November 3, 2010: Falun Gong News Bulletin on Events inside China

Inside China

• FDIC: Internal Communist Party Documents Disclose New Campaign to Forcibly “Transform” Millions of Falun Gong Practitioners in China
• Amnesty International Urgent Action: Falun Gong Practitioner At Risk of Torture: Qiao Yongfang
• Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report cites crackdown on Falun Gong surrounding Shanghai 2010 World Expo

Key Cases of Falun Gong Deaths from Abuse Documented in October 2010:

• FDIC: Photos Smuggled from China Show Bloated Falun Gong Practitioner Shortly Before Death 
• FDIC: After Eight Years of Torture, Falun Gong Practitioner Dies under Mysterious Circumstances 
• FDIC: Elementary School Teacher Tortured to Death Within One Month of Detention
• FDIC: Gao Zhisheng Interviewee Dies Due to Torture, Photo Shows Emaciated Body

FDIC: Internal Communist Party Documents Disclose New Campaign to Forcibly “Transform” Millions of Falun Gong Practitioners in China

October 24: A series of internal Communist Party documents, some of them posted online, reveal the details of a new three-year, multi-billion dollar campaign targeting Falun Gong practitioners across China. The campaign’s stated goal is to “transform” 75 percent of all known practitioners, who number in the tens of millions despite eleven years of brutal suppression. Specifically, the campaign calls upon security forces to go into “villages and households” to “educate and conquer” Falun Gong practitioners.

Transformation—a euphemism for forcing practitioners to renounce Falun Gong and pledge allegiance to the Communist Party—has been at the core of the anti-Falun Gong campaign since its inception. As part of the transformation process, individuals are typically subjected to physical and psychological torture.

Full story:  /article/1091/?cid=84
To view one of the documents from Laodian Township, Henan province, dated May 2010: screenshot 1 2 3 / English translation

See also: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/44866/
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_china/2010-10-29/061733240392.html
 

Amnesty International Urgent Action: Falun Gong Practitioner At Risk of Torture: Qiao Yongfang

October 22: “Qiao Yongfang, who is in prison in China relating to his peaceful practice of Falun Gong, is in need of medical attention. In September, he was transferred to a special prison unit, heightening Amnesty International’s concern that he is at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

People who have visited him recently report that he is currently in poor health, including suffering from diabetes, for which he is not receiving adequate medical treatment. Qiao Yongfang’s lawyers have previously noted that he had been tortured while in detention, resulting in injuries to his head, for which he is not known to have received adequate medical treatment.”

To read more and view details for writing a letter to the Chinese authorities on Qiao’s behalf, see: http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/ASA17/043/2010/fr/e3236f41-0abc-4308-bd19-f7df3841e311/asa170432010en.html

Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report cites crackdown on Falun Gong surrounding Shanghai 2010 World Expo

October 10: From the section on religious freedom: “The Shanghai 2010 World Expo, held from May to October 2010, became the latest in a series of events that the Chinese government has seized upon as justification for ongoing “security” crackdowns that aim to ferret out and punish Falun Gong practitioners. In the lead up to and during the Shanghai Expo, authorities conducted propaganda campaigns deriding Falun Gong, carried out strict surveillance of practitioners, detained and imprisoned large numbers of practitioners, and subjected some who refused to disavow Falun Gong to torture and other abuses in prison and reeducation through labor facilities.”

From the report’s preface: “A further example of the Chinese leadership’s determination to rein in independent sources of influence is the continuing ban on Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a spiritual movement established in China in the early 1990s based on Chinese meditative exercises called qigong. By 1999, the Falun Gong movement reportedly had grown to include an estimated 70 to 100 million followers (also called “practitioners”). The group flourished during the decade following the suppression of the Tiananmen democracy movement in June 1989, which many viewed as a hopeful development, showing that it was possible, even in the wake of the events of June 1989, to build a non-state-affiliated popular organization in China on a massive scale without state support.

In 1999, however, the Party announced a total ban on Falun Gong, the implementation of which has resulted in the harassment, detention, and mental and physical abuse of large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners in official custody, and in some cases torture and death. The ban remains in force today, and authorities regularly intensify crackdowns on the Falun Gong movement around events the government deems to be sensitive, such as the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.”

To view full report: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_house_committee_prints&docid=f:61507.wais

FDIC: Photos Smuggled from China Show Bloated Falun Gong Practitioner Shortly Before Death

October 5: A retired steel worker from Hebei province  died on September 6, 2010, just over six months after being released from a prison camp where he had  been tortured and forced to do hard labor for practicing Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. Photos of Mr. Zhang Yunping (???) taken days before his death and smuggled out of China show the 58-year-old’s emaciated chest and bloated stomach. 

Full story: /article/1088/?cid=84
To view photos: /article/1086/

FDIC: After Eight Years of Torture, Falun Gong Practitioner Dies under Mysterious Circumstances 

October 14: Falun Gong practitioner Cai Fuchen (???), a government employee from Jilin province, died in police custody in mid-September after spending eight of the last ten years as a prisoner of conscience.Mr. Cai last spoke with family members on September 5th, 2010, and reported that his condition was deteriorating. Prolonged torture and abuse had left Mr. Cai weak and emaciated, and he was under constant surveillance. Approximately ten days later, the family was told that Mr. Cai was dead.

Over the course of the eight years he spent imprisoned, Mr. Cai reportedly suffered from repeated torture as authorities attempted to force him to denounce his faith in Falun Gong.  According to the accounts of witnesses and family members, during his time at Gongzhuling Prison Mr. Cai had been hung up by his wrists, deprived of sleep, held in solitary confinement, and shocked with electric batons.

Full story: /article/1089/?cid=84

FDIC: Elementary School Teacher Tortured to Death Within One Month of Detention

October 29: An elementary school teacher was killed in detention in early October in Shandong province, approximately one month after she was abducted into custody on September 2 for practicing Falun Gong. Over the past eleven years, she and other family members, including her teenage daughter, have been repeatedly detained, tortured, and harassed.

Ms. Hu Lianhua (???) worked as an elementary school teacher in Hebei Province.[…] On September 2, 2010, Ms. Hu was abducted in Shandong Province, along with about ten other Falun Gong practitioners, and taken to Qinyun county’s police department. Her home in Hebei province was also ransacked again, and authorities there took her husband into custody as well. One month later, on October 4th, the family was notified that Hu Lianhua had died in custody. Additional details into her death are being investigated.

Full story: /article/1092/?cid=84
First-hand account by Hu Lianhua published online in 2004 about the torment she and her family had been subjected to since 1999: /article/1093/?cid=12

FDIC: Gao Zhisheng Interviewee Dies Due to Torture, Photo Shows Emaciated Body

October 31: A 53-year-old woman, whose testimony of excruciating and professionally-administered torture attorney Gao Zhisheng relayed in one of his open letters to China’s leaders, died in mid-October as a result of abuse in custody.

According to sources inside China, Ms. Sun Shuxiang (???), a Falun Gong practitioner from Changchun, died on October 10, four months after her release from a labor camp, where she was shocked with electric batons, injected with unidentified drugs, and forced to perform hard labor. A photo taken immediately upon her return home and smuggled out of China shows her emaciated body (photo).

Sun is the third of Gao’s interviewees known to have subsequently been tortured to death. Gao himself has been disappeared since April 2010, with many fearing he may have been killed in custody. […] Ms. Sun had been detained 12 times over the 11 years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. As Gao described in his letter, she had been tortured to the verge of death on multiple occasions.

Full story (including part of Sun’s testimony to Gao): /article/1094/?cid=84
Full text of Gao’s open letter mentioning Sun: http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-12-16/35876.html