MAIN ECHO: (German newspaper) Falun Gong Practitioners in China in Danger of Losing their Lives

Newspaper report from Miltenberg, Germany
September 14, 2001

According to eyewitnesses and family members, while in custody, five women Falun Gong practitioners were murdered by police officials. The specific details are not known at this time. Their bodies were covered with signs of torture. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese cultivation practice containing ancient Buddhist and Daoist traditions. Similar to Tai Chi and Yoga, it has brought countless people better health and inner strength. Falun Gong has been banned in China since July 1999.

To date, 278 Falun Gong followers have lost their lives, being murdered while in police custody. More than 50,000 who are still alive are incarcerated, and over 10,000 are interned in so-called “labour camps,” having been brought there without due process of law. While in these labour camps, the practitioners are subjected to beatings, humiliation, torture and rape. Hundreds are kept in psychiatric facilities where they have to endure forced treatment with psychotropic [mind altering] drugs. Ignoring countless appeals by governments around the world as well as human rights organizations to observe human rights in China, Jiang Zemin’s regime continues its persecution unimpeded.

Some victims were arrested solely on the grounds that they possessed Falun Gong materials or because they passed on information about the persecution. Their deaths confirm the alarming increase of force used against Falun Gong practitioners and of the number of murders of Falun Gong practitioners permitted since the government’s latest decree in May 2001.

This decree states that those individuals who pass on information about Falun Gong or the persecution of Falun Gong are to be “heavily punished.” These five murder victims are:

Chen Quilan from Daqing, Heilongjiang Province. According to information from family members, Chen Quilan had been tortured to death close to midnight on August 14th, 2001, after she had already endured two months of abuse during her incarceration at the detention centre in the city of Daqing.

Yang Rulyu from Fuzhou, Fujian Province, died July 22, 2001 while in police custody, after having been tortured and abused for three days prior to her death. According to eyewitnesses, her upper body showed a fist-size wound.

Zhang Fengyun from Lanzhou, Ganzu Province. Her family was informed on August 10th that Zhang had died while in police custody at the Xiguoyan detention center in Lanzhou.
Apparently she died from injuries resulting from force-feeding.

Zheng Xianmei from Dalian City, Liaoning Province. It is assumed that Zheng died on August 13th, four days after she was mistreated while incarcerated. Zheng was arrested on August 9th, following a search of her house by police deputies who found Falun Gong books.

Wu Lianjie was from Baicheng, Jilin Province. She died under mysterious circumstances, either on August 19th or 20th, while being detained in the Office for Public Safety in Gongzhuling. The officials tried to pass off her death as a suicide.

On Saturday, September 15, 2001, 10am until 4pm, the German Falun Gong Association will hold a public information forum at “Am Riesen,” (a central location in town; translator) to tell more of the brutal persecution.