Aug. 6, 2009: Falun Gong News Bulletin

News from Inside China

FDIC: “Urgent Appeal: Dozens of Lives at Risk in Daqing Prison as Authorities Systematically Starve Falun Gong Prisoners of Conscience”
FDIC: “Urgent Appeal: Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner Abducted in China, at Risk of Torture”
Chinese Human Rights Defenders: “Three Lawyers Detained for Defending Falun Gong Practitioners”

News from Outside China

The Prague Post: “Woman tells of life in Chinese labor camp: Jailed for joining Falun Gong, forced to pack 8,000 chopsticks daily”
Taipei Times: “Editorial: The need to defend one’s own”

FDIC: “Urgent Appeal: Dozens of Lives at Risk in Daqing Prison as Authorities Systematically Starve Falun Gong Prisoners of Conscience”
August 3—The lives of Falun Gong practitioners held in a prison in Northeast China are in grave danger as authorities ordered in mid-July that they be forbidden from eating…. According to multiple reports from inside China, on July 8, 2009, the newly-promoted Deputy Warden of Daqing Prison Li Weilong ordered that all divisions holding Falun Gong practitioners forbid them from going to the canteen and that no one be permitted to bring them food. Li—who eyewitnesses say has himself been known to beat Falun Gong detainees—gave further orders on July 12 to force feed certain practitioners gruel mixed from raw corn flour, water, and large amounts of salt.

The current decision to starve Falun Gong detainees in Daqing Prison is the latest in a history of systematic abuses meted out against practitioners held at the facility….The Center more recently learned of the death of 43-year-old Mr. Zhu Hongbing (???), who had worked until his arrest in 2001 at the Seventh Oil Extraction Plant under the city’s Petroleum Bureau. Zhu died in his home on June 18, 2009, almost six months after his release from Daqing prison, where he had been held for seven years following a show trial. A photo of Zhu taken after his release from prison and recently obtained by the Center shows his emaciated body.

To read more, view the photo of Zhu Hongbing, and obtain an address for sending an appeal letter: /article/894/?cid=84

FDIC: “Urgent Appeal: Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner Abducted in China, at Risk of Torture”
August 4—Taiwanese passport holder and Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Shao Yuhua was abducted by Chinese security agents on July 31, while visiting relatives in China’s Henan province and has not been heard from since. The Falun Dafa Information Center fears that she is at grave risk of torture and calls on the Taiwanese government to do its utmost to ensure Ms. Shao’s immediate release and safe return to Taiwan.

Ms. Shao, 56, was born in Nanyang, Henan province, but obtained a Taiwanese passport after marrying a Taiwanese citizen and resides in HsinChu Prefecture. She learned Falun Gong in Taiwan and has practiced it since December 2007. In early July, Ms. Shao traveled back to Nanyang with her 10-year-old daughter in order to visit her sister. In the early morning of July 31, Ms. Shao reportedly received a phone call at her sister’s home from an unknown man requesting that she come downstairs. After she went down she did not return and has not been heard from since.

To read more: /article/895/?cid=84

Chinese Human Rights Defenders: “Three Lawyers Detained for Defending Falun Gong Practitioners”
“CHRD learned on July 15 that three lawyers in different locations in Northeastern China have been detained in recent weeks by local authorities. The three, Liu Ruiping (???), Wang Yonghang (???), and Wang Ping (??), who have previously been harassed because of their work defending Falun Gong practitioners, were seized between July 2 and July 8 in Shandong and Liaoning Provinces.

Wang [Yonghang] and his wife were both taken away; his wife was released the next day. When she went to the police station on July 6, police presented a criminal detention warrant stating that her husband had been detained in accordance with Article 300 of the Criminal Code. Article 300… is regularly used against Falun Gong practitioners [to imprison them for up to 12 years]. Wang is believed to be held in Dalian City PSB Detention Center.”

The Prague Post: “Woman tells of life in Chinese labor camp: Jailed for joining Falun Gong, forced to pack 8,000 chopsticks daily”
July 29—“Xiong Wei spent two years in a Chinese labor camp. Her crime was membership in the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement… Back in Beijing, Xiong was so enthusiastic about the [health] effects [of Falun Gong] that she felt compelled to spread the word. She ordered a printer and software that allowed her to access Falun Gong Web sites, which are banned in China, and started producing the leaflets that would later lead to her arrest.

On the day of her arrest, three men who turned out to be undercover police officers grabbed her in broad daylight and stuffed her in the trunk of a car…After spending eight hours in a cell built so that she could only stand up against a wall, Xiong was transported to the women’s labor camp in Daxing, a Beijing suburb, where she was made to pack between 6,000 and 8,000 chop sticks per day.

Xiong managed to avoid the most severe forms of torture because, from the beginning, her case was high profile, generating an outpouring of letters and support from the International Society for Human Rights.”

Taipei Times: “Editorial: The need to defend one’s own”
August 5—“Reports on Saturday that two Taiwanese citizens were detained by Chinese police were a stark reminder of the unbridgeable divide between democracy and authoritarianism. Shao Yuhua (???), a Falun Gong practitioner who immigrated from China 11 years ago, was taken away, along with her Taiwan-born daughter, while visiting her family in Henan Province, the Taiwan Falun Dafa Association said.

The arrests illustrate the severity of China’s crackdown on Falun Gong… It is unclear how many people have been sentenced to prison or thrown into the extrajudicial laogai system, in which prisoners have no recourse to courts, their families may not be informed of their whereabouts or sentence, and sentences are subject to arbitrary extension.

If Taipei keeps quiet on Shao’s detention, it will be failing its obligation to protect its citizens. It must push decisively and sincerely for the release of Shao and her daughter.”

[FDIC editor’s note: According to the most recently available information, Shao’s daughter is no longer being held in custody; Shao remains in detention]