Spain: Clarifying the Truth at the Contemporary Human Rights Forum at Comillas University

Spanish Dafa practitioners were invited to attend the Contemporary Human Rights Forum, held at Comillas University, from April 19th to the 21st 2004. The forum was held jointly by the Jurisdiction Department of Comillas University, the Human Rights Research Center of the Home of Bartolomé, Carlos III University of Madrid, and the unit of Humanity Support and Social Commitment of the Comillas University. The goal of the forum was to probe into the current situations of human rights, and investigate how to overcome the difficulties that human rights are facing.

The subject of the forum on April 21st was 'The Responsibility of Human Rights Media.' The VIPs invited to the meeting were Mr. Juan Pedro, Director of the News Department at Spanish TV Channel 5, and Mr. Jose Antonio, a prestigious battlefield reporter associated with Spanish National TV. In the meeting, the VIPs delivered speeches about basic human rights, freedom of speech and media, covering news or selling news. They mentioned the decisive role played by the media in a modern society, the important political, social and historic responsibilities that the media have to take on and the dilemma that journalists are facing between business interest and professional ethics in a commercialised society.

In a statement made at the forum, a Falun Gong practitioner gave an account of the ongoing brutal persecution against Falun Gong in China. He said, “In China, all of the media including TV, broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, computer networks, are all controlled and manipulated by the autocracy. The government utilises these propaganda tools to cover up and distort the truth, deceive the public and spread lies. The Chinese media’s freedom of news is seriously infringed, let alone the citizens’ rights in knowing the facts and freedom of speech.”

“The most recent example is the cover-up by Jiang’s group of the facts regarding SARS, so as to protect their interest because they believed stability overwhelms everything. They told lies to the whole world, which led to a rampant spread of SARS virus worldwide, and cost several hundred innocent lives."

Something even more acute and evil is the ongoing brutal persecution that the Jiang’s group has conducted against Falun Gong over the past five years. In 1999, out of personal jealousy, Jiang began the genocide against Falun Gong, a very popular cultivation practice with about one hundred million practitioners in China. Jiang’s group manipulated and controlled the media so that a series of lies, rumours and slanders were made against Falun Gong.

Shockingly, they even fabricated the so-called 'self-immolation incident' in Tiananmen Square to achieve the goal of confusing the general public, bringing about the people’s hostility against Falun Gong, and covering up the monstrous crimes they had committed against several hundred millions of innocent Chinese citizens.

When compared with the well-known massacre of June 4th 1989, the scale of the persecution against Falun Gong is even larger. Its characteristics are more vicious, and the means are far more fierce and concealed. In the June 4 massacre, all the people around the world witnessed on TV the bloody slaughter by the Chinese army of the unarmed democracy advocates and university students. Therefore, every country condemned the atrocity of the Chinese communist regime. However, the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners has been carried out in dark corners. Those Falun Gong practitioners who were illegally imprisoned in labour 're-education' camps or psychiatric hospitals suffered from inhuman brain-washing, forced labour, cruel beating and brutal torture. Some of them were even tortured to death. What is even more wicked is that Jiang issued the evil order, 'Beating to death will be treated as suicide'. This order has made the persecution even more unscrupulous. Jiang’s group also blocked information channels to prevent the outside world from understanding the truth of the persecution. All of the foreign media reporters and human rights organisations have been forbidden to investigate the persecution independently.

Falun Gong practitioners in China face the tyrannical dictatorship and strict information seal-off. They constantly face the danger of being arrested, detained, tortured and persecuted to death. Through various peaceful approaches, including interrupting TV broadcasts, distributing materials and publishing information on the Internet, Falun Gong practitioners clarify the truth to the general public. At the same time, their actions also defend the citizens’ rights to know, freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of belief and freedom of assembly. These basic human rights have been severely violated in China.
At the meeting, Falun Gong practitioners called upon all of the media and journalists in the world, "Please carry out your sacred duties. Use your justice and conscience to unravel the truth of the persecution. Help Falun Gong practitioners to stop this violent infringement against human rights and humanity."

The Falun Gong practitioners’ statement shocked.the participants a great deal. A law school professor said, “Although I have heard about the human rights conditions in China, I did not realise that it was so bad.” Another participant added, “Such a major event has occurred in China, but we didn’t know. We hope that we can provide help to the people who are suffering from the persecution."

After the forum, practitioners further clarified the truth to the two invited VIPs, and presented them with some leaflets. They told the practitioners that they would read the materials carefully and would forward them to their Consulates in China.

Many forum attendants encircled Falun Gong practitioners for flyers and CDs, hoping to obtain more information about Falun Gong. Because of the untiring efforts of Falun Gong practitioners all over the world, more and more people understand the truth. We strongly believe that when the truth is explicitly known to the world, the evil persecution will be brought to an end.