Protecting Human Rights Is Not a Word Game

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited China during October of this year. At a press conference on the 11th, where he appeared with Li Zhaoxing (China's Minister of Foreign Affairs), one reporter inquired about whether he had "expressed concerns to China about its human rights records." Li Zhaoxing answered for Mr. Annan, and his answer was a bit of a surprise''. One would expect that Li would follow the standard approach for such questions and say something like "the Chinese people have the right to live," or maybe describe labor camps as though they are vacation getaways, or perhaps give some examples of how human rights has been protected in China. However, unexpectedly, Li Zhaoxing said, "... let me tell you clearly that the Constitution of the People's Republic of China contains explicitly written laws that protect human rights." It seems like the ambiguous phrase "explicitly written" is perhaps truly the limit of some people's understanding of the protection of human rights.

The media controlled by the former President of China Jiang Zemin has advertised to the entire world that the protection of human rights is written into the Constitution. Inside China, however, the people have not paid much attention to such information. It is because everyone knows that the Jiang regime is used to having its power replace the law. The claim of constitutional protection of human rights is one story while the reality is another. The reality is that Jiang's' regime' has the power and doesn't need to follow the law. Chinese people are accustomed to this and not at all surprised.

If a murderer says, "I wrote a promise ten years ago explicitly stating that I do not kill," can this statement push aside concrete evidence to prove the murderer's' innocence?

Speaking of China's human rights problems, the worst one must be the persecution of those who practise Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin personally initiated this persecution, and it has continued for five long years already. Because the scope of this persecution is extremely wide and the methods involved are unspeakably vicious and cruel, this persecution has become one of the most well-known violations of human rights in the world.

Sadly, the law regarding human rights protection that Minister Li was referring to had been written into the Constitution a long time ago. In this September, there were 26 death cases of innocent Falun Gong practitioners reported. These cases were confirmed with evidence obtained through underground channels. Among the 26 victims, 12 of them died in 2004, including one in September. The reports revealed widespread evidence of severe physical abuse and psychological torture. Many practitioners were kidnapped and forced to give up their financial assets, and their homes were illegally searched. Severe beating and vicious torture tactics were commonly used on the practitioners. They had been sent to forced labor camps, detention centers, and brainwashing centers. The local police and "610 Offices" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.] persecuted the practitioners and tried to force them into giving up their belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance." Today, inside China's prisons and labor camps, there are still over a hundred thousand Falun Gong practitioners being detained. On October 1st, 2004, at Tiananmen Square, a Falun Gong practitioner, for simply holding up a Falun Gong banner, was beaten by the police to the point of losing consciousness under the public gaze. She was then dragged into a police vehicle and taken away. The kinds of torture she faced, we do not know. But from the exposure of the countless cases of persecution during these past five years, we know that for simply saying "Falun Dafa is good," one may have to go through tortures such as the "Tiger Bench," electrical shocks, hanging, hot-metal branding, water cages, bamboo needles, forced drinking of hot pepper liquids, and over 100 other types of torment.

On October 10th, 2004, a Falun Gong website reported in its Latest News from China section that "Gao Rongrong Successfully Escapes Detainment, Police are in Panic and Fear." This article about Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Gao Rongrong exposed the facts of the extreme torture she went through in Longshan Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City simply for persevering in her practice of Falun Gong. The torture caused her face to be entirely disfigured, and her life was in serious danger. After this incident was exposed to the international community, Ms. Gao was still detained under tight surveillance inside the Number One Hospital affiliated with the' China Medical University'' in Shenyang City. After five months, she recently successfully escaped detainment. Now Shenyang Police and other legal departments are highly nervous because they do not want to be blamed for the incident. These days, all transit hubs of Shenyang' City including airports, train stations, and long-distance bus stations have large numbers of policemen and plain-clothed officers. They want to prevent Ms. Gao from leaving Shenyang City in fear that she may escape out of China and expose their dirty deeds to the international community. It is said that they may search from house to house to hunt down Ms. Gao.

Jiang violated the Chinese Constitution and the law to start the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999 because of his own selfish interests. To date, there are at least 1,060 Falun Gong practitioners who have been brutally killed for persevering in their faith. Unfortunately, the murderers wear the guise of law-keepers and are still at large, and they even continue to commit such crimes. We do not know how to enforce the protection of human rights that are supposedly protected under the Constitution. No one in any kind of official position dares to.

The inhuman persecution of Falun Gong is carried out to eliminate a faith, and huge maneuvers are required to cover up the lies. Ironically, this is what Jiang calls "the best time for Chinese human rights." In truth, no one in China enjoys the human rights that Minister Li referred to. There is no freedom of speech and no freedom of belief.

The Jiang clique has produced such enormous lies and treated laws as tools to legalize their crimes. They even changed laws with the wave of a hand'. How trustworthy are their promises? Because of their persecution of Falun Gong, the key members of Jiang's regime are being sued for genocide and crimes against humanity in the courts of over twenty countries. How can anyone trust them to obey any of the international treaties they signed? How can anyone believe that they will keep their promises to protect human rights?

The protection of human rights does not need word-games; it needs concrete actions. It needs the punishment of all the criminals who participated in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. To show that human rights are being protected, and to show that the government is determined to rule by the law, all of those who trample justice and violate the law, along with their accomplices, should be brought to justice.