Vice President of European Parliament Expresses his Concern for Falun Gong Practitioners’ Safety to the Speaker of the Parliament

On October 15th 2007, the European Union and China is again to hold human rights dialogue. Prior to the meeting, the Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott sent a letter to the Speaker of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Poettering, calling on him to raise concern about Falun Gong practitioners and other religious followers who are still detained and tortured, especially his concern about three Falun Gong practitioners.

In the letter, Mr. McMillan-Scott quoted the report on International Religious Freedom by the U.S. State Department. This report expressed strong condemnation of the continuous suppression of Chinese people’s religious beliefs by the Chinese Communist regime, especially the persecution and killing of Falun Gong practitioners by the regime.

Mr. McMillan-Scott’s letter also mentioned that in the report about torture in China written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Mr. Manfred Nowak, two thirds of people detained by the regime are Falun Gong practitioners. Lawyer Gao concluded that about 250,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still being detained. Mr. McMillan-Scott believes that the Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners has reached the stage of genocide.

In the appendix of his letter, Mr. McMillan-Scott mentioned that he has contacted many Falun Gong practitioners since May 2006. Many Falun Gong practitioners suffered various tortures during their illegal detainment by the Chinese Communist regime. They were deprived of sleep for many weeks, forced to stand still for many days, and were beaten brutally by electric batons. The Public Security Department of China also issued guidance to local officials that they would not bear any responsibility if the torture of Falun Gong practitioners leads to death.

Falun Gong practitioners are also requested to have their blood type and pressure checked; they are the victims of the Chinese army’s organ harvesting from living people for trade. In organ transplants performed in China in recent years, the donor of more that 40,000 transplants cannot be traced.

On the 21st of May 2006, Falun Gong practitioner Cao Dong met with Vice-President of the European Parliament Mr. McMillan-Scott in Beijing and informed the Vice-President of the brutal persecution suffered by himself, his wife and other Falun Gong practitioners around him. Two hours after the meeting, Cao was kidnapped by the Chinese Communist regime and was accused of “accepting an illegal interview”. Cao was illegally sentenced to five years imprisonment and has been secretly detained in the No. 3 prison in Tianshui.

Zhang Lianying is also a Falun Gong practitioner. On June the 14th 2005, Ms Zhang was looking after her infant daughter at home. The police forcibly entered her home and illegally detained her because she practises Falun Gong. During imprisonment in the Beijing Female Labour Camp, Ms Zhang was beaten mercilessly many times, hung up in the air, deprived of sleep and suffered various mental tortures. Her husband Niu Jinping also met the Vice-President of the European Parliament together with Cao Dong. Niu tried to appeal for his illegally detained wife.

Since the meeting, Cao Dong, Niu Jinping and Zhang Lianying have been continuously threatened and suffered retaliation by the Chinese Communist regime. On March 20th 2007 in the labour camp, Zhang Lianying suffered a fierce attack on her head while her neck was constricted by a rope, resulting in massive haemorrhage inside the skull at both sides. She was on the verge of death. But the Labour Camp continued to cut off completely her contact with outside world and repeatedly refused her family’s request to see her.

Gao Zhisheng, a renowned human rights lawyer in China, suffered long harassment by the Chinese Secret Police after he carried out an investigation into the persecution and torture of Falun Gong practitioners and published his findings. On August 15th 2006, Gao was kidnapped by the Chinese Communist regime. His family has also been harassed by the Chinese Secret Police. On September 20th 2007, Gao published an open letter to the United States Congress, appealing for their concern about the serious human rights abuse in China. In the letter he went to great length to describe the sufferings of Falun Gong practitioners because Gao considers that “the issue of Falun Gong is the biggest human disaster faced by mankind today”. Two days later, Gao was taken away by the secret police. Since then the whereabouts of Gao and his family has been unknown.

In the detailed reports about the persecution suffered by Cao Dong up to August 13th and by Zhang Lianying up to June 6th Mr. McMillan-Scott also enclosed their telephone numbers and names.

The Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott carried out three day long “journeys to seek the truth” in China in May 2006 and met Falun Gong practitioners. At the end of his journey, he concluded that the Chinese Communist regime is still a “brutal, arbitrary and paranoid” system.

After his visit to China, Mr. McMillan-Scott has been using various ways to appeal to the international community for their concerns about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, especially the on-going atrocity of the Chinese Communist regime’s organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. In August 2006, he joined the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG). He believes that a campaign of genocide is occurring in China. He is deeply concerned with this and warned that these people responsible for the crime would face punishment by law.