US Court Delivers Default Judgement Against Guo Chuanjie, Deputy Head of the 610 Office at the Chinese Academy of Science

On June 2, 2005, a New York Federal Court reached a default judgement in the absence of defendant Guo Chuanjie, the deputy head of the 610 Office. This office is also called the "Leadership Group Dealing with Falun Gong Issues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences". The judge ordered Guo Chuanjie to compensate victims for damages as well as financial losses inflicted on the plaintiffs.

On February 22, 2005, Falun Gong practitioners in Manhattan, New York filed a lawsuit against Guo Chuanjie, who was leading a group of visitors and planning activities in the USA. They charged Guo with genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. A subpoena and Bill of Complaint were delivered to Guo at Battery Park the next day.

Guo Chuanjie became the deputy head of the Leadership Group Dealing with Falun Gong Issues at CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in July 1999 and is the main person in charge of persecuting Falun Gong at the CAS. After he took the position of Party Secretary of the University of Science and Technology of China in 2003, he emphasised the importance of persecuting Falun Gong and "reforming" Falun Gong practitioners at the Ninth Party Conference of the University of Science and Technology of China. Interestingly, the location where the lawsuit was filed is directly across from the Statue of Liberty, a monument that symbolises freedom and democracy.

According to some of the confirmed persecution cases, since 2000, at least 27 lecturers or employees of the CAS were persecuted because of their persistence in practising Falun Gong. Methods of persecution include firing practitioners without reason, depriving them of their basic salaries, refusing to pay pensions, taking away government-subsidised housing, sending them to labour camps, sentencing practitioners to jail, refusing to register them [for study], suspending or expelling them, and generally discriminating against the teachers who were unwilling to give up their beliefs. The CCP forced scholars to leave the university or stopped them from studying at the university for long periods of time by taking them to a local brainwashing centre or a detention centre. Falun Gong practitioners have also been put on a list of people forbidden to leave China.

Since Zhao Zhifei, the deputy head of the Public Security Department in Hubei Province was convicted for his involvement in persecuting Falun Gong in December 2001, 13 lawsuits have been filed against Jiang Zemin in 28 countries. Thirty-four lawsuits against 22 high-ranking CCP officials who carried out the persecution are in progress, and some of these individuals have been convicted. These perpetrators cannot escape justice abroad. We believe they will also be brought to justice in China in the near future.