United States: Falun Gong Practitioners Stage Anti-Torture Exhibition During the Global Compact Leaders Summit

On June the 24, the first ever Global Compact Leaders Summit was held at UN headquarters in New York. The summit recommended Global business leaders to change their corporate policies to acknowledge and support human rights, labour and environmental principles such as:

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally acknowledged human rights;

Principle 2: Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Principle 3: The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour.

On June 23 and 24, Falun Gong practitioners held an anti-torture exhibition at the plaza facing UN headquarters to help people visualise the torture methods used in China to persecute practitioners. The scene was very shocking and moving.

The plaza is located at a busy intersection with a continuous flow of vehicles and pedestrians. A lot of UN staff, VIPs who came to the summit, and media pass by the plaza to get into the UN headquarters. Practitioners displayed "Bring Jiang Zemin to Justice," "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong" banners and all kinds of anti-torture posters to tell passersby about the evil persecution happening in China and to call on all kind-hearted people to stand up against this persecution. Next to the anti-torture display, a large group of practitioners demonstrated the peaceful Falun Gong exercises, which formed a sharp contrast with the bloody torture and persecution.

Slave labour Exhibition

Near end of the plaza and the intersection, practitioners put a 20' by 12' steel cage in which many slave-labour products, such as toys and artificial flowers produced by Chinese labour camps and prisons were displayed. Behind the cage, a 20' long banner read "15 hours a day, 7 days a week, 100,000 slaves (Falun Gong practitioners) detained in 180 Chinese labour camps are persecuted for their beliefs in "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." Several practitioners sitting inside the cage acted as practitioners being forced to work as slaves in labour camps to make various products. One of them was, in real life, actually beaten to the point of unconsciousness for refusing to work as a slave in a Chinese labour camp.

Falun Gong practitioner Granny Chen said that she was illegally detained in the Beijing Women's labour Camp and was forced to make products such as chopsticks.

Torture Exhibition with Real-life Models

During this exhibition, using real-life models, practitioners demonstrated some of the torture methods employed at Chinese labour camps and prisons to persecute Falun Gong practitioners such as the Tiger Bench, burning the flesh, hanging people up and beating them, and force-feeding with the intent, not to nourish, but to cause pain and suffering.

Tiger Bench: During this torture, police tie the victim's legs tightly to the tiger bench using belts. They then put bricks or some other hard objects under the victim's feet. They keep adding layers of bricks until the belts break. Victims endure unbearable pain and often pass out during these torture sessions.

Many mainland Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to this torture method. For example, Liu Chengjun was forced to sit on one "tiger bench" for 52 days. He was also handcuffed to a "Dead person's bed" (People who were tied to the "Dead person's bed" and exposed to others not only experienced the extreme pain as if they were split apart, but they also had to relieve themselves on the bed. They suffer mental insults and physical tortures every moment.). Because of the brutal torture, he couldn't walk normally and was often dragged by guards inn order to move forward.

Mr. Liu Chengjun was arrested on March 5, 2002. He was severely tortured in prison and died at 4:30 in the morning on December 26, 2003. In order to cover up their crime, the criminals responsible for his death cremated his body at 10:40 a.m. the same morning, against his family's will.

"Hanging up and Beating": During this torture, practitioners would be hung up for a long time and beaten severely. Many practitioners have been beaten to death in this way. Ms. Zhao Xiaoping, 62, was a resident in Urumqi City and a retired teacher from a Ceramics Factory. She went to Beijing on December 28, 2000 to appeal against the persecution of Falun Dafa, and was detained in the Yanqing Detention Center. On January 4, 2001 Ms. Zhao was barbarically force-fed, interrogated by the authorities, and brutally tortured. Her face was disfigured with 3 big bumps on her head. Her body was covered with dirt, she could not speak, and her lips were tightly shut. She was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment on January 5, 2001. The doctors found that she was suffering from internal injuries that consisted of bleeding in her liver, spleen, and stomach. She was also diagnosed as having a swollen heart from the trauma she received, and kidney failure. As a result of these massive injuries, Ms. Zhao passed away on January 7, 2001.

Punitive force-feeding is not the same as the normal medical feeding procedure that is used to save lives. The persecutors in China use it as a cruel torture method to force practitioners to give up their belief. Hence, this force-feeding is very brutal. According to reports, up to 100 practitioners have died as a result of brutal force-feedings administered by non-professional persons (including prisoners), and a large number of practitioners have experienced serious side effects from these force-feedings.

Some practitioners are force-fed highly-concentrated salt solutions, chili soup, high-proof liquor, detergent, and even urine and feces. Some police instruct prisoners to torture practitioners who are being force-fed, such as forcing air into the tube, then stepping on the practitioner's stomach, which results in highly-concentrated salt solution spraying up from the stomach and burning the practitioner's eyes and nose. Some persecutors do not allow the practitioner to use the toilet, but instead hang the practitioner upside down, forcing them to urinate and defecate on themselves.

The People's Reactions

The passersby were shocked by the brutality shown by the exhibition. Many stopped to view the exhibition and posters and to talk with practitioners. A lot of kindhearted people expressed their sympathy asking, "What can I do?" and signed their names on a petition to call for an end of the persecution.

A young man said: "Physically seeing the torture is much different from reading news. The exhibition is very effective."

A professor who was on his way to a meeting at the UN told practitioners "You have done a good job."

A contributor to Human Rights Edition online of the Wall Street Journal viewed the exhibition for a while. She then called radio stations and requested that they come to interview practitioners. She said, "I know everything about the persecution happening in China. You have done a good job."

A Jewish gentleman viewed the torture exhibition and slave labor exhibition for a long time, and he told practitioners that he had signed a petition in support of practitioners.

Falun Gong practitioners will continue their anti-torture exhibition on June 25 and 26.