Statement of Italian Businessman Alfredo Fava on the Occasion of the World Economic Forum

My name is Alfredo Fava and I’m an Italian businessman. In 1995, I set-up the Shanghai Famas, a company specialised in the production of technical fabrics. In October 2001 in Shanghai airport I was stopped, and the police sent me back to Frankfurt. They didn’t allow me to call Italian consulate, or my company, or my home. They told me: you are on the black list.

I am a practitioner of Falun Gong; this is the reason why they didn’t allow me to enter China. I started to practise Falun Gong in 1995 when it was not only totally legal but it was also encouraged by the authority.

Italian Foreign office and our embassy moved steps and then Chinese authority permit me to come back to China again. I went there at the end of November. I was under police control; a car followed me all over a work trip. What will happen next time?

Only few months before I received a reward from the local authority for my company performances and only a few weeks later I have been asked to hold a speech during a press conference to represent all J.V with Foreign Capital of my area.

Now, China declares to open the door to the West and they entered into WTO, is it fair that this persecution, which damages every individual freedom, be allowed to exist?
Do you think it’s fair that a businessman must give up his own freedom of thought and of culture to run his business in China?

“Business is business” - I always hear this sentence, however:

· I believe that businesses should not only be legitimate, but should be ethical and act a role model for moral values in society.

· I also believe that closing one’s eyes to protect one’s business and justify oneself through the non-interference in the internal affairs, as it is done in China, is wrong.

Everybody is called to make some choices. Please be aware that good will be rewarded with good and evil will be rewarded with evil.

Is it acceptable that a country like China, land of a very ancient and advanced culture, is transformed into a hell for millions of honest Falun Gong practitioners, while at the same time the commercial unification of nations is starting?

Can this magnificent unification project ignore such catastrophic differences among the social and political values and practices of the individual countries?

China’s wickedness and blatant abuse of human rights must end! We appeal to the leaders, businessmen and public, all over the word, to press China to respect the most basic human rights.