Press Statement from the Swedish Falun Gong Information Centre

Since July 1999, the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin has enforced a systematic and ruthless persecution of Falun Gong. Almost every organ within the Chinese Communist Party has been mobilised to crack down on practitioners, with the aim of forcing them to give up their practice of Falun Gong. Those who do not yield face the risk of being tortured to death. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented hundreds of death cases among Falun Gong practitioners as a result of abuse and torture in Chinese detention centres, prisons and forced labour camps. Unofficial sources within the Chinese government have told that the real death toll is in the thousands.

According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), the Chinese regime has spent one quarter of the country’s financial resources in persecuting Falun Gong. This astronomical amount of money has been used by Jiang to maintain the Central “6-10” Office (a Gestapo-like organisation created to crack down on Falun Gong), as well as to build new prisons and labour camps, strengthen the police force, maintain massive surveillance inside and outside of China’s borders, launch numerous propaganda campaigns using the media, give financial rewards to those who report on practitioners or succeed in “transforming” people (using any means), conducting forced abortions, upholding abuse, torture and murder, carrying out expulsion from universities, and pressuring the governments of other countries through various means. Regarding this last example, we now have a case of immediate interest and concern: Ms. Pirjo Svensson, a Swedish citizen who has been unlawfully detained in Thailand.

On April 29th, Mrs. Pirjo Svensson was taken into custody from her family home in Bangkok by authorities from the Thai Immigration Office. On the same day her Visa was cancelled, which actually meant that she was being ordered to leave the country. She was not given any explanation for the detention, even though everyone understood that it was connected to her practice of Falun Gong. It is reasonable to suppose that the incident had connections with the Asian meeting on SARS, which had started the same day as Pirjo was detained. Many top Chinese politicians attended the ASEAN meeting, and somebody was surely fearful that Pirjo would expose the crack down on Falun Gong to those at the meeting.

Pirjo is still being unlawfully detained in Thailand. She is innocent and therefore does not accept being treated as a criminal. She has appealed against the deportation order and demanded a withdrawal of the accusations against her, whatever they are. Actually, she is not doing these things for her own sake. She is doing it because she is convinced that it is completely wrong that Jiang, through political and economic means, can make other countries indirectly collaborate with his large-scale persecution of Falun Gong. She is doing it also to protect freedom of belief and expression, and to help the Thai authorities avoid committing a serious crime against human rights due to pressure from China.

After three and a half weeks, Pirjo Svensson it still being unlawfully detained, without any official explanation. This is even the case after the Swedish Ambassador in Bangkok, Jan Norlander, has repeatedly contacted the Thai government, and has also filed an official Swedish protest to the Thai government, with the request that Pirjo should be released immediately. In spite of this, the Thai government has still not given any explanation for Pirjo’s detention or the cancellation of her Visa.

Pirjo is still unlawfully detained together with up to 200 other people in a hot cell in Bangkok. We have a question: Why this silence, and why this nonchalance, not only towards Pirjo but also towards Sweden, a country with which Thailand has had good relations for a long time? What is stopping the communication?

In connection to this, we would like to stress that we are not against the government of Thailand or China. We are not after somebody's power, and we do not have any political goals. We just want the persecution of Falun Gong to stop immediately.

To conclude, we have three demands to the government of Thailand:

1. Pirjo Svensson should be declared innocent


2. Pirjo Svensson should be released immediately and unconditionally


3. Pirjo should not be held accountable for anything, i.e. she should have her Thai Visa returned and be guaranteed that she can come back to Thailand in the future.

Contacts: Lilly Wang +46 (0)709 64 61 52, Lee Kum-Ah Nathansen +46 (0)707 25 48 64

# # #

THE SWEDISH FALUN GONG INFORMATION CENTRE - Contact:
Hans Bengtsson +46 (0)70-210 55 06, Anders Måhlén +46 (0)70-110 43 89
E-mail: [email protected]

Chinese version available at http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/200305/20685.html