Spain: Speech by Falun Gong Practitioner Chen Ningfang at a Press Conference on the Lawsuit against Jiang

At 11:30a.m. on October the 15th, Falun Gong practitioners held a press conference about a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan that was submitted to a Spanish court. Here is a speech given by Chen Ningfang, the mother of lawsuit complainant Chen Gang:

My name is Chen Ningfang. Today I am here to talk about what my family has experienced. After hearing this you may come to learn how Falun Gong practitioners in China are persecuted under Jiang Zemin's orders.

My husband and I are musicians. We worked with the famous Chinese Central Symphony for thirty-three years before retiring. My son Chen Gang was a logistic manager for a subsidiary of Carlsberg Breweries in Beijing. His wife had a nice job too. My daughter Chen Ying was a manager in a leading American company. Up until today, all of my family members have practised Falun Gong for seven or eight years. Falun Gong has brought us good health, happiness and harmonious lives. Nevertheless, since Jiang Zemin launched the suppression of Falun Gong in July 1999, our lives have been completely destroyed.

In China, policemen continually harassed us. My telephone was tapped, and my home was searched twice. According to the Chinese constitution, people are entitled to appeal, but my son, my husband and I were detained in a detention centre after appealing for Falun Gong at the National Appeals Bureau.

At midnight on June the 25th 2000, several dozen policemen broke into my home. They arrested my son and me for no reason. After being detained for thirty days I was released, but my son was sent to a notorious forced labour camp in a Beijing suburb. He was imprisoned there for eighteen months which was the most miserable time of his life.

In order to force my son to give up his belief, the guards at the labour camp inflicted inhuman brutal torture on him. He was only allowed to sleep for two to four hours a day. He was once stopped from sleeping for fifteen consecutive days, and was even punched and kicked when he closed his eyes.

The guards also used high-voltage electric batons to shock sensitive parts of his body, such as the head, neck and chest. His skin was so burned that his entire body suffered from violent trembling, as if it was roasting or being bitten by poisonous snakes.

The guards instructed ten inmates to hit him fiercely until his face was deformed. His legs and thighs were tightly tied together, his two arms bound behind his back and his neck and legs were also tightly tied up. This almost suffocated him. He was then pushed beneath a bed, on which someone was sitting and violently pushing the bed downward to press on my son’s back. At that moment, he felt that his bones were broken, and he was unable to walk for two weeks. Another practitioner by the name of Lu Zhangjun became crippled after undergoing the same kind of torture.

My son suffered these tortures only because he practised Falun Gong – a cultivation practice which not only brought him good health and happiness, but also guided him to be a decent person. In other words, it was only because he insisted on his belief in “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.” That period was the most miserable time for us, since we worried about him every day, and we did not know what would become of him.

I would like to thank the eight congressmen from the New Jersey area who jointly wrote a letter to President Bush, urging him to call on the Chinese government to stop suppressing Falun Gong and release my son during his visit to China. I am also grateful to the many kind-hearted people around the world who have signed their names to support us. Eventually, my son was released last year. But I know that he is only one of the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who are being persecuted. Under Jiang Zemin’s directives, at least 793 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death, and a lot more are being illegally incarcerated in mental hospitals, prisons and forced labour camps. The brutal torture they are suffering is far beyond our imagination.

Jiang Zemin must be held responsible for all of this. He has pushed tens of thousands of kind-hearted people into an abyss of suffering. The cruel crimes he has committed pose a threat to peacefulness and justice throughout the world. Faced with all of this, how can we turn a blind eye to it? It is time we brought Jiang Zemin to court. This is to maintain justice and conscience for all of the world’s people!

Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200310/25211.html