European Friends of Falun Gong Speech about CCP Violence Outside China

The following speech was made by a representative of European Friends of Falun Gong at a press conference opposite the Chinese Embassy in London. The press conference was to highlight the recent assault at gunpoint of a Falun Gong practitioner in his own home in the United States, carried out by the Chinese communist regime. For more details on this assault, please see http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200602/31446.html. European Friends of Falun Gong is a non-governmental organisation of people who don't practise Falun Gong but support freedom of belief for practitioners.

We wish to bring to your attention the recent act of violence and burglary carried out against Falun Gong practitioner Dr Peter Li Yuan in the name of the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party. This event appears to be part of a worldwide campaign by the Chinese authorities to intimidate and undermine the Falun Gong movement, the exportation of their own brand of persecution abroad, a persecution which has so far caused the deaths in custody of nearly 3,000 practitioners in China, while many more thousands languish in prisons and labour camps with little hope of release.

Today’s press conference outside the Chinese embassy in London has been called to publicise this event and to launch a relay hunger strike by Falun Gong practitioners with the intention of bringing the Chinese government’s activities to the attention of a worldwide audience.

The attack on Dr Li occurred on Wednesday February 8th in Atlanta, Georgia, when according to the Fulton County Police Department, Asian men stormed the house of the Princeton-educated information technology technician, bound, gagged and beat him, before fleeing with two laptop computers, Li's wallet and as yet unknown material from his files.

Dr Li has been a key figure in Falun Gong’s attempts to undermine the Chinese Communist Party, having worked for The Epoch Times during and since the period when it published the highly critical series of essays ‘The Nine Commentaries on the CCP’, and the Chinese authorities clearly see him as a major player in the campaign to persuade members of the CCP to renounce their party affiliation on specially designed Web sites.

It is no coincidence that this attack has taken place at the same time as the foremost business magazine in the US, ‘Forbes’, reveals the extent to which Falun Gong members have penetrated the Chinese government’s information barriers, allowing people in China access to Web sites which the Chinese government has tried to block.

This event has not been an isolated incident of course. There have been several other cases of violence in the last few months involving attacks by Chinese government officials on Falun Gong practitioners around the world, a serious new direction in China’s campaign against freedom of belief and expression, proof of the devastating lack of compassion shown by the Chinese government over the last six and a half years of persecution.

We of course condemn these crimes unreservedly, and hope that the perpetrators will be found and dealt with in accordance with the law. We are sure that all right-minded people everywhere would join in this condemnation. The Chinese government seemingly has embarked upon a very serious and dangerous crusade against Falun Gong practitioners outside its own borders and jurisdiction. The West must stand united against them and must not allow them to carry on unchecked in this manner. We appeal to you to do all in your power to halt them in their tracks, and to help bring their illegal activities to the forefront of world attention. We will certainly not rest until the perpetrators have been brought to justice and the persecution, both inside and outside China, has come to an end.

European Friends of Falun Gong
13th February 2006