UN Forum: "Chinese State Terrorism - Persecuting Falun Gong"

During the 60th Human Rights Conference at the UN, Falun Gong and the NGO “International Education Development” held a forum together, the theme of which was “Chinese State Terrorism: The Persecution of Falun Gong.”

The forum was held on March the 31st 2004. A famous human rights lawyer hosted the forum. She began by pointing out that when speaking of terrorism, people often think of radical people who operate in other countries using terrorist means such as assassination, explosions and so on to cause hundreds of thousands civilian casualties and deaths, in order to force the other side to surrender. People often ignore another type of terrorism, which is state terrorism operated by a country's government. In fact, research by commissioners in charge of studying terrorism at the UN pointed out that the horrors caused to human beings by state terrorism is many times greater than that caused by non-state terrorism.

This lawyer further pointed out that, “At present, the most brutal state terrorism is the persecution of Falun Gong perpetrated by the Chinese Government. Before 1999, Falun Gong was popular in China and there were tens of millions practitioners. Therefore, when the Chinese government (Jiang’s group) started to persecute Falun Gong in July 1997, huge numbers of people were involved. Our organisation was concerned by the suffering from the start and helped Falun Gong practitioners to appeal to the United Nations. We saw that this persecution had resulted in hundreds of thousand of people being illegally arrested and brutally punished, and thousand of people being tortured to death.” Many UN human rights commissioners condemned the Chinese government. The persecution of Falun Gong was extensively reported, and it was pointed out that the cases of Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights being violated were so many that they have been far beyond the management capability of the UN human rights mechanism. The lawyer also said, “Today, our forum wants to make sure that everyone knows about the state terrorism against Falun Gong in China, and help to stop this persecution.”

Next, Dr. Chen Shizhong, working in Falun Gong’s human rights team, explained that such brutal state terrorism actually aims to destroy human conscience and force people to go against their own consciences. The worst thing about this is that it forms a vicious circle: the more people that give up their conscience, the more legitimate this crime becomes.

Chen Shizhong further explained that this persecution of conscience is the substance that the Chinese government uses to persecute Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners do not participate in politics, but only try to cultivate themselves to become good people. This inward cultivation will certainly lead to the upgrading of morality, courage and universal compassion. This is what the evil fears and wants to persecute. The goal and means of the Chinese government’s persecution of Falun Gong also clearly manifests this point.

What is the goal of the Jiang regime’s persecution of Falun Gong? Jiang said he would eradicate Falun Gong and transform all those who practise. This cannot be more obvious and states clearly that forcing Falun Gong practitioners to give up their own choices and violate their own conscience is the fundamental goal of this persecution. That is to say, the true motive is to cruelly kill the conscience.

The forms that this persecution takes are the most vile. The worst massacre is genocide and this is acknowledged internationally. Its goal is to destroy people's physical bodies and its result is a large number of deaths. However, the Jiang regime’s cruel slaughter of Falun Gong practitioners is even more sinister. Its goal is not to wipe out the physical bodies (although the slaughter does not care about the number of innocent deaths), but to force the sufferers to choose the death of either the physical body or the spirit - to destroy the sufferers’ will and make them give up their own consciences and dignity.

Therefore, to torture victims to the brink of death is a necessary means of this massacre. The wicked policemen publicly tell Falun Gong practitioners that they will make them no longer want to live. The only way out? To say Falun Gong is not good, “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance” is not good, and express gratitude for the government’s salvation. Telling the truth will mean murder but if they tell lies they will survive!

Chen Shizhong finished by saying that what the Chinese government wants to destroy is not only the victims’ conscience. When those policemen are ordered to cruelly beat their fellow man, to vent their beastly desires on their fellow woman, to be hoodwinked by the deceitful propaganda which is causing this hatred aren’t they also being destroyed to the point of no humanity?

Ms. Chen Ying, now studying in France, was imprisoned three times and shared her experience at the conference about being tortured and brainwashed while in prison. Her speech caused many people to shed tears. She said, “The torture and inhuman treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by policemen is widespread and serious. While in prison, the first thing they have to do is take off all of their clothes in public and have iced water poured all over them. Everyone has to go through this severe routine, including menstruating women. This may cause them to later have problems when giving birth, but the policemen don’t care.”

She talked about her experience of being injected with harmful medicine: “They handcuffed me to the window and forcibly injected the medicine into my left arm. When the medicine got into my bloodstream, I felt severe pain in my heart, then my heartbeat sped up and beat severely. Every heartbeat felt like it would cause my heart to explode. After that, I clearly felt that I was having difficulty thinking. My reactions and memory became dull. My left side also twitched frequently and it became more and more fierce. What we were fed in jails and labour camps may have had medicines mixed in. The food smelled strange. After eating it we would feel like throwing up and became very drowsy. In addition, there was brutal beating and torture. Once they beat me so badly so that the prisoners who took part in beating me cried and asked the policemen stop beating me."

"In the labour camps we were forced to work extremely intensely. We worked until midnight everyday, making products for Nestle Coffee and other companies. We were not allowed to sleep if we did not achieve the target. The temperature was very high during the summer and some practitioners fainted because of excessive exhaustion. Some got hypertension, some got heart disease and some were so tired that they had convulsions. We had to say “Report, yes” loudly when going in and out of the jail cells. If the sound wasn’t loud enough, we would be punished by being forced to shout 100 times at the wall. We had to lift our legs up to a 90 degree angle while walking and then stamp down with all our strength. While eating, we had to kneel down on the ground, hold the bowl over our head and shout loudly, “Report to the leader, prisoner XXX asks to have his meal.”

"There were times for washing in the morning and at night. There was only five minutes each time. It wasn’t possible to clean out in such short time. Because eating, drinking, urinating and sleeping took place in the same room, mosquitoes and flies were everywhere. In such a filthy environment, we packaged chopsticks. Although the wrapper indicated that they were disinfected, actually the whole operation was unhygienic. We didn’t our wash hands before we picked up the chopsticks, which frequently fell on the ground, and wrapped them. Now many small restaurants and big hotels even still use these extremely dirty chopsticks, and allegedly these chopsticks were exported."

Many female practitioners were usually pushed outside; all of their clothes were taken off and they stood outside for a long period of time. In winter, some practitioners were forced to freeze outside until they lost consciousness. During the long-term tribulations, I finally reached the limit of my endurance. I signed a guarantee that I would not practise the exercises. The pain of giving up one’s own belief and being transformed is unable to be described by words. The next day I cried all day long.

With some kind hearted people’s help, I eventually left China. I often ask myself: I only want to follow the standard of “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” to be a good person but they forced me to change from a respectable person to an accomplice who persecuted my fellow practitioners. It is Falun Gong that will save me once again. It gives me the courage to face all of this. No matter how depressed I am, I know the peace and the pure land of “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” can soothe my mind. Now that I am finally a Falun Gong practitioner again, I know what happiness and good fortune really is.

In the forum, Ms. Dai Zhizhen talked about her husband who was tortured to death in a brainwashing class in a Chinese jail.

Afraid to be exposed, the evil’s obstruction was in vain

During question time, two people were sent by Jiang’s regime, pretending that they were from an NGO. They wanted to use this opportunity to defame Falun Gong. However, they did not succeed. Actually, the evil ones fears that the world's people will come to understand the truth and they use all chances to prevent this. During the preparation time before the conference, representatives of Jiang’s regime tried to bribe the guards and staff and hamper the conference’s preparation so that the conference couldn’t start on time. The Falun Gong practitioners who attended the conference questioned the obstructers: why do they not allow us get into the conference on time? Why do they not go to other conferences’ entrance but only stay here? Is it because Chinese problems are discussed here? Is it because the persecution of Falun Gong is discussed here? People who were questioned couldn’t answer, but still blocked the doorway. Many attendees were blocked in the hallway and in the lobby. At this time a Falun Gong practitioner came and questioned an obstructer: "What on earth is the relationship between you and the Chinese Government?" The obstructers who heard this stood still like statues. The practitioner pushed the door and entered, and people attending the conference were able to get in. The obstructors still attempted to block the doorway during the conference. A practitioner detected the situation and stood at the door to prevent their pathetic tricks.