January 4, 2007- Falun Gong News Bulletin

• CONFIRMED DEATH TOLL OF FALUN GONG IN CHINA TOPS 3,000
  
• CHINESE ARMY HOSPITAL ADMITS USE OF FALUN GONG ORGANS
  
• FALUN GONG FOUNDER RESPONDS TO SWELL OF NEW YEAR’S GREETINGS
  
• HEAD OF BEIJING OLYMPIC COMMITTEE SUED IN AUSTRIA
  
• AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ORDERED TO PAY LAWSUIT COSTS TO FALUN GONG

CONFIRMED DEATH TOLL OF FALUN GONG IN CHINA TOPS 3,000
Last week, the confirmed number of people killed in China for practicing or supporting Falun Gong topped 3,000. According to Chinese government sources, the true death toll is estimated to be as high as 10,000 or more. Most of the deaths resulted from severe forms of torture, including beatings, being shocked with 30,000-volt electric batons (often in sensitive places, such as the anus, genitals and mouth) and being submerged in sewage water for prolonged periods of time (see: torture methods). Since the Chinese Communist regime launched the suppression of Falun Gong in 1999, extreme violence — combined with a systematic propaganda campaign and a wide range of extortion and suppression tactics — has been used throughout China to coerce Chinese citizens into giving up their Falun Gong practice. The Falun Dafa InfoCenter has verified more than 63,000 cases of torture. Millions of Falun Gong men and women have been detained or sent to forced labor camps without trial. Untold thousands have been driven from their homes and workplaces by the threat of torture and imprisonment from local police.

CHINESE ARMY HOSPITAL ADMITS USE OF FALUN GONG ORGANS
According to a Dec. 29, 2006 report from China, a staff member at the Air Force 281 Hospital in Beidaihe District, Qinhuangdao City confirmed to an undercover investigator that organs used at the hospital to perform transplants come from (unwilling, imprisoned) Falun Gong practitioners. The hospital has recently taken out advertisements in local newspapers offering transplants for kidneys, livers and, more recently, lungs. The statement is the latest in a string of shocking admissions by medical staff in hospitals across eight provinces that have told investigators they get organs from Falun Gong practitioners. In some cases, the staff members boast at how healthy and “fresh” the organs are, and how quickly a match can be found. In July, former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) David Kilgour and human rights attorney David Matas issued an independent report on organ harvesting in China (see: news). The report concluded that a large number of people who practice Falun Gong were being killed for their organs. The report also said there was no other explained source for the more than 40,000 transplants that have taken place in China since 2000.

FALUN GONG FOUNDER RESPONDS TO SWELL OF NEW YEAR’S GREETINGS
The Epoch Times, January 3, 2007 – “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tried for over seven years to eradicate the peaceful meditation practice of Falun Gong, but an exchange of New Year’s greetings suggests that Falun Gong is more than surviving the CCP’s campaign. On New Year’s Day, in response to thousands of New Year’s greetings, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, published on the Falun Gong Web site Clearwisdom.net a message addressed to the people of the world… Greetings were sent from every corner of China, including remote rural or mountainous areas and also ethnic areas, such as Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region — the home of the Hui people. A wide cross-section of Chinese society is also evident in the greetings from China… Such greetings show the failure of an intensive propaganda effort meant to turn the people of China against Falun Gong. This propaganda effort was one cornerstone of a systematic and comprehensive persecution that began on July 20, 1999.”
Full story: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-1-3/49992.html

HEAD OF BEIJING OLYMPIC GAMES SUED IN AUSTRIA
Austria Press Agency reported on Dec 16 that the Austrian Falun Dafa Association filed a suit in Vienna against Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee, and three other high ranking Chinese Communist Party officials. Liu, along with former Chinese Communist Party head Jiang Zemin and two heads of the infamous 610 Office, Li Lanqing and Luo Gan, have been charged with “Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity” for their roles in the persecution, torture, and deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Often likened to the Nazi Gestapo, the 610 Office is an extra-judicial agency created in 1999 specifically to wipe out Falun Gong in China.

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ORDERED TO PAY LAWSUIT COSTS TO FALUN GONG
On December 14, 2006, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Supreme Court issued a final verdict on the year and a half-long legal case filed by Falun Dafa practitioners against Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. In order to avoid a court order, Mr. Downer promised he would stop issuing certificates that restrict Falun Gong practitioners’ use of banners in peaceful protests. The judge also ordered Downer to pay $20,000 in legal fees. The Falun Gong practitioners had charged Downer with abuse of power in issuing 96 certificates, on a monthly basis, over a period of four years, which restrict practitioners’ use of banners and music to protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. Downer began issuing certificates in March 2002, one day before Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan was to visit Australia.