Letter from the Singapore Falun Dafa Association Regarding the Arrest and Detention of Pirjo Svensson

Your Excellency

Re: Deportation of Swedish Citizen, Mrs. Pirjo Svensson

We respectfully request your urgent attention to the case of Swedish citizen Mrs. Pirjo Svensson who currently faces deportation.

On April 29 2003, we learned that Mrs. Svensson, a Swedish Falun Gong practitioner, was taken into custody. Immigration police officers searched her apartment and confiscated books, Video-CDs, and other literature about Falun Gong. She was then taken to the Immigration Bureau and detained without being informed of her rights or the nature of the charges against her. Officials later told her husband that she was going to be deported because of the content of one of the VCDs. The VCD was an introduction to the Falun Gong exercises and factual information about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Such VCDs are freely available on the Internet.

Falun Gong is a cultivation practice that originates in China and can be freely practised by anyone in Thailand, as in over sixty countries worldwide, including Singapore. Therefore, we strongly believe that Mrs. Svensson should not be detained, as a Falun Gong practitioner in Thailand does not contradict any domestic laws with regard to Falun Gong. In fact, it is known that Falun Gong is still widely practised in Thailand despite China’s persecution of the practice since July 1999.

Mrs. Svensson has, over the past several years, accompanied her husband on numerous business trips to Thailand. The information on the VCDs is all fact and has been verified by international bodies and governments such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. The United States and various European governments have also passed various resolutions condemning China’s violation of Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights and freedom of belief.

We are aware that Mrs. Svensson’s arrest coincides with the emergency summit meeting of Asian leaders on SARS, which was attended by Chinese leaders. We could not help but see the resemblance of this incident with that of many other incidents that have occurred during the visits of high-level Chinese government officials in various countries. For example, in April 2002, German authorities, under pressure during Jiang Zemin’s visit to Berlin, imposed a curfew on anyone wearing yellow or blue, colours that are often worn by Falun Gong practitioners. In June 2002, during Jiang Zemin’s visit to Iceland, local authorities refused entry to Falun Gong practitioners visiting the country. In addition, more than 100 people of various nationalities were prevented from boarding planes to Iceland from North America and Europe, as their names appeared on a blacklist provided by the Chinese
government.

Incidentally, as the Thai government hosts the summit of Asian leaders to combat SARS, China has received international media attention due to lies told to the World Health Organisation officials, and due to under-reporting of the SARS situation in China. If Beijing can lie about something as serious as the public heath of its citizens, how trustworthy is its smear campaign of propaganda against Falun Gong?

The persecution of Falun Gong has already received worldwide attention, as governments and international organisations have urged the Chinese government to stop the persecution. On January 15 2003, the Washington Times reported that a lawsuit has been brought against Jiang Zemin for the torture and genocide of Falun Gong practitioners since July 1999 (www.flgjustice.org). On January 22 2003, the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong was formed, with a mission to investigate the criminal conduct of all institutions, organisations, 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 the search, to full closure; to exercise fundamental principles of humanity; and to restore and uphold justice in society.

We sincerely hope the Thai government can exercise fair judgement as a sovereign state on this matter. One lesson that people have learned from the SARS crisis is that only by upholding truth and transparency will everyone’s interests be satisfied and will crisis be halted. Similarly, the persecution of Falun Gong, which has been denied by China, is real and human lives are being lost because of this. Only by revealing and upholding the truth will we help to save innocent human lives in this crisis.

Yours sincerely,

Falun Buddha Society (Singapore)