Switzerland: A Letter from the Swiss Falun Gong Association to the Swiss Federation President and Minister of the Economy.

Regarding the recent incident in South Africa, on July 1st, 2004, the Swiss Falun Gong Association wrote a letter to Mr. Joseph Deiss, Swiss Federation President and the Minister of the Economy.

Honourable Mr. President,

We are profoundly shocked to know that the Australian Falun Gong practitioners who were shot in Pretoria went to South Africa in their effort to expose the atrocities against Falun Gong by the Jiang group and to file a lawsuit against the two Chinese high-ranking officials directly involved in the persecution of Falun Gong. One of the two accused is China's Vice-president, the other the Minister of Commerce. Both of them had issued orders to arrest and torture Falun Gong practitioners. They have played a major role in planning and executing the persecution of Falun Gong. With their evil doing, over one thousand Falun Gong practitioners were imprisoned in labour camps.

When leaving the airport, these Australian practitioners were followed secretly by a white car. When the white car was closely following them, the Africans in the white car suddenly opened fire, targeting our practitioners, one of them the driver was shot in his feet so that he could no longer control the car. When he pulled over, the white car escaped immediately. Undoubtedly these gunmen must have been hired by Jiang's group to stop our practitioners from exposing the persecution against Falun Gong and filing a lawsuit against the visiting heads in South Africa. This act of terrorism confirms our judgement that all of the incident was premeditated and had been deliberately planned. Otherwise, how could these gunmen keep a close watch on the practitioners' car right after they were leaving the airport and open fire at those wearing yellow and blue clothing? Yellow and blue are the colours of Falun Gong clothing on which are inscribed the words "Falun Dafa."

We think that this shooting incident is an act of terrorism. We feel profoundly shocked by the brutal methods employed by the Jiang group to eradicate Falun Gong inside and outside China. In March, 2002, Jiang Zemin issued an order to shoot at Falun Gong practitioners. However, South Africa is not part of China. This shooting incident indicates that the Jiang group employed hired gunmen to attack Falun Gong practitioners, just like China used money to buy the votes of poor nations during the UN Commission on Human Rights Meeting.

As far as we are concerned, this shooting incident is very serious. The Jiang group has the audacity to attack Falun Gong practitioners overseas, which should never have been allowed. Otherwise, who knows which one of us will be the next victim? Where will the tragedy happen again? Will we become their next target? How could we tolerate these perpetrators who defied human and divine laws and violated international conventions, international law and also the law of the country they visited. These perpetrators attacked the practitioners just because they went to South Africa in their attempt to file a lawsuit against the perpetrators and to bring them to justice. What on earth are the perpetrators trying to hide from the public? Falun Gong practitioners expose the persecution to the public. What are they afraid of? What is happening in China? Why did they commit this kind of atrocity against practitioners? This criminal act just proved that they could do whatever they want to. They could even change the law at will. In fact, three months after their persecution of Falun Gong started the Chinese national legislature rushed through an anti-cult law to criminalise Falun Gong.

Mr. President, we hope that you can know how we feel: this shocking incident suggests that the Jiang group is pushing the atrocities against worldwide Falun Gong practitioners to a higher level. Falun Gong practitioners are very peaceful, never resort to violence and would not hit back when being attacked. They will never take revenge against those who inflicted atrocities on them. We hope that this shooting incident could enable our government to understand the brutal persecution against Falun Gong by the Jiang group and further to take action to condemn their criminal behaviour. For example, our government could release an official statement to condemn this criminal act. We should not delay our action until something like this happens to us. If we do not take immediate action it seems we are allowing them to commit another crime. We should have them understand that the persecution against Falun Gong is in violation of the law and the perpetrators will surely be brought to justice. Because this act of terrorism is against our law and threatens each individual’s civic rights, we hope that our government could take precautionary measures to protect our citizens from harm in any place.

We hope that you can allow some time out of your busy schedule to meet with us so that we can personally detail the shooting incident to you and express to you our concerns over the incident. Mr. President, we appreciate your attention to this letter and look forward to your reply.