2005,” said an ABA posting on the International Law Prof Blog. “In 2006, he was charged with subversion and sentenced to house arrest. In 2007, just before the Olympics, he wrote a letter to the US Congress to explain the human rights situation. He was arrested and reportedly tortured for a period of almost 60 days,” said the ABA posting.

“He told a journalist about that experience and said that the loss of dignity made him feel as if he was nothing but an animal. His family was also arrested and allegedly tortured. His wife and two children were able to escape from China in a harrowing journey to the U.S. Embassy in Thailand, and later arrived in the United States last year.”

Mr. Gao’s current whereabouts are unknown and there are concerns for his well-being and safety. In 2007 the English translation of his memoir A China More Just was published, and in 2008 Mr. Gao was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In December last year ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the conditions that lawyers face in China and asked the US State Department to step up its activities to help protect Chinese lawyers.

With more than 400,000 members the American Bar Association, is the largest voluntary professional association in the world.

– The Epochtimes