The Effect of Overseas Lawsuits Against High-Ranking Chinese Communist Party Officials

Lawsuits filed outside China against high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have become an important aspect of Falun Gong practitioners' efforts to resist the persecution.

By June 2005, forty-seven such lawsuits have been filed. The defendants are dozens of CCP officials including Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang, Zeng Qinghong, and Li Lanqing. Thirty-five lawyers from twenty-nine countries are representing or advising the plaintiffs, making this the largest group of international lawsuits on human rights abuses since World War II.

Some people may ask, "As soon you file a lawsuit, he runs back to China. What can you do to the defendants? What good is it to sue them?"

When Hu Jintao visited the United States and Canada in 2005, the Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai originally planned to come as a member of the delegation. However, because Bo was sued in the United States a year ago when he accompanied Vice Premier Wu Yi to the United States, Falun Gong practitioners appealed to ban Bo from entering the United States. In the end, Bo did not come with Hu. Who wants to bring someone facing criminal lawsuits in various places on their visit to other countries? Who wants an accompanying official to steal the media's limelight from the country's chairman? As the Minister of Commerce, if Bo could no longer travel outside of China to negotiate business, despite being in his prime, does he have any political future?

The lawsuits outside China obviously have a strong effect in restraining the CCP officials who knew no limit in the persecution. Actually, CCP officials who follow Jiang Zemin and his gang in the persecution care about nothing but their rank, promotion, personal interest, wealth, children, going abroad, and their future after they retire. Many of them are corrupt officials who accept bribes and swindle public money. They dream about moving their wealth overseas, and they try everything they can to send their children to foreign countries where they can move to in the future. These officials also really want the opportunity to go overseas themselves. Besides sightseeing, they can also make money and use the experience to embellish their political resume.

However, with the lawsuits for torture, genocide, and crimes against humanity, these officials don't dare to leave China anymore. Their political futures are limited. Even though they are protected for now by the Jiang group, the situation is bound to change. For the officials facing lawsuits, their political future is failing, and they won't be able to move their wealth overseas. This is the best warning for the officials who participated in the persecution to gain political capital.

Zhao Zhifei, deputy director of the police bureau in Hubei Province, and Bo Xilai, Minister of Commerce, both personally received subpoenas when they visited the United States.

The delivery of the subpoena to Jiang was more dramatic. Jiang was sued when he visited Chicago in October 2002. However, the CCP publicly denied that it happened. The plaintiff's attorney then used FedEx to deliver the subpoena to China. It first reached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The special nature of the piece put the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a dilemma. They can't say "there's no such person," but neither can they sign and accept it. They forwarded the piece to the Office of Jiang Zemin in Zhongnanhai. T. Huang with Jiang's office signed off on the receipt, which has become important evidence of the delivery of the subpoena.

The defendants' reactions demonstrate the power of these lawsuits.

Jiang used diplomatic channels to tell the United States and other governments that they are "willing to compromise on everything to stop the lawsuit from going forward." When Zhao Zhifei received the subpoena at a hotel in Manhattan, he immediately changed his plan and returned to China. Chen Zhili, former Minister of Education and Jiang's dedicated follower, was visiting Tanzania when she received the subpoena. She didn't find an excuse to run away and became the first person to appear in court for being involved in the persecution. Su Rong, former deputy CCP Secretary for Jilin Province, received a subpoena when he was visiting Zambia with Wu Bangguo. After nearly ten days on the run and in hiding while being wanted by the Zambia police, he escaped to south Africa and eventually to China after much difficulty.

Every lawsuit is like a stick hitting the defendants on the head. It is a wake-up call for the collaborators of the defendants. It is a bucket of water on the rampant flames of the persecution.

The CCP, which is accustomed to killing and persecuting people at will, thought nobody could do anything to control them. But as the universal values of humanity become widely accepted, as more and more exchanges happen between countries, the Chinese people have learnt to use justice and international laws as a powerful tool to restrain CCP tyranny.

An announcement published by the Falun Dafa Association on October 9th, 2005 states, "Those who refuse to do the right thing and instead continue to follow Jiang's scoundrel regime's persecution policies will be severely punished as perpetrators of unforgivable crimes." "At this critical historical moment, the Falun Dafa Association has made a special announcement: From today on, overseas Falun Gong practitioners will file civil or criminal lawsuits against all important government or CCP officials who participate in or continue to implement the persecution of Falun Gong and as a result, commit new crimes in addition to those they have already perpetrated against Falun Gong."

The ultimate goal of Falun Gong practitioners' lawsuits is to stop the persecution. On the one hand, the lawsuits serve to bring this long-term, almost underground persecution to the attention of the international community, using powers of the international community to constrain the CCP's brutality and punish the criminals using international laws. On the other hand, the lawsuits send a warning to the other officials who have participated in the persecution, giving them an opportunity to redeem themselves and make up for their mistakes, while encouraging the kind-hearted people who believe in the power of justice.