Overview
Overview
The policy to eliminate Falun Gong, initiated by Jiang Zemin, applies nationwide. Information about death cases and torture victims, however, is treated as a state secret. In many instances, Falun Gong practitioners on the verge of death as a result of their treatment in prisons and labor camps are sent home to die so that officials can avoid responsibility. Despite the difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics, the following numbers of deaths have been confirmed for each of China’s provinces as of May 2004. Based on the information available, the northern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning have the highest death rate, followed by Shandong province. The numbers are accelerating daily.
The following pages provide an overview of the persecution’s development, since it was first implemented by Jiang in a letter to Party leaders. Also provided is a description of its scope and intensity, and how it has escalated to encompass all regions of China, permeate all aspects of
The fear behind the letter that launched the persecution
On the evening of April 25, 1999, following the peaceful appeal of 10,000 practitioners at Zhongnanhai, Jiang Zemin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and then-president of China wrote a letter to members of the Politburo Standing Committee and to other leaders. In this letter Jiang wrote, “How can the Marxist ideology we Communist Party members represent, the materialism and atheism we believe in, not conquer what Falun Gong advocates? Wouldn’t it otherwise be a big joke?” In this letter, Jiang explicitly categorized the ideological differences in belief, stressing them as issues of “enemy of state.” He claimed, “Falun Gong will destroy the Party and the state,” and asked, “Does it [Falun Gong] truly have overseas or Western connections? Does it have ‘capable hands’ plotting and commanding behind the scenes? It is a new warning signal that deserves our highest degree of attention?” He pledged “effective counter-measures” in dealing with Falun Gong.
On June 7, 1999, Jiang spoke at a Politburo meeting, addressing the urgency of handling and solving “the Falun Gong issue,” which reflected his growing fear. Jiang interpreted the introduction of Falun Gong and its instant popularity as a “political battle between our Party and the opposition forces at home and abroad, to win over people and gain ideological territory.” Jiang alleged, “Falun Gong has a deep-rooted political and social background and a complicated international background as well.” In his speech Jiang also claimed, “We cannot underestimate it, nor can we take it lightly.” He also announced the founding of the “Leadership Team to Handle the Falun Gong Issue,” which is known as the “610 Office.” “Together, the team will study the specific steps, means and measures to solve ‘Falun Gong’ issues. The central government, ministries and commissions under state organs, governments of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipal cities shall closely cooperate.” From this point on, Jiang began making thorough preparations for the persecution of Falun Gong.
Early on the morning of July 20, 1999, hundreds of thousands of police officers across China started arresting Falun Gong practitioners, and a brutal persecution that has lasted five years thus began.
(For details please refer to “The Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity Committed by Jiang in Persecuting Falun Gong.”)
A key officer in planning the campaign of annihilation
His name is Luo Gan. This man is a native of Jinan, Shandong Province. He held the posts of Deputy Governor for Henan Province, Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Henan Provincial Committee, Secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CCP Central Committee, State Councilor and member of the Leading Party Members’ Group of the State Council. The “Leadership Team to Handle the Falun Gong Issues” was established on June 10, 1999, and has since come to be known as the “610 Office.” Luo Gan, as head of the “610 Office,” has thoroughly planned, deployed, and directed Jiang’s policies for annihilation; he plays a major role in the Jiang regime’s persecution of Falun Gong.
After July 20, 1999, Luo Gan was the main executor for carrying out Jiang's genocidal policies against Falun Gong. From 1999 to 2002, Luo Gan personally determined a series of policies designed to map the escalation of the persecution. Luo Gan used every speech he presented at various meetings to incite political and judiciary departments to personally escalate the persecution of Falun Gong. He personally went to various places to oversee that these persecution orders were carried out. Between 2001 and 2003, Luo Gan gave at least seven public speeches, urging the political and judiciary departments to regard “Falun Gong as the number one target for suppression.” Since September 2000, Luo Gan had gone to Weifang City in Shandong Province, Wuhan City in Hubei Province, Nanchang City in Jiangxi Province, Changchun City in Jilin Province, Anhui Province, Liaoning Province, Jiaozuo City in Henan Province, Shenyang City in Liaoning Province, Xingkaihu and Jixi in Heilongjiang Province to personally oversee the persecution. Evidence shows that whenever Luo Gan conducted an inspection somewhere, the number of arrests, incidents of torture, and deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in that area would increase drastically.
Jiang Zemin favored Luo Gan for his active role in the persecution of Falun Gong. In 2002, Luo Gan was promoted to membership in the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP Central Committee. (For details please refer to “Luo Gan’s Role in the Persecution of Falun Gong.”)
China’s version of the Nazi Gestapo: The “610 Office”
The “610 Office” is the decision-making and enforcing agency under the CCP’s “Leadership Team to Handle the Falun Gong Issues.” It was established on June 10, 1999, as a permanent office under the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CCP Central Committee, and is directly controlled by Luo Gan and Li Lanqing. The “610 Office” has branches in all Chinese cities, villages, governmental agencies, institutions, and schools. In terms of its establishment, structure, reporting mechanism, operation, and founding mechanism, it is an organization that is allowed to exist outside of the established framework of the CCP and the Chinese government. The power it has far exceeds what is officially authorized under the Chinese constitution and other laws; furthermore, it is free from budgetary constraints. The “610 Office” has full control over any issue that has to do with Falun Gong, and has become an organization that Jiang Zemin uses personally and privately to persecute Falun Gong. This organization does not have any legal basis. It is an organization that is very similar to the “CCP Cultural Revolution Leadership Team” during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and to the Nazi Gestapo in Germany. (For details please refer to “General Report on the “610 Office.”)
The Tiananmen “Self-Immolation”: How one incident transformed one man’s campaign of persecution into a nationwide movement
More than a year after initiating the persecution, Jiang noticed that people were not responding as he had wished. Not only had his plan to “annihilate Falun Gong within three months” failed, but the persecution also met with resistance from highly ranked Party officials as well as condemnation from the international community. On January 23, 2001, however, a tragic fire in Tiananmen Square succeeded in confusing the public and convincing people that Falun Gong should be eliminated. The state-run media claimed that Falun Gong practitioners had set themselves on fire, and quickly broadcast the news to the international community. But close analysis of this broadcast footage shows that this human tragedy was staged to frame Falun Gong. (For details please refer to “Highlights of Investigation of the Alleged Self-Immolation in Tiananmen Square.”)
When the same lie is repeated a thousand times
The Tiananmen “self-immolation” incident, which was constantly broadcast throughout China by the state-run media, infuriated a misled public whose anger targeted Falun Gong. People changed from sympathizing with Falun Gong to siding with the persecution. After the immolation took place, hate crimes targeting Falun Gong increased and Jiang’s group also escalated its persecution. According to incomplete estimates, the death toll of Falun Gong practitioners dramatically rose from 173 in the 18 months before the alleged self-immolations to 881 on January 2004, as 708 practitioners were confirmed to have been tortured to death between January 2001 and January 2004.
From this incident, it is evident that the media plays an important role in the suppression and persecution of Falun Gong by functioning as the mouthpiece of the government, spreading fabrications and inciting hatred to further the persecution(A report on the Chinese media’s involvement in persecuting Falun Gong will be soon published.)
When different lies are repeated a thousand times
The Chinese Central TV Station (CCTV) is the chief media mouthpiece that the “610 Office” uses to promote the persecution. Since July 20, 1999, CCTV has aired numerous programs slandering Falun Gong. Within less than two years, from April 25, 2002, to the end of 2003, as many as 332 programs that slandered Falun Gong were aired on Focal Point Interview, News Program, Science Channel, Parlance Weekly, China Diplomacy Forum, TV Criticism, China Net Media Forum, Life Channel and other TV programs. Another major media mouthpiece, the Xinhua News Agency, published 522 articles that slandered Falun Gong from January 2000 to October 2003. Hundreds of local TV stations have rebroadcast and thousands of state-funded newspapers have reprinted these lies.
After the Tiananmen “self-immolation” incident, CCTV and the Xinhua News Agency jointly used a Beijing murder case and the Zhejiang beggar murder case to again frame Falun Gong and further inflame public hatred against the practice in order to justify the escalation of the persecution. (For details please refer to the reports on the Zhejiang Beggar Murder Case.)
The CCP’s media mouthpiece compiling the rumors and instigating hatred is the fundamental reason why this persecution continues to escalate. (For details please refer to “Report on Chinese Media Involvement in Persecuting Falun Gong.”)
Propaganda campaigns use students to turn society against Falun Gong
On January 11, 2001, twelve days prior to the Tiananmen “self-immolation,” the Chinese Anti-Cult Association (CACA) initiated a movement called the “Million Signatures Drive Against Cults to Protect Human Rights” in Beijing and sent a proposal to the nation. The “self-immolation” on January 23 provided a good excuse for the movement and acted as a propelling force for it. In March 2001, the CACA delegation brought a hundred reels of fabric weighing one ton to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The fabric contained more than 1.5 million signatures. When interviewed by a reporter from Guangming Daily, Wang Yusheng, the secretary general of CACA, who had once suggested subjecting Falun Gong practitioners to sleep deprivation, explained publicly that the “Million Signatures” campaign was to actively attack Falun Gong and let the world know about the hatred the public had toward the practice.
The CACA was founded by the Chinese Communist Party and by Chinese government officials with religious or scientific backgrounds. Following directions from the CCP, and with the help of the state-controlled media, CACA members have been using their religious and scientific backgrounds in conjunction with their name recognition in society to justify and further the persecution of Falun Gong. Their functions include providing explanations to people in China and abroad to justify the persecution, providing suggestions to the Chinese government regarding persecution methods, providing theories to criticize Falun Gong's principles, and directly participating in the brainwashing and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. By October 2003, twenty-four anti-cult associations (ACAs) were established in different provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Seven provinces and autonomous regions were in the process of establishing ACAs. These ACAs are branches of CACA. Since the CACA was founded in November 2000, it has held nearly one thousand countrywide exhibitions and propaganda activities and over a thousand conferences and forums. It has also established the “China anti-cult website” and produced over 20 films and 400,000 books. Local ACAs are still being established in 2004. (For details please refer to “Investigation Report on the Chinese Anti-Cult Association’s Role in the Persecution of Falun Gong.”)
On February 1, 2001, after the staged “self immolation” on Tiananmen Square, the Party Committee of the Ministry of Education (headed at the time by Chen Zhili) and the Communist Youth League Central Committee jointly issued a notice requiring Party Committees and Education Departments in all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, as well as the Communist Youth League Committee and all institutions directly under the Ministry of Education, to hold large-scale anti-Falun Gong activities. The “Million Signatures” campaign was part of this plan and required students to sign a petition against Falun Gong and circulate it in their communities.
On February 6, 2001, 8 million youths from nearly 1,000 communities in 100 cities nationwide participated in the anti-Falun Gong activities. The activities were initiated and directed by Wang Maolin, director of the Central “610 Office”; Zhou Qiang, first secretary of the Communist Youth League Central Committee (CYLCC); and Zhao Yong, secretary of the CYLCC. It was reported that on that one day alone, over 500,000 posters were posted, 10 million pieces of propaganda material were distributed, and 200 public gatherings were held. The report stated, “Youths from Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jilin, Jiangsu, Shandong, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Fujian, Neimenggu and other areas have gone on the streets, visited communities to launch a large scale anti-Falun Gong movement. The created anti-Falun Gong window displays, posted pictures and posters, distributed pamphlets and played video and audio tapes.”
In early 2004, another movement called the “Anti-Cult Alert-Education” campaign overtook China. This was a new round of well-planned, intensified persecution as ordered and directed by Jiang’s group. The movement has spread from Beijing, spanning the countryside as well as urban areas, and involves all grade schools, middle schools, and universities. It has also spread from well-developed areas like Beijing and Shanghai to army construction corps in remote Xinjiang Province. This movement is still ongoing.
The purpose of this movement initiated by various Party committees, political units, and government ministries, is similar to that of the “Million Signatures” campaign: use children to influence the adults in regard to Falun Gong. The goal is to “educate a student, affect a family, and influence the whole society.” By brainwashing students into having a negative opinion of the practice, the government could spread the propaganda to adults. Some schools required every student to hand-write a newsletter, take it home and explain the propaganda to the parents, relatives, and neighbors, and then have the parents sign it.
Thus the propaganda spreads “from one to one hundred, from one hundred to one thousand people,” into numerous districts and eventually throughout the entire society. Some schools have proposed the slogans, “pulling the big hand with the small hand,” and “project the movement into families and society through grade school and middle school students.” The plan is to use students as tools in promoting persecution.
With the advance of these propaganda movements, the persecution has escalated to a new level regarding its scope and intensity. From January to March 2004, it has been confirmed that at least 450 Falun Gong practitioners were abducted in China; an average of 40 practitioners have been abducted every week and detained in various facilities where they are subjected to torture and brainwashing. (For details refer to “The Anti-Cult Alert Education Campaign.”)
“Genocide” does not only mean direct killing
“Transformation” is to brainwash Falun Gong practitioners, and it plays the most important role throughout the entire process of this persecution. “Transformation rate” is to force Falun Gong practitioners to make a choice between spiritual death and physical death.
According to incomplete statistics from five provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shandong, and Hebei), of the 588 persecution death cases in these five provinces, the direct cause of 232 deaths was that the victim “refused to be transformed,” which constitutes about 40% of the total number. And of these 232 cases, 213 practitioners (91.8%) died from severe torture, 55 practitioners (23.7%) died from force-feeding, and 32 practitioners (13.8%) from other abuses (such as being thrown from high buildings, forcible drug injections, and force-feeding of pesticide.)
Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Chen Gang said, “At that time, I was tortured to the verge of death and was facing two choices: death or give in. To give in means to betray my dignity and my belief, and the pain associated with it would be more than the death itself. Usually, when facing death, one feels scared and suffers the anguish of grief; however, when you choose to give in to live in humiliation, the suffering makes you feel that you would rather choose to die, because your dignity has been tarnished and your soul is no longer pure. So at that time, I felt that I would rather die than live. (For details please refer to “The Destruction of Mind and Body Through Brainwashing.”)
Testimony of a Falun Gong practitioner from Xuzhou City, Suining County, on June 8, 2001: We were held in the Xuzhou City Mental Hospital for over three months. We were forcibly tied onto a bed and the so-called medical staff gave us injections and poured medicine down our throats. They injected us with overdoses of unknown drugs. We passed out and were unconscious. When the medicine was taking effect, we suffered from extreme pain. It was so severe that we writhed in pain, cried out miserably, and bumped ourselves against walls. After we regained consciousness we questioned the so-called medical staff, “Why did you give injections and other medicine to us healthy people?” They replied with shame, “We have no other way. It’s per instructions from above. We have to obey our leaders if we want to keep our jobs. We don’t want to treat you this way, but we don’t want to lose our job.” They also said, “You will not die from taking the medicine. It’s just severe suffering. As long as you promise not to practice Falun Gong, we won’t give you medicine. Be sure not to run away from the hospital! If we don’t stop the medicine gradually, you will die or become insane. Even if you succeed in running away from the hospital, others will send you back to the mental hospital, classifying you as a maniac. When the medicine is taking effect, the pain you will suffer is unimaginable. It’s dreadful to imagine the consequences.’”
According to our incomplete statistics, by the end of 2003, the increase in the use of psychiatric facilities to torture Falun Gong practitioners was tremendous. At least one thousand Falun Gong practitioners who were completely mentally healthy people were forcibly sent to psychiatric hospitals and drug rehabilitation centers. Many people have been injected or forcibly fed with many kinds of drugs that damage the central nervous system. They have also been tortured with electric shocks, tied up for long periods of time, and force-fed with various substances such as alcohol, pepper, or highly concentrated salt water, among other things. Many of them have been locked up under such conditions for up to two years. Some lost their sight, some lost their hearing, others were completely disabled or partially disabled, some partially or totally lost their memory, some were mentally traumatized, and some developed long-term festering skin. In a variety of cases, the victims’ internal organs were severely damaged. At least 15 verifiable deaths of practitioners have occurred. At least 100 psychiatric hospitals in provinces, cities, counties, and districts across the nation have been involved in this type of persecution. (For details, please refer to “Investigation Report on Psychiatric Abuse of Falun Gong Practitioners.”)
“Genocide” does not only mean destruction of one generation
Chen Zhili, Minister of Education from 1998 to 2003, took advantage of her special relationship with Jiang Zemin and the privileges she thus received to forcibly carry out Jiang’s genocidal policy within China’s educational system. She had become an active advocate and a willing participant in Jiang’s policy to eliminate Falun Gong on the educational front. The persecution of Falun Gong has penetrated all venues of the educational system including graduate schools, colleges, middle schools, primary schools, and even kindergartens. It is unprecedented in the educational history of the world in terms of its scope, the vast number of people it has victimized, the depth to which these people have been persecuted, and the vicious approaches it has adopted.
Chen Zhili held numerous meetings to personally deploy Jiang’s orders in persecuting Falun Gong. She issued documents in the name of the Ministry of Education and carried out a Cultural-Revolution-like pledge on all school levels in China, demanding that everyone—from faculty and staff to students—speak out against Falun Gong. She forced these people to watch slanderous propaganda movies and also launched the “Million Signatures” campaign to force students to sign a petition against Falun Gong. Furthermore, she directed the Ministry to compile teaching materials and exam papers, including college and graduate school entrance exams, that contained propaganda against Falun Gong. She went so far as to use the defamatory programs produced by CCTV as study material in normal schools [teacher education training institutions], to instill animosity in the minds of future teachers in an effort to accomplish long-term mind control.
Under Chen’s administration, children who practiced Falun Gong in China did not escape persecution. They were subjected to various forms of mandatory anti-Falun Gong education, such as signing statements denouncing Falun Gong, answering questions related to Falun Gong on exams, and participating in anti-Falun Gong activities. If they refused to participate, their standing in school as well as their graduation was jeopardized, and punishment and torture might even follow. Many children were not allowed to move on to the next grade, were expelled from school, fined, detained, sent to labor camps or forced to be homeless because they or their parents were unwilling to give up practicing Falun Gong. Many children suffered tremendous physical and mental pressure as the result of the persecution of their parents.
A primary school student said in his testimony that after he graduated from primary school, none of the middle schools were willing to accept him. “Eventually, I received a notice telling me that I should go to a middle school near my home. When I went to register, the principal said, ‘Our school won’t take [people who practice] Falun Gong. We can’t take you. This is a policy imposed by our superior (the Education Bureau in the City). There’s nothing I can do.’”
The police at the Longshan Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, used an electric baton to force a fourteen-year-old girl named Han Tianzi to write a statement promising to give up practicing Falun Gong. The miserable cries from this young student being shocked with electricity could be heard by many. The police tortured her for a whole afternoon. Han Tianzi could not move her arms as a result of the damage caused by the electric shocks. Furthermore, the police threatened her and ordered her not to tell anyone about it.
Teachers who refused to participate in these activities against Falun Gong and refused to give up their Falun Gong practice were dismissed and detained in violation of the Chinese constitution. Students were expelled from school, denied promotion to a higher grade, or prevented from graduating. Under duress, they were sent to “transformation classes,” which are quasi-concentration camps set up by Jiang’s regime. In these “transformation classes,” Falun Gong practitioners are forcibly brainwashed and sent to labors camps and mental hospitals without any due process.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2003 alone, at least 435 Falun Gong practitioners from 210 colleges and universities were forced into various “transformation classes,” labor camps, and mental hospitals. Since 1999, in Qinghua University alone, more than 300 faculty members, graduate school students, and undergraduates were unlawfully detained, expelled from their job or school, or directly sent to labor camps. (For details please refer to “Investigation Report on the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Participation in Persecuting Falun Gong” and “Investigation Report on Persecution Within China’s Schools and Universities.”)
The world’s largest state prison
On December 9, 2003, at a meeting for all major leaders from all bureau-level police departments, Zhou Yongkang, the newly appointed Minister of Public Security, continued to carry out Jiang's persecution policy, saying, “Cracking down on Falun Gong is the main task of the Chinese police system.” At the same time, according to the suggestions and plans made by Jiang Mianheng, who is the son of Jiang Zemin, the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of National Security, and Ministry of Information Industry have jointly initiated the “Golden Shield” project to implement strict digital monitoring and control of communications nationwide. If the project is completed, all public places in China will be monitored by closed-circuit TV cameras; and all telephones, Internet activities, financial transactions, personal activities, and border crossings will be under the scrutiny of the government. China will become the largest state prison in the world.
The number of people who were arrested or detained for publishing written objections or exchanging information online has increased drastically. In 2003 alone, the number of people arrested this way increased by 60% in comparison to past years. In one case, a 47-year-old Falun Gong practitioner was arrested and tortured to death in July 2003 because he posted information related to Falun Gong online. It is worrisome that several major corporations such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Websense, and Sun Microsystems sold Web-control technologies to Beijing. Unfortunately, however, they didn’t realize they were participating in China’s violation of human rights by selling these technologies. (For details please refer to “High-Tech Used in the Persecution of Falun Gong.”)
An endless array of torture methods used
on thousands of practitioners
Over a hundred different methods of torture have been used on Falun Gong practitioners detained in prisons, labor camps, mental hospitals, and brainwashing centers. The following are just a few of the categories of torture used. For details, refer to “Torture Methods.”
Merciless beating: Whips made of twisted copper wire, steel bars, spiked bamboo sticks, rubber clubs, wolf-teeth sticks, electric batons, rubber tubes, pickaxe handles, steel wire locks, rattan, electric wire plus fresh hemp whips, and others items. When rubber sticks are used, the injuries are not visible but the internal organs can be damaged.
Electric shock: High-voltage batons are used to shock practitioners’ sensitive areas and private parts such as the inside of the mouth, the top of the head, anus, breasts, genitals, buttocks, thighs, the bottoms of the feet, etc. Police use several electric batons simultaneously to shock one person simultaneously in different places until the flesh burns.
Torture by burning: Police pour boiling water over a person’s body and then apply salt to the wounds. They also burn practitioners with cigarettes, lighters, fire, irons, and red-hot iron rods. Kilns have also been used to burn practitioners.
Sitting torture: Practitioners are forced to sit on a tiny board, on iron chairs, or on a board with triangle iron bars. They are also forced to sit for long periods of time on a torture stool called the “Tiger Bench” with their knees tightly tied to the bench. Hard objects such as bricks are inserted under their feet to cause excruciating pain.
Squatting or Standing torture: Practitioners are forced to squat or stand for long periods of time. They are often put in small rooms and twisted into painful positions. Handcuffs and/or ropes are also used to keep them motionless. In the “airplane” method of torture, for example, they are made to stand with the head bent down as low as it can go, while the hands are pulled up and held up to the highest point in back, thus the body shape looks like a plane.
Sexual abuse: Sexual abuse is rampant. Teenage girls are especially abused. Rape, gang rape, throwing female practitioners into male prison cells, and inserting various objects or substances into the vagina (such as electric batons, mop poles, toothbrushes, iron hooks, and hot pepper) are common.
Rape is used as a torture tool
Ms. Wei Xingyan, a 28-year-old graduate student earning a master's degree in high-voltage power transmission was arrested on May 11, 2003. The authorities suspected her of sending off balloons carrying attached banners with Falun Gong messages at the Chongching University campus in honor of World Falun Dafa Day (May 13).
On the evening of May 13, police took the young woman to a room in the Baihelin Detention Center and ordered two female inmates to strip off all her clothes. Wei Xingyan cried out, “You have no right to treat me this way!” Then a police officer in uniform came into the room, pushed Wei Xingyan to the ground, and raped her in front of the two inmates. Wei Xingyan sternly warned the police, “I have seen your police badge number. You won't get away with this.” After the assault, she started a hunger strike in protest. As a result, detention center authorities force-fed her, seriously injuring her trachea and esophagus. Unable to speak and on the verge of death, Wei Xingyan was sent to the Southwest Hospital in Chongqing City. Many plain-clothes personnel from the “610 Office” guarded and monitored her day and night so that they could question, follow, and arrest those who went to visit her.
Wei Xingyan’s current whereabouts are unknown. Five Falun Gong practitioners who revealed this crime through the Internet were given prison sentences in Chongqing Court. (For details please refer to “Investigation Report on the Rape Case of Graduate Student Wei Xingyan from Chongqing University.”)
Tortured to death for revealing the truth on cable TV
On March 5, 2002, some Falun Gong practitioners from Changchun tapped into local cable TV networks in Changchun City and Songyuan City to broadcast the videos “Falun Dafa Around the World” and “Self-Immolation or Staged Deception.” Since the CCP took over China, this act is considered the first time that Chinese citizens have been able to successfully break through the media blockade and correct the one-sided propaganda on a large scale. Mr. Liu Chengjun was one of the key people who made this possible.
On March 24, 2002, Liu Chengjun was arrested. During the arrest, one police officer shot him twice in the legs, severely injuring him. Later, Liu was sent to the Central Hospital of the Prison Administration Bureau in Jilin Province. While in the hospital, his arms were forcibly stretched out and he was handcuffed to a bed. On April 1, 2002, Liu's photo appeared on the China News Net, which showed that he was weak from torture and not able to sit in a natural, upright position. On May 1, 2002, he was transferred to the Changchun First Detention Center, also called the Tiebei Detention Center, where he was tortured with methods such as being tied for 52 days to a special stool used for torture called the “Tiger Bench.” On September 20, Changchun People's Intermediate Court sentenced Liu to 19 years in prison and soon thereafter transferred him to Jilin Prison.
Between October 21 and 27, 2003, Liu was in Jilin City’s Central Hospital, which issued a “Critical Condition Notice.” On October 27, 2003, he was transferred to the Central Hospital of the Prison Administration Bureau of Jilin Province, which also issued a “Critical Condition Notice.” On November 4, 2003, Jilin Prison claimed that they had filed a medical parole form for Liu to undergo temporary medical treatment outside the prison, but persons from the Debiao Police Station in Nongan County, which had jurisdiction over Liu as a registered resident, and enforcers from the “610 Office” in Nongan County refused to accept him on medical parole. Liu Chengjun passed away in Jilin University Sino-Japanese Hospital at 4:00 a.m. on December 26, 2003. (For details please refer to “Investigation Report on the Death of Liu Chengjun.”)
Labor camps throughout China act as concentration camps
Forced-labor camps are one of the main tools used in the persecution of Falun Gong. At present, at least 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in forced-labor camps. At least 136 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a direct result of abuse, mistreatment, and severe torture suffered in labor camps, amounting to 24% of the 570 death cases that have been verified by WOIPFG. At least 69 labor camps have directly persecuted Falun Gong practitioners to death.
In June 2001, news of the “Wanjia Tragedy” reached the international community. The world was shocked when it learned that persecutory, long-term torture and mistreatment at the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, led to the deaths of three Falun Gong practitioners and left twelve other practitioners on the verge of death. In January 2002, another five Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death at the same labor camp.
In November 2000, Wang Lixuan and her eight-month-old infant son were both tortured to death at the Tuanhe Labor Camp in Beijing.
In April 2001, Falun Gong practitioner Zheng Wei, a disabled man, was killed at the Dalian Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province.
In October 2000, eighteen female Falun Gong practitioners were stripped of their clothing and thrown into the male criminals’ cells at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. In August 2001, over 130 Falun Gong practitioners at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp held a hunger strike to protest the constant brutality. (For details please refer to “Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in the Masanjia Labor Camp.”)
“Made in China” can mean “slave labor”
In China’s forced-labor camps and prison systems, over 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners are illegally detained and forced into manufacturing products without pay. They endure physical and mental torture from exploitation and inhumane working conditions. Falun Gong practitioners are driven to work overtime, punished or deprived of food or sleep if assigned quotas are not met, and tortured if they refuse to cooperate. They are often arbitrarily detained beyond their release dates because of the huge profits that camps stand to gain as a result of cheap labor. The Chinese government has declared that all property rights belonging to jails and enterprises in the labor camp system are exempt from income tax and land use tax, in order to stimulate and encourage growth of this kind of forced-labor-related enterprises and to attract more foreign investment. Some labor camps, seeking to acquire additional Falun Gong practitioners so as to increase profits, even bribe other camps into transferring practitioners to their facilities. Advertisements from economic development areas in some Chinese provinces and cities promote cheap labor where prisons and labor camps are located as a way to attract foreign investment.
The testimonies of practitioners detained in these forced-labor camps reveal the inhumane and unsanitary conditions to which they are subjected:
“Almost daily, all the people at the labor camp have to rise very early and work till very late at night, to work for the labor camp guards. Most work consists of wrapping disposable ‘hygienic chopsticks’ for small restaurants. We use a thin piece of paper to wrap the ends of the chopsticks to show that the chopsticks ‘meet the requirement of the health department.’ The guards can get 6 Yuan for one case of wrapped chopsticks. Every detainee finishes almost three cases. A team of 160 laborer brings a daily profit of 2,000 to 3,000 Yuan for the guards.”
“The chopstick-wrapping workshop where the wrapping takes place is the detainees’ dormitory, a place filled with lice. Chopsticks fall onto the floor everywhere in the extremely crowded room, with inmates sitting around. Quite often, chopsticks are accidentally dropped into the toilet and are picked up and wrapped like other chopsticks, because it is absolutely forbidden to lose one single chopstick. The guards constantly hover over the workers. They never encourage the workers to wash their hands before they do the wrapping, and the workers are not permitted to take a shower for a very long time.”
According to the testimony of Yu Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shenyang, Liaoning Province, “Among the workers are drug addicts, prostitutes and people with venereal and other diseases. The guards don’t care whether someone has hepatitis or a venereal disease. The detainees are not subject to formal medical examinations. As long as you are still breathing, you have to work! Even those whose bodies are covered with scabies are forced to work, and they grab the chopsticks with their hands seeping pus. Guards carrying electric batons and handcuffs patrol the place and keep an eye on everyone. Whoever doesn’t finish their assigned work on time will be scolded and beaten.”
Another case concerns Lanzhou City No. 1 Detention Center in which a 57-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, Wan Guifu, was forced to crack the shells of large watermelon seeds with his teeth and peel the husks off with his fingers to manufacture one of the products distributed by Lanzhou Zhenglin Nongken Food, Ltd. Because Wan could not fulfill the highly labor-intensive task, the head of the 4th Team, Lu Jun, encouraged the prisoners in Cell No. 9 to torture Wan, which resulted in his death.
Ample evidence indicates that manufacturers such as the Shanghai Three-Gun Group Co., Ltd., the Shandong Leader Handicraft Articles Co., Ltd., and Henan Rebecca Hair Products Inc., China, collaborate with forced-labor camps or detention centers to force Falun Gong practitioners into unpaid hard labor during their detention.
Products from these manufacturers are sold not only in Chinese cities but also worldwide. The “Three-Gun” brand series of underwear produced by the Shanghai Three-Gun Group Co., Ltd., are sold in more than 70 countries. Handcrafted cotton quilts made by Shandong Leader Handicraft Articles Co., Ltd., are sold in more than 40 countries including the U.S, Canada, Chile, Argentina, countries in the Western Europe, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Japan, Korea and Singapore. This trade constitutes the equivalent of US$10 million in annual exports. Henan Rebecca Hair Products Inc., China, has good sales outlets in the U.S., Japan, Korea, Russia, Europe and Africa, as well as in over 20 provinces and cities in China. (For details, please refer to “WOIPFG Report: China Subjects Falun Gong Practitioners to Forced Labor to Manufacture Products for Export,” “Investigation Report on Forced-Labor Products Made by Falun Gong Practitioners in China’s Labor Camps,” and “An Investigation Report on the Hygienic Conditions of “Disposable Chopsticks,” a Slave Labor Product for Export.” )
Chinese embassies abroad act as branches of the “610 Office”
Since Jiang initiated his nationwide policy of eliminating Falun Gong, many Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide have been carrying out this policy to suppress and persecute Falun Gong in countries outside China. They have acted as overseas “610 Offices.” Chinese embassies, consulates, and staff members have used different approaches to participate in the persecution. These approaches frequently violate the laws in the foreign countries where these agents are stationed.
For example, Chinese consular officials frequently hand foreign government officials slanderous information about Falun Gong. They coerce overseas local governments to retract honors and proclamations awarded to Falun Gong, and they interfere with Falun Gong activities, threatening and blackmailing the foreign officials and other people who support Falun Gong. They pay and coerce Chinese community leaders to repel Falun Gong, and incite overseas Chinese people to hate Falun Gong. They hold so-called “criticizing conferences” and “exhibits” and news conferences, attacking Falun Gong inside Chinese consulates. They hire roughnecks to follow, monitor, harass, threaten, and even beat overseas Falun Gong practitioners. They coerce the local Chinese media to publish slanderous and libelous articles attacking Falun Gong. They terminate, cancel, or refuse to renew Falun Gong practitioners’ passports in violation of the law or refuse to issue needed documents. They also collect names of overseas Falun Gong practitioners and supply Jiang’s group with blacklists, as well as other things that are in violation of any laws anywhere. . (A report on the persecution of Falun Gong overseas will be soon published.)
Propaganda plays a vital role in brainwashing the public in China and abroad
On January 9, 2003, at the national overseas propaganda work conference, Li Changchun, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Standing Committee member, put forward the plan to “fully play the role of CCP’s major foreign affairs media, enhance their influence to overseas; take the measure of combining ‘going out, inviting back,’ work out the foreign medias and reporters; enhance the production quality of the outer propaganda products, expand the publishing channel to overseas, search to set up a marketing and publishing mechanism for the outer propaganda products, deliver our outer propaganda products into foreigner’s hands, by every possible means.”
In February 2003, the CCP held a meeting in Beijing specifically on propaganda. The Party produced multiple resolutions and announced that they were going to have stronger propaganda and penetration actions. Afterward, twenty-five CCP government departments jointly formed a new unit for overseas propaganda, in charge of coordinating and implementing overseas propaganda in special cases. Led by the CCP External Propaganda Office, the work units involved include the CCP Propaganda Department, CCP External Propaganda Office, CCP International Department, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CCP Taiwan Affairs Office, The Ministry of Finance, The Ministry of Education, General Administration Bureau of Broadcast and Television, National Administration Bureau of Religion, National Administration Bureau of Civil Aviation, and so on.
In this way, by developing a plan for the extensive, systematic spreading of propaganda, the regime has extended the persecution of Falun Gong well beyond China’s borders. (Please refer to “Investigation Report on Jiang Regime’s Overseas Propaganda and Penetration to Extend the Persecution of Falun Gong to Overseas.”)
In October 2003, an expert on China’s international news strategy disclosed this information: “[…] the survey showed that only 25% of foreign residents in China believe the content of English news broadcast by the Chinese media […] This issue concerns our country’s overall strategy of broadcasting overseas and its relationship with our English media propaganda. In the past, we always thought that overseas broadcasting was the responsibility of our English media and that it did not concern other sectors of the government. In reality, overseas broadcasting has an interrelationship with all sectors of our government. That includes the mass media and interpersonal communication. The Maletzki Mass Communication Process Model shows that in some cases interpersonal communication has an indispensable advantage over the mass media. Our past experience with overseas communications also proved the importance of interpersonal communication. Perhaps for this very reason, our country has gradually paid attention to fostering our country’s image and consciously organizes artistic performances, overseas exhibitions, leaders’ visits abroad, and allows interviews with foreign reporters. The State Council Information Office spent [the equivalent of] 5 million U.S. dollars in 1999 to hold various kinds of “interpersonal communication” activities in major U.S. cities and has achieved good mass communication results.”
It is evident that the ideology exported under the guise of international cultural exchange is another method used in penetrating western societies for the purpose of turning opinion against Falun Gong.
Under the guise of “interpersonal communication,” Jiang visited six countries in 1999 in order to curry favor with government leaders and turn them against Falun Gong. In a written interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, he branded Falun Gong an “evil cult.” During reciprocal visits between Jiang and French president Chirac in 1999 and 2000, they set up bilateral cultural year celebrations. In April 2001, Li Lanqing, Chinese Vice Premier at the time and head of the “Leadership Team to Handle the Falun Gong Issue” (the “610 Office”) signed an agreement with his French counterparts during his visit to France. The two sides agreed that China will hold a “Culture Year” in France from October 2003 to July 2004, and France will hold a ‘Culture Year” in China beginning in the fall of 2004 to July 2005. The WOIPFG investigation revealed that the head and some key members of the Chinese Cultural Exchange Committee have participated in the persecution of Falun Gong to various degrees. (For more details please refer to “China’s Ministry of Culture Exports the Persecution of Falun Gong; Sino-France Cultural Year Exchange Program Implicated.”)
In this way, under the guise of cultural exchange, the regime is able to infuse foreign countries with propaganda against Falun Gong. Unfortunately, in France, it has been effective. During Hu Jintao’s visit to Paris in January 2004, Falun Gong practitioners from various countries were arrested and detained for distributing flyers or simply for wearing yellow scarves with the words “Falun Dafa” on them as then attended Chinese New Year celebrations.
Chinese outreach, with the ultimate goal of extending the persecution of Falun Gong, is becoming more prevalent while the scope and intensity of the persecution inside China has reached genocidal proportions, meeting the definition of genocide as set forth in the UN Convention on Genocide. The purpose of this book is to present evidence that clearly demonstrates how Jiang Zemin’s regime has set out to systematically eliminate people who practice Falun Gong. It is the hope of all volunteers who have contributed to the WOIPFG reports in this book that the international community will recognize the truth and choose to take action on the side of justice for those being tortured and killed for their faith in Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance – the principles of Falun Gong.
