Moldova: Luo Gan Faced a 4th Lawsuit on the Last Stop of his European Tour

On September 18, the international human rights organization World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong; Rescue Our Family Members, and European/St. Petersburg Falun Dafa Associations filed a class action lawsuit charging Luo Gan with torture, genocide and other crimes. Luo Gan, head of the Gestapo-like "610 Office"* in China, was at that time visiting Moldova.

During the morning of September 18, representatives from these organizations filed a lawsuit with Moldova's Prosecutor General in the capital city Chisinau. The prosecutor, after accepting the legal documents, said he would examine the case further.

This is the fourth lawsuit since beginning his European visit, charging Luo Gan with genocide and torture.

Chinese consulate interferes with press conference

The plaintiffs held a press conference the day the lawsuit was filed, but when the journalists arrived, they were told the room could not be used at the prearranged time. When asked, the Moldova Department of Foreign Affairs admitted they received pressure from the Chinese consulate in Moldova.

The Chinese consulate's interference with the press conference surprised the journalists. They said, "How can China do whatever they want in another country?" They expressed their intention to report on this incident.

Persecutor and criminal

Luo Gan is one of the chief perpetrators responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong. He is also the head of the "610 Office," an organization established by Jiang in 1999 for the sole purpose of persecuting Falun Gong. Since it does nothing but political persecution, is completely above the law and does not need to report to other governmental agencies, it shares common traits with the former "CCP Central Committee Cultural Revolution Leadership Team," the Nazi Gestapo and the former Soviet Union's KGB. The "610 Office" is under direct control of Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan. It systematically carries out Jiang's orders to "defame their [Falun Gong practitioners'] reputations, bankrupt them financially, destroy them physically." These so-called policies are in connection with the brutal and systematic persecution spread throughout China and have affected millions of Falun Gong practitioners' families. In the past four years, the "610 Office" made up countless bloody lies under the direction of Jiang and Luo; the lies deceived millions of Chinese people and made them fear Falun Gong's principles of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance. These lies were extremely destructive to social morality and stability.

Luo Gan actively encouraged the police to use torture. In the past four years, over 50 types of torture have been commonly used in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Among them: sleep deprivation for several consecutive days or even more than 15 days; sometimes the police tie up the practitioner in a crucified style by fixing their hands with two separate handcuffs and deprive them of sleep for several days that way; suffocating the practitioners by wrapping their heads in a plastic bag followed by violent beating; "Five Horses Split The Body" - in this torture method a practitioner is hung up by the arms and legs, and pulled in four directions; laying practitioners on the ground and using a knife to scrape their scabies, inflicting severe pain on them and causing blood to flow everywhere.

The implements used to beat the practitioners include leather straps, metal sticks, "thistly sticks," bamboo sticks with spikes on them, rubber clubs, lead pipes with spikes on them; all kinds of handcuffs, shackles; back shackles, double shackles (the practitioners' hands and feet are cuffed together and he cannot walk, eat or go to the restroom), "smoke pipe handcuff," "wolf" handcuff; dungeons, water dungeons, manure pit, "dead person's bed," small stools [two inches off the ground], solitary confinement, metal stools, the Tiger Bench and solitary postures, all used for torture purposes.

There is also shocking with multiple electric batons for a long period of time, with the electric batons striking sensitive areas such as their mouths, chests, underarms, breasts and private areas; forced to wear handcuffs and shackles of various designs, including ones with spikes on the inside; handcuffed with hands behind the back; hit with rubber batons and clubs with sharp spikes; locked in cellars and water chambers; forced to lie down with both feet and hands tied and not allowed any movement for days; whipped with ropes made of leather, copper wires, other metal wire; tied up in painful positions; having sharp objects hammered under their nails; having flesh torn away with pliers; having their nails torn off with pliers; forced to stay hunched down for long periods of time; being force-fed water laced with (extremely hot) cayenne pepper and/or highly-concentrated salt water through plastic tubes.

Additional methods used are having feces shoved down their throats; some who hold hunger strikes are also tied to a metal bed used for criminals on death row or locked up in a "strict control room;" doused with cold water in the winter; being forced to take their clothes off and stand outdoors in the winter for long periods of time; being forced to stand outside during the height of summer for long periods of time; not being allowed to use the restroom; injected and forced to take large amounts of narcotic drugs that damaged their central nervous system; stabbed with electric needles. The abusers tie up the practitioners with ropes, hammer nails into the practitioners' fingers, pinch their flesh with pincers, stick needles in their fingers, drip concentrated acid into their nostrils. Women practitioners are thrown into male cells and sometimes raped by police; pregnant practitioners are forced to have an abortion. The abusers encourage inmates and collaborators to torture the practitioners by promising sentence reductions, and other base means.

Luo Gan Does Not Qualify for Protection under Vienna Convention

Luo Gan was previously sued in Iceland and Finland. Iceland's national criminal prosecutor did not accept the case, claiming Luo is protected by immunity as a visiting foreign official. According to Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization Against Torture, USA and an expert on criminal immunity, under the Vienna Convention, Luo Gan has no immunity during his visit this week to Iceland:

"First, he [Luo Gan] does not fit within the very clear categories of protected officials set out in the Vienna Convention," said Mr. Sklar. "He is not a head of state or a foreign minister, and is not in Iceland on a special mission fulfilling ambassadorial duties or even major governmental functions. As I understand it, he is conducting a review of the Icelandic legal system. This is not the type of special mission that the Vienna Convention had in mind covering under immunity protections given only to the highest level officials visiting, pursuant to special diplomatically linked missions."

Mr. Sklar continued, "To interpret the Convention otherwise would mean that virtually all foreign officials were subject to absolute immunity in a foreign country, which is nowhere near the way the immunity provisions are interpreted and applied."

Torturers are public enemies

"[F]or purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him, hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind," said Irving R. Kaufman, United States District Judge in the matter of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (2nd Cir. 1980).

U.S. Human Rights Attorney Terri Marsh, lead attorney in a class-action U.S. lawsuit against former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, and against the "610 Office" stated that as the perpetrator of both genocide and torture against innocent practitioners of Falun Gong in China, Luo Gan cannot commit crimes of such terrible magnitude with impunity. He has violated the most sacred principles of all civilized nations; he has violated Chinese law as well as international treaties and covenants. There are no moral or legal bases for an immunity claim in this or any other Chinese official's case. Indeed, the official position of any person accused of genocide will not relieve him of criminal responsibility. One may not commit genocide (or) torture without legal reprisal.

*The "610 Office" is an agency specifically established to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary system.