Report by Spain Europa Press: Jia Qinglin Is Sued in Spain

On September the 8th 2004, Spain Europa Press reported on Falun Gong’s lawsuit in Spain against Jia Qinglin for genocide and the brutal persecution that is currently taking place in China against Falun Gong practitioners in China. Here is the report in English:

Falun Gong filed a lawsuit against a Chinese official during his visit to Spain. The People's Political Consultative Conference Chairman of China, Jia Qinglin, has been sued for genocide and torture.

On the 2nd of September, at the Spanish National Court in Madrid, Falun Gong practitioners filed a lawsuit against the People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman of China Jia Qinglin. Jia arrived in Spain on September the 3rd on an official four-day visit. He has been indicted for crimes of genocide and torture of Falun Gong practitioners while he was the Communist Party Secretary General of Beijing between 1999 and 2002.

Yesterday, Jia Qinglin had a short meeting with the vice-chairman of the Senate Isedre Molas and the vice-chairman of House of Representatives Manuel Marin. According to the lawyer representing Falun Gong, Carlos Iglesias, they both had already received Jia's crime list. In the afternoon, Jia also had a meeting with people from the business and financial world.

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China may be the biggest genocide case in the world after the Second World War. Indeed, if we look from the number of people suffering under this persecution and the cruelty of the methods of persecution, we could also say that this is the biggest genocide ever in human’s history.

This genocide has been hidden by the Chinese Community Party as they control all the media throughout the whole country. During these five years, this brutal persecution of peaceful Falun Gong practitioners has caused over a thousand people to be persecuted to death, including women, children and the elderly. “However, the international community still has not taken any effective steps to stop it.”

The persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP started in July, 1999. Falun Gong is an ancient way of cultivation; it was first introduced to the public by Master Li Hongzhi. Since then, in as short as six or seven years, Falun Gong became popular with people from all walks of life, it spread all over China, and nearly one hundred million people were practising it.

During the first seven years, the Chinese government had a supportive attitude towards Falun Gong. Falun Gong also won many prizes due to its huge contribution towards people’s health and moral quality.

Nevertheless, quick growth of Falun Gong arose panic in former chairman of China Jiang Zemin. “In China, nearly one in twelve people practised Falun Gong. Every morning, before going to work, they gathered together in local parks to practise Falun Gong. The number of people practising Falun Gong exceeded the membership of the Communist Party members and many practitioners are Communist Party members.”
In these circumstances, with no regards to the Chinese Constitution which protects freedom of belief, Jiang banned Falun Gong and began this large scale persecution. He ordered the formation of the “610 office” (the organisation was named after the date it was established, 10th June, 1999), which is similar to the Nazi Gestapo. Its only purpose is to destroy Falun Gong completely. During a Politics Bureau meeting, Jiang set down the policy for those Falun Gong practitioners who do not want to give up their belief: “Defame their reputation, bankrupt them economically, and destroy them physically”.

According to statistics, by now one thousand and fifty people have been tortured and persecuted to death. However, the real number of people dead could exceed five thousand. Lawyer Carlos Iglesias says, ”Because the Chinese authorities cremate the corpse so rapidly in order to destroy the evidence, it is very hard for us to find out the real number of people who have been persecuted to death.”

Additionally, there are over fifty thousand practitioners detained in labour camps. There, they suffered all kinds of torture, such as electric shocks on sensitive parts of body, force feeding, burned with red-hot iron rods, injection with drugs, etc. There are even cases of prison guards stripping female Falun Gong practitioners’clothes and throwing them into male cells.. Many practitioners have lost their lives under this extremely brutal torture.

This savage trampling has received strong condemnation by the UN Human Rights Committee. Besides, the parliaments of Europe, Canada, USA and Australia, as well as many human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also gave strong responses to this issue, they requested the immediate end of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

Lawyer Carlos Iglesias said, ”The persecution of Falun Gong has gone far beyond Chinese national boundaries. What we are facing now is an genocide case that has no regard for districts, races and nationalities, which aims at completely rooting out Falun Gong.”

For example, in Spain, there are many cases of the Chinese consulate refusing to renew Falun Gong practitioners’ passports without any written explanations. “ The Chinese consulate did not give any written explanations, they only said that the reason for not renewing their passport was because the bearer practises Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners have been put on their black list.” “The Chinese consulate's motive is to deprive their rights to join any Falun Gong or demonstration activities abroad.”

Fifteen accusers of different nationalities accuse Jia Qinglin of taking part in suppressing Falun Gong practitioners by genocide and torture while he was holding the post of the Communist Party Secretary General of Beijing.

This is another accusation which is filed in Spain after the one against Jiang Zemin for crime of genocide in persecuting Falun Gong. Now there are seventeen countries, including France, Germany, Belgium, USA, Australia, Taiwan, Tanzania etc., which are processing penal action that aims at the persecution by the CCP authorities of Falun Gong practitioners. As lawyer Carlos Iglesias said, "This is the first time in human history that one law case is litigated in five continent in the whole world. Additionally, he also emphasised that “we are not against the Chinese government but those criminals who took part in this persecution. Falun Gong has never took part in politics nor will be in the future, meanwhile, we are not interested in any economic profits.”

Carlos Iglesias also said that this year, Spain is the chairman of UNSC. By turns, it should let China know that people all over the world are paying attention to the human rights situation in China. “The Spanish government are very clearly aware of the suppression happening in China now.” However, regretfully, although the CCP authorities keep savagely trampling human rights as well as international rules.