State Councilor Could Face Criminal Trial for Using Chinas School System as Indoctrination and Persecution Centers
63-year-old Prof. Wei Zaixin (left) of the Fushun Institute of Science and Technology and 31-year-old Ms. Xu Zhilian (right), an elementary school teacher from Sichuan Province, are among the 61 teachers and students whose deaths in custody have been verified.
LOS ANGELES (FDI) – State Councilor and former Minister of Education Ms. Chen Zhili will face criminal proceedings before a Tanzanian High Court where she has been sued for torture and extra judicial killings.
The suit was filed on July 19 2004 against Chen while she was visiting several African nations. (news) On Aug. 3, a Tanzanian judge gave the green light for a criminal trial to proceed against her. (news)
During her term as Education Minister, Chen saturated the Chinese school system’s course materials and exams with anti-Falun Gong propaganda. She also used mandatory pledges to identify administrators, teachers and students who practice Falun Gong, most of whom are subsequently sent to brainwashing sessions or labor camps.
As of March 2004, the Falun Dafa Information Center has verified the details of 61 Falun Gong practitioners throughout the country who are either students or teachers that have been killed for practicing Falun Gong. Many others have been tortured, beaten or raped.
Chen has faced fierce opposition within the Chinese education community for her actions. In March 2002, she was impeached during the National People’s Congress.
Chen, however, apparently continues to receive support from Jiang Zemin – the former Chinese leader who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999 (special report) – and was appointed to the position of State Councilor in charge of education under Jiang’s influence.
Cultural Revolution Reborn
Under Chen’s direction, China’s schools serve as state propaganda organs. Course and exam material has been modified to include communist propaganda against the practice of Falun Gong. National exams, for example, now include questions about Falun Gong that must be answered reiterating anti-Falun Gong propaganda or students will not be allowed to pass.
In 2001, Chen initiated the “million signature” campaign, which was designed to force everyone involved in the school system, from administrators, professors, principals, teachers and students, to sign a pledge not to practice Falun Gong and to declare that they agree with Jiang Zemin’s initiative to “eradicate Falun Gong.”
Coercion and threats were used against children as young as seven years old to sign this pledge or else be denied the right to participate in school activities, be expelled, or have their parents arrested.
Some of these signatures were later taken to Geneva to present to delegates of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in an attempt to thwart condemnation of the persecution against Falun Gong.
Abandon Conscience or Face Violent “Re-education”
Teachers or students who refuse to sign their names in support of initiatives against Falun Gong often lose their jobs or are expelled from school, and some are sent directly to brainwashing classes, labor camps or prison. Some even require that you cannot have family members that practice.
At Tsinghua University – commonly known as China’s MIT – over three hundred people have been detained at labor camps or sentenced to prison for practicing Falun Gong.
Seventeen-year-old Ms. Wang Lin from Suileng County, Heilongjiang Province, refused to endorse the anti-Falun Gong propaganda on a high school entrance exam and instead wrote “Falun Gong is good.” Her parents were subsequently beaten by police and she was forced to flee home to escape from being detained by authorities.
Mr. Wang Zhe, a student at the No. 1 Senior High School in Changtu County, Liaoning Province, was expelled after openly discussing the persecution of Falun Gong. When his parents later appealed to the school authorities, Wang was taken away by police and held in a county detention center.
“What we have learned from history is that a common component to genocide is the complete demonization of the class of victims and that includes indoctrinating youth with hate propaganda,” says Falun Dafa Information Center spokeswoman Ms. Gail Rachlin. “What Chen has done through the Chinese school system is exactly that – indoctrinate the youth of China against Falun Gong – and this has served as a vital part to Jiang Zemin’s overall plan to ‘eradicate Falun Gong.’”
