March 9, 2007- Falun Gong News Bulletin

• U.S. GOVERNMENT REPORT SHOWS PERSECUTION OF FALUN GONG IN CHINA STILL SEVERE
  
• FAMILY OF MURDERED FALUN GONG WOMAN STRUGGLES FOR JUSTICE
  
• KIDNAPPED GIRL RESCUED BY FEDERAL AGENTS MINUTES BEFORE TAKE-OFF AT JFK AIRPORT

U.S. GOVERNMENT REPORT SHOWS PERSECUTION OF FALUN GONG IN CHINA STILL SEVERE
On March 6, 2007, the U.S. State Department released its congressionally-mandated 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights, naming China among the world’s worst human rights offenders. In particular, the report cites information showing that the repression, imprisonment and torture of Falun Gong adherents remains severe and widespread. “In March UN Special Rapporteur Nowak reaffirmed earlier findings that torture remained widespread,” the report says. “Nowak reported that beatings with fists, sticks, and electric batons continued to be the most common tortures. He also found that prisoners continued to suffer cigarette burns, prolonged periods of solitary confinement, and submersion in water or sewage…Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher. In March UN Special Rapporteur Nowak reported that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture while in government custody.”
Full report: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78771.htm

FAMILY OF MURDERED FALUN GONG WOMAN STRUGGLES FOR JUSTICE
Three months after their relative was tortured to death in a forced labor camp, the family of Ms. Cao Aihua is locked in a legal struggle to bring the perpetrators to justice and facing tremendous pressure from China’s communist authorities, the Falun Dafa Information Center has learned. According to sources in China, lawyers refuse to take the Cao family’s case for fear of reprisal from Chinese authorities. The camp in which Cao was tortured to death, the Urumqi Women’s [Forced] Labor Camp of Xinjiang, is reportedly working closely with judicial authorities in an attempt to dismiss the case. “A woman was beaten to death simply for handing out printed materials,” says Falun Dafa Information Center spokeswoman Ms. Gail Rachlin, “and now not a single lawyer or judicial authority dares to hold the perpetrators accountable. This case speaks volumes about the intimidation used by China’s regime to deny the Falun Gong any rights or voice, and serves as a sad reminder that the greatest obstacle to rule of law in China is the country’s very own ruler—the Communist Party.”
Full Story: /displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9472

KIDNAPPED GIRL RESCUED BY FEDERAL AGENTS MINUTES BEFORE TAKE-OFF AT JFK AIRPORT
The Falun Dafa Information Center disclosed recently that 14-year-old Beijing native Youran Zhao has been successfully rescued, thanks to the tremendous efforts of U.S. homeland security officers and others. She is under the care and legal custody of her aunt and said to be recovering from the trauma. Zhao, as reported by the Center (news), had gone missing after declaring her intent to seek political asylum; she was on a tour of the northeastern U.S. with a group of students from China. She was held against her will by Chinese tour leaders, acting on orders from China’s notorious Public Security Bureau (PSB), sources had said. Federal authorities confirmed that Zhao, who practices Falun Gong, was missing from the tour group Sunday around noontime when several U.S. police apprehended tour chaperons on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Full Story: /displayAnArticle.asp?ID=9471