Swiss MPs Appeal to the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government

Several Swiss parliament members wrote this letter to the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government to call against the prosecution of Falun Gong practitioners:

The Honourable Mr. Tung Chee-hwa,
The Honourable Ms. Elsie Leung,

We write you this letter to express our deepest concern for the Falun Gong practitioners on trial in your administrative region.

According to the reports of international media, the Hong Kong police detained 16 Falun Gong practitioners, including four Swiss nationals, on March 14th. The 16 practitioners peacefully practiced exercises and demonstrated outside the Chinese government’s liaison office, trying to arouse public awareness of Beijing’s crackdown on Falun Gong. Later, for the first time in Hong Kong, these Falun Gong practitioners were charged with public obstruction. It has been suspected that Hong Kong might be acting under pressure from Beijing.

We are informed that Hong Kong police used violent means to arrest these practitioners. For example, one elderly female practitioner was choked on the neck, another practitioner’s hair was pulled very hard, and still another practitioner was pressed very hard on the acupuncture point, which caused extreme pain. These violent means physically harmed nine of the practitioners to a certain degree.

The international media also reported a sequence of incidents, reflecting that Hong Kong is slowly losing its civil freedoms and democratic rights. On April 15th, the famous human rights campaigner, Mr. Harry Wu, was denied entry to Hong Kong at the Hong Kong airport though he had been allowed to visit Hong Kong for an interview several times before. On May 13th, one article in The Wall Street Journal reported that three Hong Kong democracy activists were prosecuted for their unauthorized demonstration. This sequence of incidents has aroused public concern for the Hong Kong Special Administration Region.

More disturbing is the fact that the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government proposed to introduce an anti-subversion law to strengthen its control over dissidents. Based on the April 18th report of The Economist, the draft of this anti-subversion law has already been finished.

We want to express our serious concern for these unprecedented incidents, and in particular for these Falun Gong practitioners who peacefully demonstrated. These incidents caused harm to Hong Kong’s international reputation.

We call on the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government to investigate into the charges of human rights violations, and to cancel the prosecution against Falun Gong practitioners.

Translated from:
http://yuanming.net/articles/200206/9059.html