Article from Danish Newspaper Politiken about a Lawsuit Filed Against a Visiting Chinese Communist Party Official

15-year old Xiaotian Liu was in school the day his parents where arrested for practising Falun Gong.

The family lived together in a little house in China’s Hunan Province.

The authorities were also out to get Xiaotian Liu, but when the police showed up at school, he had already run off. A friend had tipped him off.

Escaped to his Uncle

He didn’t dare go back home that afternoon in November 2001, but hid in a wardrobe at his neighbour’s.

During the night, he crawled in through the window to his parents house, but only to find that ”everything was ruined and wrecked”.

Two days later, the neighbour didn’t dare hide him anymore.

Xiaotian Liu escaped to an uncle in another province, who one year later borrowed ”a lot” of money to get Xiaotian out of China.

Asylum in Denmark

In January 2003, 16 years old, he was left at Copenhagen’s Central Station, with no money or papers.

A woman passing by helped to get in contact with the Red Cross, and today he has asylum in Denmark.

This Monday at nine o’clock, Xiaotian Liu stood watch between two banners in front of Hotel Scandic in Copenhagen, where prosecutors from 80 countries are gathered for three days to discuss witnesses' and victims' judicial position in Criminal case.

Among the guest speakers is the Chinese Procurator General Jia Chunwang, whom three Falun Gong practitioners, one of them being Xiaotian Liu, filed a torture complaint against to the police on Sunday.

Violation of Human Rights

He is guilty of this, because Chunwang, according to Falun Gong, has among other things been leader of a special office which has lead the Chinese Government’s campaign against Falun Gong since 1999.

It is the first time that Falun Gong practitioners residing in Denmark will try to bring a high-placed Chinese official to court for human rights violations.

Abuse and torture

The Chinese Government banned Falun Gong in 1999, labelling it as a threat to the Chinese state.

Documents from the UN, Amnesty International and the American Foreign Ministry, tell of abuse and torture against Falun Gong.

”2789 practitioners murdered in China since July 1999”, reads one of the banners the now 19-year old Xiaotian Liu held up Monday while he told his story.

Parents died in prison

It is only one year since he came to learn about his parents’ fate. Both died in prison, a few months after they where arrested. Until last summer he still had hope that they one day might reunite.

”I was so heartbroken. They where both healthy and fit. I’m sure they where tortured in prison”, he tells. ”It wasn’t until I came to Denmark, that I started to get interested in Falun Gong. I wanted to know why my parents where put into prison. Today I practise Falun Gong myself, have found my identity and become a better person”.

Electrical shocks

A couple of hours later, Xiaotian Liu told the same story at a press conference Falun Gong held in Denmark.

Here, another practitioner told about how he was tortured by electrical shocks in a Chinese prison.

The State Prosecutor for Special International Criminal cases is going through the complaint filed by the Falun Gong practitioners.

It was not possible to get a comment from the State Prosecutor Birgitte Vestberg yesterday, as she is attending the same conference as the Chinese Procurator General.

Still, Vice-State Prosecutor Lars Plum, from her office says it is to early to say anything about the case.

”The material we have received is quite extensive”, he says. The danish lawyer representing Falun Gong, Tyge Trier, did not have any comments about the complaint for the time being.