Speech at a UK Press Conference by European Friends of Falun Gong

On Monday this week, a Falun Gong practitioner, David Liang, was driving from Johannesburg to Pretoria in South Africa, when his car came under gunfire from hitmen hired by Chinese officials eager to counteract the serving of legal papers against the two Chinese government officials, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, and Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai.

Both men have been implicated in ordering the torture and murder of Falun Gong practitioners in China during the five years of persecution since July 1999.

It is part of a very worrying trend worldwide which has seen Chinese officials exerting undue influence upon foreign governments in order to stop Falun Gong practitioners from causing political embarrassment to high-ranking Chinese officials on various visits to foreign countries.

We would urge the authorities in South Africa to investigate this incident thoroughly, and to uncover the people behind this terrible act of terrorism. How can a government of a civilised, democratic country, which itself has just emerged from a long period of horrific social and political injustice, justify an act of terrorism – let’s not mince words, that’s exactly what it was – in order to placate the officials of another foreign government, which it knows have been implicated in acts of barbarism and persecution against Falun Gong practitioners?

We would further urge all governments to condemn the actions of the Chinese authorities in persecuting Falun Gong inside China, as well as outside. This is a campaign of persecution, the likes of which the world has never seen before, and governments outside China must take the lead in condemning, and certainly not encouraging, for their own political and economic gain, the acts of torture and murder we have seen over the last five years.

European Friends of Falun Gong
30th June 2004