PERPETRATORS FACE LEGAL ACTION– BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY

Bringing the Guilty to Justice

The ban on Falun Gong in China alone is in violation of the Chinese constitution and International laws. The Jiang regime's actions against Falun Gong practitioners are massive violations of even the most basic of laws: beating, torture, extortion, kidnapping, murder and rape should not go unpunished in any society. Those responsible for such crimes should be held accountable in a court of law, and should be subject to the same punitive measures for their crimes regardless of whether they were undertaken under the rule of a regime or not. The fact that this is orchestrated by the regime of a huge superpower should never lead us to become numb to the fact that those who carry out beatings and murders in the name of the regime are still committing horrific crimes. In any other country, such crimes would be headline news which would shock and enrage the whole nation, and the whole society would be crying out for the perpetrator to be brought to justice. As for those who have instigated and orchestrated the persecution, given orders to sentence tens of thousands without trial, to torture tens if not hundreds of thousands of practitioners, and to pass off thousands of murders as suicide, they are guilty of crimes which are so great there is no way to describe them; they are guilty of the most heinous crimes against humanity and even of genocide.

Since at present the regime still has the legal mechanisms in China in it’s grip, practitioners have endeavoured to find legal mechanisms outside of China to bring the perpetrators to justice. In filing various recent lawsuits around the world against Jiang Zemin and other perpetrators, they have made legal history and sent shock waves of fear through the regime in China.

In the US, on October 18, 2002, a civil action lawsuit was filed against Jiang Zemin, for compensatory and punitive damages for torts committed in violation of international and domestic law, under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act. Specific causes of action pleaded in the complaint are torture; genocide; the right to life; the right to liberty and security of the person, and to be free of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment; the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to associate freely; violations of the above-cited rights and protections as embodied in customary international law; conspiracy to commit violations of civil rights within the jurisdiction of the U.S.

In addition,in the USA other lawsuits have been filed agains various Chinese officials for their crimes in the persecution of Falun Gong, including the Mayor of Beijing, the Deputy Chief of "610 Office", the Deputy Provincial Governor of Liaoning Province, the head of Public Security for Hubei Province in China, and the General Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party of Sichuan Province.

In France on October 4, in accordance with the UN Human Rights Covenant and the relevant French laws, four Falun Gong practitioners from France, Ireland and Canada, initiated a lawsuit against the head of China’s “610 Office”, Li Lan-qing. The 6-10 Office is a governmental office created by Jiang Zemin especially to oversee and instigate the persecution of Falun Gong. It has absolute power over every level government.

In March 2003, it was announced that sixty Falun Gong national associations, in collaboration with the international organisation Track Impunity Always (TRIAL), are setting up an international coalition to actively take up the defense of the numerous victims of Chinese repression. The president of TRIAL, Philip Grant, stated that according to witnesses' testimonies and large quantities of information from different sources, the Jiang regime violates the International Convention against Torture. What they have done also constitutes the crime of genocide as defined in international criminal law. Starting from March 14, 2003, Jiang Zemin was no longer the president of China, and no longer be able to enjoy the perogative of immunity granted to a head of state. In addition, according to resolutions passed at the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, "Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. Mr Grant stated "Mr. Jiang Zemin must know, as of today, that the victims of his blind and bloody repression will not let him alone untroubled. Considering that no statutes of limitation can bar the prosecution of such international crimes, Mr. Jiang Zemin must count of the fact that, to his last breath, he might be tracked down outside of China.”

The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong was established on January 20th 2003. It’s mission statement is:

”To investigate the criminal conduct of all institutions, organizations, and individuals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong; to bring such investigation, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far and deep we have to search, to full closure; to exercise fundamental principles of humainity; and to restore and uphold justice in society.”

In addition, at present, a concerted effort on the part of practitioners is being made to document evidence of people’s crimes in their persecution of Falun Gong.

All these factors combine to provide the groundwork for future legal actions against all those who commit crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. The message is clear: Just as the Nazi regime fell under Hitler and those guilty of crimes against humanity under it’s rule were later brought to justice, so will happen to the Jiang regime and to those who persecute Falun Gong under the illusion of its protection. Already in China upon learning the news of the lawsuit against Jiang, some officials have started "finding a way out" and have secretly organised and collected "files" to prove themselves "innocent", and that they were forced to carry out "610 Office" orders.