“The Society for Threatened People, will take measures to ensure that leading Chinese politicians who have ordered the annihilation of Falun Gong will suffer the legal consequences of their acts.”

Ladies and Gentlemen and dear friends,

Five years after the start of the persecution of Falun Gong, the repression of Falun Gong is escalating in China. Since the time of its prohibition on July 20th 1999, more than 1,000 practitioners of this cultivation way have come to a violent death at the hands of the Chinese security forces. In April and May 2004, more than sixty Falun Gong practitioners were violently killed in police stations. There are still tens of thousands of practitioners being held in re-education camps where they have been taken without due legal process.

The Society for Threatened People accuses the People’s Republic of China of blatant disregard for their constitutional guarantees of freedom of belief and for purposely criminalising a peaceful spiritual practice. Beijing is conducting a systematic annihilation of a spiritual group consisting of millions of followers who are viewed as a threat to the exclusive power of the Communist Party. Unfortunately, to this date, the new Chinese leadership has largely perpetuated the policies of the former party leader and head of state, Jiang Zemin.

Falun Gong practitioners are regularly tortured after they are taken to police stations, although torture is officially prohibited in China, and although the People’s Republic is a signatory of the Anti-torture Convention and thus committed to enforce the law against torture nationwide.

Neither the use of torture, nor the violent deaths of Falun Gong practitioners are being prosecuted. Not only do police officers go unpunished but are also rewarded by their superiors for especially brutal measures taken against the spiritual group. Thus, the People’s Republic of China does not only disregard her own laws but also international law. We, the Society for Threatened People, will take measures to ensure that leading Chinese politicians who have ordered the annihilation of Falun Gong will suffer the legal consequences of their acts.

By Ulrich Delius (Asia Analyst, Society for Threatened People)

Translated from German at http://de.clearharmony.net/articles/200407/18167.html