Weekend Aisen (Danish Newspaper): Falun Gong’s distress call

May 2 2003

On an almost daily basis, dramatic information is being sent from the Chinese Falun Gong movement about how its adherents are being persecuted in China, the consequence of which is often death.

The movement is trying – up until now with little success – to create public awareness in Europe regarding the fate of so many of its adherents in China, and claims to have documented 634 cases of people having died as a result of persecution since the movement was banned in 1999.

The latest annual report on human rights from the U.S. Foreign Ministry points out that thousands of people who have organised Falun Gong activities or who are merely adherents have been placed in “re-education through labour” camps or prisons.

The annual American report, the credibility of which is seldom an issue of dispute, refers to various sources according to which more than 200 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed while detained or as a result of torture or abuse. Should only part of this information turn out to be true, then what we are facing is one of the biggest human rights violations in Asia today. The apparatus of the Chinese communist power is in many ways trying to put a lid on the debate concerning the persecution of Falun Gong and other “deviants”. But in spite of the censorship, which also targets the Internet, alarming information is received on a regular basis.

Seen from this perspective, it is surprising how little debate there is in Denmark regarding the massive suppression of freedom of expression in China and of its citizens, who peacefully try to express their views.

In Denmark, the efforts in support of human rights and against torture are a top priority - every year a considerable amount of public funding is being spent on research in this area. One would expect that much more attention would be given to the serious human rights abuses occurring in China, not in the least from the [Danish] Human Rights Institute.

In this context, it is not an issue of whether one likes Falun Gong or its ways – rather, it is solely a matter of focusing on the Chinese power apparatus’ violent behaviour against people who peacefully appeal, which is something that should be allowed in any community founded on the rule of law. Communist-led China has committed itself internationally to oppose the use of torture, but time and again it comes to our attention that torture is exactly what the Chinese power apparatus is using against Falun Gong.

During the United Nations’ World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 1993, China voted to call on all states to “immediately end the practice of torture and eliminate this evil for good”.

In the summer of 2002, the House of Representatives in Washington passed a resolution that characterises the Chinese government’s course of action against Falun Gong as being contrary to the Chinese constitution, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

From the European perspective there must be clarification on whether the regular information that Falun Gong sends out regarding the persecution of its adherents is correct. If this proves to be the case then there should be a basis for, not only a Danish initiative, but an EU-political initiative, in regard to the People’s Republic of China in order to make the authorities observe human rights.