United States: San Francisco Falun Gong practitioners to Hold A Memorial for Liu Chengjun in Front of the Chinese Consulate

Bay Area Falun Gong practitioners will hold a memorial for Chengjun Liu in front of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco at 1:00 PM Monday, December 29, 2003. Liu died on Friday December 26 in Jilin University hospital after 21 months of torture in jail. Liu was the first person that tapped into the state-run Chinese TV and broadcasted a video revealing the persecution of Falun Gong in Changchun China on March 5, 2002. This TV broadcasting reached hundreds of thousands of Chinese and was well reported by world media.

---

Background

Chinese citizen Mr. Chengjun Liu was dead in police custody and his body was cremated immediately on December 26, 2003. Witness has reported that blood was pouring out from places like his nose, ears and legs. On March 5th, 2002, Mr. Liu participated in tapping into a cable T.V. signal in China's northeastern city of Changchun to broadcast programs exposing the persecution against Falun Gong in China.

The programs provided information from human rights organizations, world media and other news sources that are readily available to those living outside China. Inside China, however, what people see, read and hear about Falun Gong is strictly controlled by the state-run media. Thus, these programs are often the first glimpse Chinese people have of the persecution of Falun Gong in their own country.

Inside sources report that the March 5th broadcasts in Changchun infuriated then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who then ordered a series of executions targeting all persons involved in the broadcast and other practitioners of Falun Gong throughout China.

The persecution of Falun Gong in China has largely been sustained through an anti-Falun Gong propaganda campaign built on lies and deception. Jiang Zemin's paramount fear is that this will be exposed, so those who make an attempt to expose it receive a swift and often brutal response. Mr. Liu's death in custody and the regime's apparent iron resolve to hold Dr. Lee in custody in the face of international outcry clearly exhibits this fear.