Jiang
Zemin’s Worldwide Campaign against Falun Gong
A
Sampling of Cases
Soon after Jiang Zemin
initiated the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, incidents appeared
around the world of Chinese officials threatening, harassing and assaulting
Falun Gong practitioners, as well as pressuring and threatening officials,
businesses, and free media. According to reliable sources inside China, as
early as October 2000, Jiang had given the order to implement a policy to
“intensify the campaign [against Falun Gong] overseas, collect more information
and prevent protests[1]”.
While the Chinese
government claims that international expression of concern over its policies
that violate human rights constitute an imposition on its state sovereignty,
the regime has no misgivings about sending agents around the world not only to
apply pressure and interfere in local events, but also to commit crimes against
Falun Gong in foreign countries.
Below are sample cases
that have been compiled primarily from testimonies and news reports in over
thirty countries and territories. Complete reports, photos, and documents are
available for many of these cases. Many more similar cases are not included
below.
Please contact the
Falun Dafa Information Center to receive a more complete report about such
cases in a specific country or region.
After the Chinese President’s visit to South America in
April 2001, Chinese officials attempted to portray Falun Gong as a dangerous
group by giving false information to the media, government officials, and
Chinese communities. They also called and threatened local Chinese
practitioners.
In
October, 2001 three women held a peaceful appeal outside of the Chinese Embassy
in Canberra. A Chinese diplomat came out of the embassy and began to shout at
them in a defamatory manner. As a practitioner began taking photos of the
diplomat he grabbed the camera out of her hands and slapped her across the
face.
While practitioners in Australia held a vigil at Centenary
Park, three of their cars were broken into and one car was stolen. While
belongings were not taken from the three cars, Falun Gong reading materials
inside were completely ruined.
The webmaster for Australia’s Falun Dafa Information Center had his house broken into with the only things taken being his address book and cellular phone, containing contacts for practitioners in Australia and China.
Australian
practitioners have long suspected that their phones are tapped. Upon
investigation of one practitioner’s home, professional technicians found that
his home junction box had been tampered.
On October 23, 2003 major media outlets in Australia, as
well as numerous Members of Parliament received an official request by the
Chinese Embassy to censor articles about Falun Gong. Chinese
diplomats contacted Sydney officials and pressured them not to allow Falun Gong
practitioners to use community facilities for group gatherings.
In October 2003, an exhibition of the works of Zhang
Cuiying, a world-famous artist who practices Falun Gong, was scheduled at the
Bulgarian Parliament in Sofia. It was canceled at the last minute when the
Chinese Ambassador arrived with several other officials and asked the General
Secretary of the Parliament to terminate it.
The workplace of an elderly Chinese couple discovered they
practice Falun Gong when they illegally opened a package of books sent to them
from Taiwan and informed the Chinese Embassy.
In August 2002, Chinese Embassy agents, accompanied by Cambodian police,
abducted the couple from their home and deported them to a labor camp in China,
even though the two held “People of Concern” certificates from the United
Nations. The Chinese Embassy then proceeded to chase after the remaining two
elderly Falun Gong practitioners, who went into hiding after their friends’
arrest. Thanks to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office, the
two were successfully relocated to another country.
In 1999, the server hosting www.falundafa.ca
experienced increasing problems. The same situation occurred to a mirror site
created to maintain availability. The source was traced to an IP address in
China that was sending a flood of invalid requests to use up all system
resources. An AP reporter discovered that the IP belonged to the Public
Security Bureau in China. The attacks stopped after the AP story was widely
publicized.
In February 2000, Chinese thugs assaulted Parliament Member
Rob Anders inside the House of Commons because he wore a shirt in support of
Falun Gong.
In August 2000, Montreal practitioners' application to hold
an exhibit was denied, with the reasons given including involvement from the
Chinese Embassy and diplomatic concerns.
In August 2001, Chinese Appeals Office officials visited
Toronto to set up an appeal office for Chinese Canadians, announcing, "No
Falun Gong practitioners are allowed to appeal." When a practitioner asked
for the reason, she was rushed by two men and dragged to the ground.
In December 2001, the Chinese Embassy hosted a New Year's
party that was in fact an anti-Falun Gong exhibit, inviting over 300 Chinese
community members. One of the guests, a Falun Gong practitioner, took a picture
of the display. He was then forced into a back room and beaten by embassy
staff.
In December 2001, the Ottawa Chinese Seniors Association
cancelled the membership of a 70-year-old practitioner because she was a Falun
Gong practitioner.
In August 2002, the Chinese Embassy in Denmark sent
slanderous material and a letter to the police complaining about Falun Gong
practitioners’ peaceful daily appeals in front of the embassy. As a result,
practitioners were forced to change the site of their appeal. The Danish
Ministry of Justice later reversed the decision.
In August, 2002, the Chinese National Security Bureau seized
and forcibly closed down three companies in Tianjin involved in trade between
Denmark and China because their owner, Xuezhi Zhu, is a Falun Gong
practitioner. As a result, Mr. Zhu’s work permit in Denmark expired and he now
faces possible deportation to China.
At the request of the Fiji Chinese Embassy, the Fiji
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) forcibly took three Australian women
who practice Falun Gong into custody from their Fiji hotel in July 2003. They
were repeatedly interrogated in detention, although the Fiji CID advised them
that they did not break any law during their visit to Fiji.
France In July 2000, several Chinese Embassy
employees, including the Consul General came to the Parisian restaurant of
practitioner Wu Shoumei. They threatened that if he attended a peaceful appeal
in front of the embassy the following day, he would be personally responsible
for anything that would happen to him. Mr. Wu participated in the following
day’s activity. Approximately two weeks later, he found that his restaurant had
been broken into. Two glass doors were broken and the restaurant was in
shambles, yet the cash register remained untouched, indicating that the vandals
were not burglars.
In
January 2004 Falun Gong practitioners applied to participate in the Spring
Festival Chinese New Year Parade but the Chinese Embassy rejected their
application. With approval from the French government, about 1,000
practitioners then organized their own parade, which was well received and
joined by Chinese members of the community.
During Jiang’s visit to Germany in April 2002, practitioners
were harassed, assaulted, and evicted from their hotel rooms by both Chinese
and German secret service agents. In some cases, this happened after practitioners
exercised their freedom of expression in protesting against the severe human
rights abuses for which Jiang is responsible, but in many instances they were
harassed simply for being of Chinese decent or for wearing yellow clothing. On
April 11, as Jiang’s car procession arrived in front of a Dresden hotel Ms.
Zhan Linghu, a 40 year-old woman, cried out “Falun Gong is good!” Before she
was able to finish the sentence, a Chinese secret agent grabbed her by the
throat and choked her. Two German security officers then arrived and
immediately removed the woman from the scene.
In August 2002, the fuel line of practitioner Roland
Gottschlag’s car was cut as it was parked outside his home. That day, a
neighbor reportedly observed several Chinese individuals in dark suits acting
suspiciously as they walked up and down the street. Upon inspection at a local
garage, it was discovered that the line had been clearly severed.
In August 2002, the e-mail addresses of Falun Gong
practitioners in Germany were flooded with e-mails containing slanderous
material about Falun Gong and insulting or threatening messages. The source of
the e-mails could not be traced but the messages had recognizable
Chinese/German grammatical language errors.
Technically part of the P.R.C, these semi-autonomous regions
have repeatedly been pressured by Chinese authorities to persecute Falun Gong.
While the authorities have not caved in and banned Falun Gong, many incidents
in these territories have taken place, including violent arrests of
practitioners during their peaceful and legal sit-in appeals due to direct
calls to the police from the Chinese Liaison Office, spying, and violent
deportation of practitioners from other countries.
Hungary
In June 2003, an official emerged from the Chinese Embassy
and harassed practitioners who were holding an appeal there, while another
official photographed them. The embassy then asked the police to cancel the
appeal. Upon arrival a policemen pointed out: “They are just sitting here in
meditation. How are these people disturbing you?”
Iceland
Acting on disinformation and a blacklist supplied by Chinese
agents, the Icelandic government banned Falun Gong practitioners from entering
the country during a visit by Jiang Zeminin June 2002. The blacklist could have been compiled only
by spies operating covertly on foreign soil. About 70 practitioners from
various countries were held overnight at the airport or a nearby makeshift
detention center. At several airports in Europe and North America, more than
150 passengers whose names were on the blacklist were denied boarding
Iceland-bound flights. Hotels were told to cancel reservations of or eject
Falun Gong practitioners. Thousands of Icelandic citizens marched to the
Chinese Embassy, voicing outrage at both the interference with freedom of
expression and the CCP’s ongoing human rights violations.
Indonesia The Chinese Embassy in Indonesia
continuously exerts political pressure on Indonesia's Ministry of Interior to
disavow the legal Indonesian Falun Gong Association and to prevent Falun Gong
practitioners from holding legal activities such as introductory workshops,
gatherings, and parades. For instance, as
practitioners were setting up for their parade in March 2002, Indonesian police
cancelled it at the last minute, and admitted the decision was made due to
pressure from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta.
An Israeli-Chinese Falun Gong
practitioner was repeatedly interrogated for multiple hours by the Chinese
Embassy, which demanded that he renounce practicing Falun Gong in order to
renew his Chinese passport. The Embassy also tried to pressure the police to
prohibit Falun Gong appeals in front of it.
Italy
While practitioners were performing the Falun Gong exercises
in Milan in November 2001, officials from the Chinese Consulate photographed
the practitioners and recorded their conversations with passers-by.
In
March 2002, a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner in Italy received two calls from
a male who told him in Chinese: “300,000 Chinese in Italy will never spare you.
Watch out for your life.”
Japan A Chinese Embassy official twice visited the Tokyo city government in an attempt to pressure them to prohibit Falun Gong from registering as a non-profit group in Japan. The embassy continually pressured government officials to cancel all activities by Falun Gong practitioners in government buildings.
Practitioners in Japan received telephone calls from people
defaming Falun Gong, who also said they would kill or injure the practitioners’
parents in China if the practitioners did not give up their practice of Falun
Gong.
Malaysia
Due to pressure from the Chinese Embassy on the Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Falun Gong practitioners were barred from participating in
book fairs or any other activity.
Mexico
During Jiang Zemin’s visit to
Mexico for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in October 2002,
the Mexican government received a blacklist of Falun Gong practitioners from
the Chinese government. However, they refused to use it and allowed the Falun
Gong practitioners to enter the country and hold activities.
Myanmar
Hong Kong resident Mr. Chan
Wing-Yuen, 71, visited Myanmar in December 2002. When he found out that Jiang
Zemin is also visiting the country he unfurled a small banner with the words
"Truth, Compassion, Forbearance" by a road Jiang’s motorcade was
scheduled to pass. He was arrested and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in a
secret trial. Officials from the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon and the local
police tried to force Chan Wing-Yuen to give up his belief in Falun Gong as an
exchange for his freedom, but Chan rejected their attempt. Chan was released
after one year in detention.
New Zealand
In July 2002 New Zealand’s
Auckland Airport removed a Falun Gong poster that was placed according to
regulations at an international gate lounge. The poster featured a woman
sitting in meditation and the words “The world needs truth, compassion
and forbearance.” The country’s Green Party
publicly accused the airport of giving in to pressure from China and adding to
the persecution of Falun Gong.
Peru
In addition to reporting telephone eavesdropping, Falun Gong
practitioners in Peru have reported that the Chinese Embassy has ordered local
Chinese newspapers to withhold articles that introduce Falun Gong, has
persuaded a newspaper to publish articles slandering Falun Gong, and has asked
news stands to stop selling Falun Gong books.
The Chinese Embassy untruthfully told the immigration
department that some Chinese practitioners were committing criminal acts and
causing problems. Chinese agents
monitor practitioners during their activities and hose them with water when
they are doing their exercises in the public area in front of the embassy.
Romania In March 2003, the painting
exhibit of Chinese-Australian artist and Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhang
Cuiying was scheduled to take place at a gallery in Bucharest. Shortly after an
advertisement announcing the exhibit was published in a local newspaper the
organizers received a phone call from a representative of the Chinese Embassy.
He demanded that the event be cancelled, saying that the Chinese government
does not allow such activities. The organizers, nonetheless, decided to hold the
exhibit as scheduled. During the exhibit’s opening ceremony, three
representatives from the Chinese Embassy arrived and closed it by force. They
distributed false information claiming that the exhibit was illegal and that
the Romanian government was opposed to Falun Gong, and then forced the
spectators to leave. They physically assaulted the organizers, including an
Australian citizen who videotaped the incident.
Scotland In June 2003, a
representative from the Chinese Consulate in Edinburgh wrote to the organizer
of the “Edinburgh One World Festival” complaining that Falun Gong practitioners
had participated in the previous year’s festival and requesting that Falun Gong
be omitted from this year’s program. The organizer ignored the request, saying:
“We can invite whoever we’d like”.
In
October 2003, Zhao Liping, a doctor of Chinese medicine and a Falun Gong
practitioner was forced to resign from her post at the Chinese medical clinic
in Edinburgh after her employer
received a letter from the Chinese Consulate complaining that Ms. Zhao
introduced Falun Gong to some of her patients.
Singapore The first secretary of the Chinese Embassy tried to prevent a hotel from renting a conference room to Falun Gong practitioners.
South Korea Due to pressure from the Chinese Government, hundreds of
caps with the words “Falun Dafa is Good” in Chinese were confiscated during the
Soccer World Cup games that were held in South Korea.
Sweden
In July 2003, Hans Hirschi, a government official from
Gothenburg received an invitation for a meeting from the Chinese Consul
General. During the meeting, the consul pressured Mr. Hirschi to stop the
broadcast of a program about Falun Gong that is aired weekly on a local radio
station. The consul hinted that continuing to air the program could threaten
the relationship between China and Sweden, naming specifically cooperation
between Shanghai and Gothenburg. When Mr. Hirschi refused the request, the
Chinese Consulate contacted the Management Section to which the local station
belongs and pressured them to terminate financial support for the station
Switzerland
Falun Gong practitioners were denied their application for a
stand at the Chinese Spring Festival celebrations that were held in Switzerland
in February 2003. The reason given by the sponsor of the event was that he
feared that granting their request might upset the Chinese Ambassador who was
scheduled to attend the festivities in person.
Taiwan
During the years 2001-03 at least 182 Falun Gong
practitioners traveling from Taiwan were barred from entering Hong Kong upon
arrival at the airport and were deported. In addition to it being a violation
of Hong Kong’s Basic Law (Article 141), it also raises the question of how the
Hong Kong authorities knew which people practiced Falun Gong when there are no
Falun Gong membership lists. Such a listed could have only been compiled by
illicit means such as spying, tapping phones, or hacking emails.
Thailand
In 2001, the Thai government was pressured by the Chinese
Embassy to cancel a Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference in Bangkok.
The Bangkok Marriott Hotel fitness-center manager
personally invited a practitioner to teach the Falun Gong exercises at the
hotel. However, in March 2003, after three weeks of the free class, the
practitioner was contacted by the hotel desk manager who cancelled the class
and admitted it was due to pressure from the Chinese Embassy.
In April 2003 a Swedish citizen and legal resident of
Thailand was detained on the day of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to
Thailand. Having been charged with no crime, she was nevertheless detained for
37 days and then deported. Thai
officials cited pressure from the Chinese Embassy. Apparently, she became a
target for having spoken out publicly in on behalf of Falun Gong.
In
July 2003, Dr. Zhen, a postgraduate research fellow from Sydney flew to
Thailand to discuss wedding plans with her fiancé. Upon arriving at the airport, however, she was denied entry and
told that her name was on a blacklist and that it out of consideration for
Thailand and China’s diplomatic relationship.
She was sent to a detention center and later deported.
In advance of the APEC summit in
Thailand in October 2003, Thai officials announced that Falun Gong
practitioners will be barred from holding group activities, including group
meditation practice, anywhere near the conference site, because such activities
were a major concern for Beijing. Moreover, they announced that any overseas
Falun Gong practitioner seeking to enter Thailand at the time will be deported.
In the months prior to the summit, Falun Gong practitioners were repeatedly
followed, filmed, and interviewed by Thai police for fear that practitioners
might be planning some activities that would upset Beijing.
Ukraine
On September 2001, Igor Izevlin and several other Falun Gong
practitioners held a peaceful appeal in front of the Chinese Embassy in Kiev.
Shortly after dark, a large number of policemen arrived at the scene, broke
several posters displaying evidence of the human rights violations suffered by
Falun Gong practitioners in China, and arrested Mr. Izevlin. One of the representatives of the police who arrived
at the scene told the practitioners: “You should put yourself in our position
and understand our difficulties. The Chinese Embassy puts constant pressure on
us.”
United
States
On July 21, 1999, a day after the persecution of Falun Gong
officially began in China, the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, received
a threatening phone call that the hotel would be burned down if the scheduled
Falun Gong conference were allowed to be held there.
A few days before September 11, 2001 four Falun Gong
practitioners participated in a peaceful hunger strike in front of Chicago’s
Chinese Consulate, protesting the escalated killing in China. Three Chinese men
pulled up in front of the consulate, verbally abused the practitioners,
threatened to expose themselves to one of the females there and, upon seeing
that a practitioner had pulled out his camera to document the abuse, proceeded
to chase him down the street, smash his camera, and beat him. When charges were
pressed against them, a man known to have close ties with the consulate visited
the plaintiff’s house and offered the plaintiff’s roommate a $15,000 bribe to
drop the case. The plaintiff’s roommate refused. Several days later his car,
full of Falun Gong materials, was set on fire. They attackers were found guilty
in court.
At a Falun Gong group practice session in San Francisco’s
Chinatown, several practitioners were beaten, injured, and chased down the
street by Chinese thugs. According to the lawsuit that was filed against them,
the two attackers were seen regularly going in and out of San Francisco’s
Chinese Consulate.
The Chinese Consul General of Los Angeles asked Pasadena
city officials to make the Pasadena Civic Auditorium off-limits to Falun Gong
practitioners, threatening Pasadena’s Sister City relationship with West
Beijing. The consulate also pressured the Asia Expo Show organizers to cancel a
Falun Gong exhibition booth contract. They threatened that if the Falun Gong
booth were not canceled they would withdraw dozens of booths reserved by China.
In Houston, the Homestead Village Guest Studio is believed
to have been pressured by Chinese authorities to cancel Falun Gong
practitioners’ hotel reservations the week Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin
was in town in October 2002. A lawsuit has been filed in federal court in
Houston on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners from across the US. The suit
alleges that Falun Gong practitioners were discriminated against by a US
business during the visit of Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin in
October 2002, and that a “Gestapo-like secret police agency” of the Chinese
Government had conspired with the US business. The named defendant in the case
is Homestead Studio Suites, which operates a hotel next door to the hotel where
Jiang stayed in Houston. Several dozen plaintiffs who had confirmed
reservations to stay in the Homestead during Jiang’s visit found their
reservations cancelled with little or no notice. Some had already paid for the
rooms. Four claims in the suit, based on federal civil rights statutes, state
that “their constitutional and statutory rights to free assembly, free speech,
and freedom of religion were violated, at the behest of a foreign power, i.e.,
Office 6-10, an operative of the Chinese Communist Party.
In Washington, D.C. photographs
show a few unknown Chinese men surreptitiously filming practitioners during
their exercise practice session in a park. Additionally, two practitioners’
private conversations were recorded and then played back to them on separate
answering machines.
In June 2003 about a half-dozen practitioners held signs,
peacefully demonstrating against the persecution, outside a restaurant that was
hosting a banquet attended by the Chinese UN Ambassador and the Consul General
in New York City. A group of men came out of the restaurant and, at the
direction of a pro-Communist figure, proceeded to attack the practitioners
there. One victim suffered multiple injuries, including a black eye and bloody
nose. A female Falun Gong practitioner reported being sexually harassed by the
attackers. Witnesses report that attackers shouted, “If you are Falun Gong, I
will beat you to death!” The pro-Communist figure was later arrested.
Venezuela
During Jiang’s visit to South America and Venezuela, Chinese
practitioners in Venezuela were detained due to slander and lies that the
Chinese Government passed on to the Venezuelan Government, claiming that Falun
Gong is a terrorist movement. In the
airport, practitioners of Chinese descent were detained and deported for
possessing Falun Gong books.
[1] Falun Dafa Information Center, “Jiang Zemin’s Orders: Disrupt Falun Gong Overseas”, October 19, 2000, www.faluninfo.net.