Press Conference At International Conference on 'Genocide in the New Era’ in Stockholm

The International Conference on 'Genocide in the New Era’, which was jointly held by the 'International Advocates for Justice’ and 'Friends of Falun Gong’, convened in Stockholm, Sweden, on January the 26th 2004. The conference was attended by eighteen international human rights groups, many famous human rights lawyers and a few social activists.

At 1130am, the President of the 'International Advocates for Justice’ Mr. Zhang started a press conference. He was followed by a speech from the former British diplomat Lord Francis Thurlow who stated, “As history moves into a new epoch, in China, the genocide of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners is still happening based on rumours and lies. The manifestation of this persecution is so evil that no other historical records will be seen as its equivalent. But what’s more, governments of democratic states draw their interests in exchanging commercial business with China instead of raising the human rights issue of the persecution of Falun Gong. As a result, the Chinese Government doesn’t care about those demurral voices from every democratic country around the world. Instead, they believe that money has the power to do everything, particularly controlling public opinion."

The German International Human Rights Association representative Mr Peter Muller showed an article which was published in the German Magazine 'Bright Mirror’. The article reports a crime that happened in Germany, which involved illegally collecting samples of human organs, and it was written that all these dead bodies were from China; most of them were dead prisoners who died while in detention. Mr Muller also asked people to pay attention to all these human organs because many are actually from the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners who have been persecuted to death. He urgently urged that more people pay attention to the persecution.

Mr. Harry Wu, Chairman of the Laogai Research Foundation, remarked, “Compared to Hitler’s crime in slaughtering the Jews, the Chinese Government’s killing of innocent people is more covert, and is more sinister. This action is hidden under lies, for example, “for the sake of the stabilisation of society and citizens”, and the cruel persecution focuses on ruining innocent people’s will and morals. The genocide against Falun Gong practitioners is the most noticeable crime right now."

Finally, having filed the successful lawsuit against the former dictator of Chile, the prominent human rights lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier stated, “We know one day, maybe tomorrow, we will bring these dictators to trial. We are not in an isolated position, as we are here for innocent people instead of politics and economic benefits. What we want to do is bring Jiang, Li and Luo to justice.” Looking back on the case, he said, “There were different opinions among the legal circles of other countries around the world; some people thought Chile was too far away from us and that there was no hope in suing him. Even in such difficulty, we have walked through all of the hardships step by step, and successfully sent him to the trial of Justice."

The audience asked many questions and the spokesmen all answered respectively. The conference ended in an enthusiastic and active environment.

A Swedish national TV Station, New Tang Dynasty TV Station and the Sound of Hope Radio Station attended and reported on the conference. On the evening after the press conference, the largest TV Station in Sweden broadcast the filming of the conference three times.