France: Seminar on China's Human Rights held in Paris

On the night of June 5th, 2008, a human rights seminar was held in the (Fontenay-sous-Bois) in the Paris region of Val de Marne. A number of the city's Green Party members and the French representatives of Chinese organisations as well as individuals attended and spoke. Tang Hanlong, head of the French Falun Gong Association, was also invited to speak about Falun Gong and the nine years of persecution Falun Gong has suffered in China since 1999.

The seminar on China's human rights was sponsored by Laurence Abeille),the Paris region Greens senator, vice Mayor of the city of Fontenay-sous-Bois with the aim to provide the city and some Chinese Association exchange opportunity to understand China's human rights status. The people who were invited to speak at the seminar included French Falun Gong Association principle Mr. Tang Hanlong, a senior reporter and former director of Radio France International, Mr. Wu Baozhang, as well as French China Democratic Party Chairman Mr. Wu Jiang.

The seminar was chaired by Sergio Coronado from the International Affairs Committee of the Green Party. At the meeting, Mr. Wu Baozhang, as the journalist ever working on mainland China Media and Radio France International, took his experiences and observations on Chinese society as examples to indicate the Chinese Communists’ repression of the Chinese people has never stopped and the Chinese Communists safeguard the interest of Centralisation of power at the expense of the people. He believes that China must completely abandon the communist system.

Mr. Tang Hanlong discussed Falun Gong and its nine year suffering of cruel persecution since 1999. Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and manipulated media propaganda in mainland China, framed and trapped Falun Gong and created a pretext for repression and lies overseas.

Many of the participants didn’t understand the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong; they were shocked by the atrocities. An older woman wanted to learn Falun Gong after she listened to Tang Hanglong’s speech.
Jean Desessard from the Parliament's Green Party also gave a speech, he was pleased the Chinese could tell their history, their lives, their difficulties just like French people. He encouraged the participants to talk about China's human rights issues, particularly the persecution of Falun Gong, because there were not many people who knew about this matter.

Some citizens who ever toured China talked about their impression of China, they felt that CCP never stopped or decreased its controlling, as well as the repression and deception of people and sending spies to watch. Based on the experiences of tourists, Chinese people didn’t say a word about China’s politics.

After the seminar they didn’t dare to say anything, because they were worried that they would be reported by people around and then being persecuted. When the Seminar was over, some participants expressed that they would tell others about the truth of China’s human rights and encouraged other people to organise a similar seminar.

Besides, vice Mayor Madam Laurence Abeille had assisted to pass a plan in City council to collect signatures on urging Chinese Government to improve human rights, and the plan would be implemented in the whole city.