Oct. 28, 2009: Falun Gong News Bulletin

New from Inside China

FDIC: Large Numbers of Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted for Persecution and Arrest in 2009, Says Congressional-Executive Commission on China
FDIC: During New York Visit, Chinese Forced Labor Camp Director Sued by Local Refugees for Torture
Los Angeles Times: My mother and sister, prisoners of China’s Communist Party
NTDTV: Falun Gong Practitioner Dies After Years of Persecution; Husband still jailed for Meeting with European Union Representative
Epoch Times: Daughter Surprised at 10-Year Sentence of Mother in China

FDIC: Large Numbers of Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted for Persecution and Arrest in 2009, Says Congressional-Executive Commission on China
October 22: “In its 2009 Annual Report, the U.S. government’s Congressional-Executive Commission on China thoroughly documents the continued and intensified targeting of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese security apparatus over the past year. The section on Falun Gong cites, in particular, the involvement of top Chinese Communist Party officials in directing a ‘strike hard’ campaign against Falun Gong, as well as the robust activity of the extralegal 6-10 Office in carrying out such directives.

‘The government maintained its longstanding ban against the Falun Gong spiritual movement [in 2009],’ says the report. ‘Viewing the 10th anniversary [of the ban] as sensitive, the central government held fast in 2009 with its 2008 pre-Olympics efforts to ferret out and punish Falun Gong practitioners.’

‘Authorities conducted propaganda campaigns that deride Falun Gong, carried out strict surveillance of practitioners, detained and imprisoned large numbers of practitioners, and subjected some who refuse to disavow Falun Gong to torture and other abuses in reeducation through labor facilities. International media and Falun Gong sources also reported deaths of practitioners in Chinese police custody in 2008 and 2009.’”

To read more: /article/918/?cid=84
Full Falun Gong-related excerpts from report: /article/917/?cid=9

FDIC: During New York Visit, Chinese Forced Labor Camp Director Sued by Local Refugees for Torture
October 23: “The man in charge of forced labor camps in China’s Guangdong province was served yesterday with a lawsuit while visiting Manhattan. The complaint, filed on behalf of two female refugees now residing in Queens and other victims still in China, urges that the camp system superintendent be held liable for torture, illegal deprivation of liberty, and other severe human rights violations carried out in Guangdong labor camps that he has overseen since 2000.

The defendant, Mr. Shi Honghui, was approached by a process server while visiting Pier 16 in lower Manhattan on October 22. … One of the plaintiffs, 36-year-old Ms. Chen Hua, a former businesswoman and television actress, arrived in the United States in May 2009 as a United Nations refugee after fleeing to Thailand to escape persecution and currently resides in Queens. Beginning in August 2000, Chen was sent without trial twice to Chatou Women’s “Re-education Through Labor” Camp in Guangdong’s capital city of Guangzhou for her belief in Falun Gong, where she spent a total of over five years. Among the documents committing her to the camp were ones signed personally by Mr. Shi.”

To read more: /article/919/?cid=84

Los Angeles Times: My mother and sister, prisoners of China’s Communist Party
“Just as millions of Chinese citizens did in the 1990s, my family embraced the Buddhist spiritual discipline of Falun Gong…. It enabled my mother to find relief from severe back pains and gave us all a more positive outlook on life.

Though I had feared that my family members in China could be victimized under this persecution, I had assumed they were safe. After all, my mother has Hong Kong residency, and my sister was a successful financial manager with a well-known international corporation. I thought this would give them some level of protection.

I was wrong.

On June 4, exactly 20 years to the day after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, my mother and sister were taken from their home in Shanghai and sent to jail for no other reason than the fact that they practice the Falun Gong faith.”

NTDTV: Falun Gong Practitioner Dies After Years of Persecution; Husband still jailed for Meeting with European Union Representative
“Yang Xiaojing and Cao Dong married in February 2000. However, their life together was to be short-lived…Ten days after their wedding, the pair was arrested by Beijing authorities for their practice of Falun Gong.

[In 2006] Cao met with Edward McMillan-Scott, the Vice President of the European Parliament. Cao told him about the brutal persecution that he and other Falun Gong practitioners had experienced. Two hours after the meeting, Cao was kidnapped and sent back to Gansu province where he was again detained. In February 2007, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for meeting with a foreign official…

On October 1st this year, 45-year-old Yang died on the way to the hospital with her elderly father by her side. Cao Dong, who is still in prison, never had a chance to see her.”

To read more: http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_china/2009-10-13/765501754738.html

Epoch Times: Daughter Surprised at 10-Year Sentence of Mother in China
October 21: “Ms. Pang, 25, has been denied contact with her mother Cao Junping, 52, since the latter was detained last year on July 29 in Weifang, a city about 270 miles south-east of Beijing. After 15 months, on Oct. 18, her mother was sentenced to 10-years in a rushed, closed door ‘trial,’ in which the court did not inform the family, their attorney was not welcome at the sentencing hearing, and where the prosecutor lacked evidence, according to Pang.

‘My mom was arrested because she is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a peaceful meditation discipline that was banned in China in 1999,’ said Pang, who is a Missouri State University graduate. Her aunt, Cao Junfeng, also a practitioner and her mother’s elder sister, was arrested July 9, a few weeks earlier…. On the same day Pang’s mother was sentenced, her sister Cao Junfeng, and two other Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced at the Hanting District Court to nine years, and another practitioner was sentenced to four years.”