Radio France International: Renowned scholars from China refer to the persecution of Falun Gong as unjust

On December 5th, 2007, Radio France International reported the well-known economist Mao Yushi’s opinion on the system of re-education through labour used by the Chinese Communist Party to persecute many Falun Gong practitioners. Mr Mao stated, "The persecution of Falun Gong is illegal. It is contrary to Chinese citizens’ right to freedom of belief. The Communist Party uses political means to persecute a faith based group that has absolutely no political intentions. This is completely unreasonable and it is a problem that needs to be solved sooner or later".

The report said that Human rights lawyer Lee Heping from Beijing strongly condemned the re-education through labour system, said that the system was introduced to China by the former Soviet Union and the former Soviet collective farm system is derived from the slave system. Re-education through labour system caused China’s indescribable human rights disaster. The damage it brought to the Chinese people was extreme and can be described as monstrous. During Li’s years of being a lawyer, he personally witnessed the harm brought to the Chinese people by the system of re-education through labour. He said, "This system is illegally employed in many areas by the Chinese authorities. They wantonly use it against petitioners, Falun Gong practitioners, human rights advocates and others. The system does not need reason and evidence and people were arbitrarily arrested. In reality this kind of things occurs in too many cases, I’ve heard many experiences of injustice in the labour camps and they were really outrageous". According to Li Heping, "Beijing authorities gave the following order: when the number of appealers coming from each city and province exceeds a certain number, the local secretary of the Politics and Law Committee and the President of the Court would be dismissed. This is why the local governments view the appealers as their enemies, because they are a direct challenge to their political life. They spare no efforts in employing the re-education system to brutally repress the appealers".

Forty three Chinese scholars and lawyers, led by the famous economist Mao Yushi, published an open letter calling for the abolition of re-education through labour system. They believe this system of punishment conflicts with basic human rights and the Constitution, and it goes against the morality of the modern society. Citizens are deprived of their entitlement to judicial proceedings, open trial and the right of appeal. The system gradually became a tool to persecute appealers, human rights defenders and reporters. As a result there are numerous misjudged and unjustified cases, which brought to China an indescribable human rights catastrophe.

Original reports see: http://www.rfi.fr/actucn/articles/096/article_4855.asp