United States: U.S. Ambassador to China Answers Questions about Falun Gong at Yale University

On September 17, the U.S. Ambassador to China, Mr. Clark T. Randt Jr. made a speech at Yale entitled, "The U.S. --China Relationship and Development of Law." Afterwards, he spent more than an hour answering questions raised by students and scholars. He was asked several times about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, American citizen Charles Li who is currently illegally imprisoned in China, and the Judge's decision in the Chicago lawsuit against Jiang Zemin. Mr. Randt clearly answered the questions one by one.

A Falun Gong practitioner asking questions.

One of the audience members asked, "Just now, Mr. Ambassador mentioned a case that occurred in March of this year about how Mr. Sun Zhigang was beaten to death in a collecting post in Guangzhou city. I also read a report in the Wall Street Journal written by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Ian Johnson, about how police officers in Weifang, Shangdong Province forced an elderly woman, Ms. Chen Zixiu to give up her practise of Falun Gong through brutal torture, which caused her death. These events demonstrate that China's legal system still needs to be improved, but what is even more serious is that the existing laws are not respected and put into practise, because those who execute the laws follow the leader's will rather than laws."

The ambassador nodded and said, "Right."

Another listener said, "The Jiang regime has employed large amounts of manpower and material resources to block the internet, interdict the flow of information and deprive people of their right to know the truth of important incidents. Under these circumstances, to uphold the legal rights ensured by the Constitution, using peaceful means to break the information blockade should not be considered as illegal. American citizen Charles Li intended to break through the information blockade to let people know the facts of the Chinese government's human rights violations; as a result, he was arrested in China. What does the American government plan to do?"

Ambassador Randt said, "I'm very aware of Charles Li's case. We pay close attention to him, because he is an American citizen. Now the police have stopped force-feeding him." The Ambassador continued, "Of course, we request the Chinese government to unconditionally release him."

When Mr. Randt was asked as U.S. Ambassador in China, whether he urged the Chinese government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Randt answered, "We have been consistently exerting efforts to promote human rights and religious freedom. In China, one cannot hear the voice from Falun Gong. They are all imprisoned. We have been condemning the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong all along and continuously request the Chinese government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong."

When one of the audience members said that Jiang was being sued in several countries for committing genocide, however, the U.S. district court in Chicago dismissed the case on the grounds of "sovereign immunity", Mr. Randt said that as this case is still in progress and he was not in a position to comment on it.

After the seminar, the Director of the International Human Right Centre, Mr. James Silk said, "The current sovereign immunity is quite disputable even in the circle of laws. I don't think it should apply to crimes against large groups of people."

A western Falun Gong practitioner related his experience in China to all of the attendees: "Last year, I took a trip to China. I stood by a roadside without doing anything. A police officer came over and forced me to open my bag. He searched my bag and when he found a 'banned book', he arrested me and repatriated me in less than 24 hours."

Ambassador Randt explained the rights that an American citizen should enjoy in China. After the seminar, a Chinese student approached this western practitioner and expressed his regret for the unjust treatment the western practitioner received during his travel in China. He said, "China's legal system is so bad. Fortunately, you are an American citizen, and they dared not mistreat you too much. It also suppresses many kinds of spiritual beliefs such as Falun Gong. That really should not have happened. I hope we will have the ability to go back and change the situation."

After the seminar, the western Falun Gong practitioner handed a petition letter calling for the rescue of Charles Li from the Falun Gong club at Yale University to Ambassador Randt.