Germany: Falun Gong Practitioners Appeal on the Eve of Wen Jiabao's Visit to Germany

Before Wen Jiabao’s visit to Germany between September 13th and 15th, the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group in Germany sent an open letter to the German Government, media, and all its citizens, appealing to them to pay attention to China’s human rights abuses.

In the letter, practitioners mentioned Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Chinese lawyer and active human rights activist, who has been illegally detained by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since August 15th, 2006. He wrote three open letters to CCP leaders to expose the brutal persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners. He has also defended other unprivileged groups. Mr. Gao is a Christian. On December 14th, 2005, he openly announced his withdrawal from the CCP. During the following 262 days, he and his family members were strictly monitored by a large number of CCP secret agents. During this period of time, secret agents attempted several times to murder him but failed. On August 22nd, 2006, Amnesty International sent out an urgent call to rescue Gao Zhisheng.

In the open letter, the words that Gao used to describe the CCP were quoted, "This is the most unprincipled and rascal organization. The inhuman organization is bound to use lunatic means when its end is coming soon. We must be prepared to shed the last drop of our blood and be ready to give our lives to fight with it to the end."

In the letter, the practitioners also mentioned pilot Yuan Sheng. Mr. Yuan Sheng was a pilot with Eastern China Airlines and a Falun Gong practitioner. Just because he spread the news about the "Nine Commentaries on Communist Party " and withdrawing from CCP, Chinese police attempted to arrest him before taking off from Shanghai Airport. He was forced to make the difficult decision to seek asylum after arriving in the United States. He had to leave both his wife and 12-year-old daughter behind.

Vice-president of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott wrote an open letter to Gao Zhisheng on July 4, 2006, saying: "The Chinese Government is, as always, inhuman, stubbornly biased, and doing everything at will." This sentence is also quoted in the letter. In March 2006, the CCP's atrocity of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners was exposed. Since 2000, the CCP has been removing organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in labor camps, prisons, hospitals, and military institutions. Such news shocked McMillan-Scott and was the reason he met with two Falun Gong practitioners in China. He personally investigated the incident. Mr. Cao Dong, one of the two practitioner, saw holes in the remains of his practitioner friend. After meeting with Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott, Mr. Cao disappeared the same day. Nobody knows his whereabouts to this day.

On the morning of July 6th, former Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) for Canada David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas held a press conference in Ottawa releasing their "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China." They concluded that the allegations are true. The report points out, "From 2001 to 2005, it is estimated that the source of 41,500 transplants is unexplained." "This is an evil that has never existed before, beyond the memory of men," said David Kilgour at the press conference in Berlin on July 14th, 2006.

The open letter points out that in the past 57 years since the CCP took power, the tribulations forced on the Chinese people are too numerous to record. Eighty million Chinese people have died unnatural deaths. Even today, without going through any legal procedures, innumerable Falun Gong practitioners have been locked up in labor camps, prisons, hospitals, and military institutions, where their organs are removed for huge profits while they are still alive. Mr. Yuan Sheng is forced to leave his home country; no one knows where Mr. Cao Dong is; and Mr. Gao Zhisheng (a non-practitioner) is arrested.

The open letter mentioned the recent situation of three practitioners who have ties to Germany. On March 7th, 2005, after their application for asylum was denied, Mr. Jiang Renzheng and his wife, both of them practitioners, together with their two children, were deported to China. Since then, Mr. Renzheng has been arrested and sentenced to three years of forced labor because he refused to give up his belief in Falun Gong. Although a German Court later confirmed the refugee status of the Renzheng family, the CCP still put them under house arrest.

Ms. Wang Xiaoyan, wife of Mr. Zhang Zhentong, a Falun Gong practitioner at Leipzig University in Germany, is still imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Shenyang, China, for practicing Falun Gong. Her passport was confiscated by the Chinese police, so she is unable to return to Germany and reunite with her husband. On March 27th, 2006, she was arrested by police waiting at her doorway and in August she was illegally sentenced to two years imprisonment in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.

Finally, the open letter called on the German Government, media, and all citizens to help defend human justice and, in the end, stop the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.