Germany: A Letter to the President of the EU and Members of the European Parliament

Respectful President, Members of the European Parliament from all nations, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am Chen Gang, a Falun Gong practitioner in Germany. My sister Chen Jie, born on February the 2nd 1965 in Beijing, lives in the Shijingshan District of Beijing, China. Because of her belief in Falun Gong, she was illegally arrested at her home on the morning of June the 2nd 2004, and her home was illegally searched. When I called the National Security branch office asking for her release, the police officer replied, "We are conducting an investigation to see if there is enough evidence to put her in jail." My brother-in-law has always been busy in his work and was forced to cancel his business trip to return to Beijing. Their six-year-old son is now deprived of the care of his mother. The only reason for my sister’s arrest is that she wants to be a better person by following the Falun Gong principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, which benefits one’s body, mind and spirit.

My mother was tormented with lots of physical problems before she started practising Falun Gong. By practising Falun Gong, she became very healthy. Cultivators like my mother and my sister who really benefited from Falun Gong, will not make false statements slandering Falun Gong according to the will of dictator Jiang Zemin. This is the basic principle of a human being. Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution of Falun Gong simply because he was jealous of its many followers. People come to Falun Gong not only because of its health benefits, but also because of its high standards of moral behaviour.

Five years after the Jiang regime started its brutal persecution of Falun Gong, there are still over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners detained in forced labour camps, prisons and mental hospitals because they don’t want to give up their belief; one hundred and eight Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to between five to thirteen years jail terms because they exposed the persecution on the Internet, among them twenty are university professors and graduate students; at least nine hundred and sixty eight Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death, the news of the deaths of over fifty practitioners only reached the outside world in the first six months of this year.

Falun Gong is practised by people in over sixty countries and has received much support and many awards worldwide. Jiang Zemin and other prime culprits involved in the persecution have been sued for the crimes of cruelty and genocide in more than ten countries. The European Union has also appealed for justice.

This letter tries to bring to the attention of everyone that China has never stopped its abuse of basic human rights and freedom of belief for one day. I appeal to everyone to help my sister demand that the Chinese government stop the illegal detention of good people and return to my sister and tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners their right to live freely, to work and to hold their own beliefs.

This five-year long persecution of Falun Gong is very systematic. Right from the beginning, Jiang Zemin established and developed a large network, including media and national security and police, to carry out his policy of persecution. Thus, behind the superficially normal society, tens of thousands of people are deprived of their basic human rights. In China very few people can escape from the effect of this persecution. This persecution of humanity's most basic conscience makes the Chinese society more corrupt and its moral standards slip further. It is hoped that every Chinese person can realise that the issue of Falun Gong is closely related to everyone, not only because it’s the basic human right granted in the Chinese constitution, but also because it’s a question of morality and conscience.