United Kingdom: Practitioners Protest the CCP Persecution of Falun Gong during Li Changchun's Visit to London

On April 17, 2012, when Li Changchun, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was visiting No. 10 Downing Street, UK Falun Gong practitioners held a protest targeting this man who followed Jiang Zemin's policy of genocide in the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

The practitioners demanded that the CCP immediately stop the persecution of Falun Gong, release all detained Falun Gong practitioners, and bring the culprits—Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, and Zhou Yongkang—to justice. The practitioners also called on the British Prime Minister to uphold international justice, show concern for human rights, help stop the persecution, and start a comprehensive investigation into the CCP's atrocities of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

During Li Changchun's visit to Britain, Falun Gong practitioners unfold banners across Downing Street to protest the CCP persecution.

Li Changchun actively participates in the persecution of Falun Gong

According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, when Li Changchun was the CCP secretary of Guangdong Province, he organized and implemented the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This included imprisoning hundreds of practitioners in labour camps, brainwashing them, torturing them, and even killing them. Closely following Jiang Zemin’s genocidal policy, Li Changchun won the trust of then CCP head Jiang and was promoted to be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee in charge of propaganda.

As a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Li Changchun oversees all the CCP’s propaganda mouthpieces and have them aggressively spread lies that slander and demonize Falun Gong, deceiving the public and inciting their hatred of the practice. The CCP media uses both official and unofficial publicity and all the promotional tools, including broadcasting, films exhibitions etc. And all these outlets have played an important role in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

On July 2, 2004, when Li Changchun visited France, Falun Gong practitioners from both France and Australia filed a complaint with the Paris Court, accusing him of crimes in persecuting Falun Gong. On September 27, 2010, when he visited Ireland, practitioners from both Ireland and Australia brought a criminal suit to the Criminal District Court in Dublin against Li Changchun for his crimes of organizing and implementing the torture, killing, inhuman abuses, and genocide of Falun Gong practitioners during the time he was Guangdong Provincial Party secretary and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.

Protest in front of Number 10 Downing Street

On April 17, 2012, when Li Changchun visited Number 10 Downing Street, Falun Gong practitioners held an event opposite the Prime Minister's Office protesting Li Changchun's presence and demanding that the CCP immediately stop the persecution of Falun Gong. The practitioners held large banners saying, "Falun Dafa Is Good," "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong," “Bring Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, and Zhou Yongkang to Justice " and telling passersby about the fact that Falun Gong practitioners are being brutally persecuted in China.

Ms. Li, a Falun Gong practitioner participating in the protest, shared her personal experience of how she was cruelly persecuted in a forced labor camp in mainland China just because she practiced Falun Gong. Ms Li is from Liaoning Province. In early 2000, when she went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong, she was unlawfully imprisoned and forced to do hard labor for three years in a forced labor camp. She said that many practitioners nationwide went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. Detention centers and prisons in Beijing were so full of Falun Gong practitioners that the police had to take them back to where they came from. Once when she was sent back, she counted over 100 buses fully loaded with practitioners passing by.

After being deported to Liaoning, over 100 practitioners were pushed into one big bus for Shenyang City and were then transferred to detention centres and labour camps. Ms. Li and 15 other practitioners were first taken to the fourth detention centre in Shenyang, where they were told their blood would be tested. Every practitioner was forced to have blood drawn twice. After that, five or six practitioners were taken away, ostensibly to a “supervised and controlled hospital.” Worried about their safety, Ms. Li and other practitioners started a hunger strike to get those in charge to bring them back. The hunger strike lasted three days. Then the five or six practitioners were finally allowed to come back to the detention center. They said that they had been taken to a place underground and put in with those facing the death penalty. Ms. Li said, “When the crime of the CCP’s organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners was reported overseas, I was really terrified to recall this experience.”

After that, they were taken to Longshan Forced Labour Camp. The guards there pressured practitioners to renounce their belief by depriving them of sleep. Practitioners were usually not allowed to sleep for several days. Four or five people watched one practitioner, who had to sit on a small stool. She was not allowed to move or sleep. As soon as the practitioner's eyes closed, they would shout at her, pinch her, stick a needle into her, and beat and curse her. They wanted to destroy the practitioners' will. Ms. Li said that she was tortured like this for 8 days. Finally, she was transferred to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.

In Masanjia Labour Camp, she was tortured for more than a month, until she was too weak to take care of herself. She said, "Four or five people force fed me. They kept the feeding tubing in my nose. They said, 'Whenever you say that you give up the practice, we will pull it out.'” In just over a month, Ms. Li was tortured until she could not take care of herself. As she was extremely weak, she was transferred to a local detention center. On seeing her critical condition, the local detention center did not want to take any responsibility for her and called her family to take her home for treatment. Thus, Ms. Li returned home. Later, to escape persecution, she had to move.

Ms. Li said that her experience was just a drop in the bucket in this brutal persecution. Countless Falun Gong practitioners in China have been enduring detention, inhuman torture, and even having their organs removed against their will. It is said “Good is rewarded with good, and evil reaps evil.” The perpetrators will be brought to justice.