Morgunbladid (Icelandic newspaper): Representatives of Falun Gong Finish Meeting with Icelandic authorities

Representatives of Falun Gong left the country yesterday but their spokesman John Nania announced at a press conference yesterday that from behalf of Falun Gong their case is not closed.

“We are still determined to try to get some kind of a solution because of what happened here in June. We will meet with authorities here again if necessary. We know that both the media and the public in Iceland did soon realize that the government decision against us was simply wrong. We still think that it is very important that the Icelandic government makes their standpoint clear.”

Icelandic authorities have to be responsible for their actions

Nania says that from the standpoint of Falun Gong practitioners the Icelandic government has to take full responsibility for their actions, for example for depriving people of their fundamental human rights. If the standpoint of the Icelandic government will not be made publicly clear, then the government is in fact giving Jiang Zemin the message that he can impose his will on other nations and that he can go on with the persecution at home.

“Iceland is the first and only country,” says Nania, “that has barred Falun Gong practitioners from entering their country, but besides the human rights violations at stake here, both against practitioners that came here and the ones who tried to come here, the issue is in fact about ethical values in a much broader sense, that is, whether people are willing to protect human rights and freedom in general. Falun Gong practitioners bring only good things wherever they go and we think that we should be welcomed by any nation.”