Chinese authorities 'strike hard' at the group, victims dying within days
of
arrest (4/2/2008 1:56)
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NEW YORK -- The Falun Dafa Information Center is alarmed at a series of
re****ts indicating adherents in China are being killed in custody within
days, or even hours, of being detained by authorities. The Center
expressed
today that the escalating maltreatment is a direct result of efforts
to 'stamp out' Falun Gong prior to the summer Olympics.
'The speed with which Falun Gong adherents are being seized by police,
abused, and turning up dead is alarming and reprehensible,' says Falun
Dafa
Information Center spokesperson Ms. Gail Rachlin. 'These are people who
never should have been arrested in the first place. Arbitrary arrests,
torture, and extrajudicial executions are no way to 'prepare' for the
Olympics.'
'If China's communist authorities wish to hold a truly 'successful'
Olympic
Games, rounding up and killing those who might remind us that 'all is not
well' is not the way to go about it. The artificially sterile, silent
streets of Beijing should give visitors the chills.'
The Center is particularly concerned over recent re****ts of adherents
dying
in custody shortly after their arrest. Within the first three months of
2008, the Center has do***ented six cases of practitioner deaths occurring
within merely 16 days of arrest and in some cases, within hours. By
comparison, in 2007, it was over the course of the entire year that the
same number died within such a short time in custody. In several of the
recent cases, family members were able to view the body before its
cremation and saw signs of torture, including strangulation marks or
bruises from electric batons.
Among the deaths re****ted in 2008 was that of Mr. Yu Zhou, 42, a musician
who was arrested with his wife Ms. Xu Na at the end of January on their
way
home from a performance by his band. The couple was among those listed in
a
previous Center release about widespread arrests in Beijing (news). Eleven
days after their arrest, the authorities notified their family members to
come to Qinghe Emergency Center, where they found Yu already dead. He had
been in good health before his detention, but the hospital refused to
conduct an autopsy. Ms. Xu, who was released in 2006 after serving five
years in prison for practicing Falun Gong, remains in custody at Beijing
Detention Center. Yu had graduated from the French Department at Beijing
University and an online music video of his band shows him playing the
drums:
http://www.youmaker.com/video/sv'id=571f7e4d385e4dfd86cb89fa573c6a2d001
Cases such as Yu's and others detailed below indicate an increase in the
severity of treatment inflicted in custody on those who practice Falun
Gong
and point to the immediate danger facing the hundreds of adherents
detained
in Beijing and elsewhere since the beginning of the year. The re****ts also
match testimonies from adherents who were released recently, stating that
security agents had spoken to them of orders received from above to
escalate the crackdown on the group ahead of the Olympic Games.
Since January 2007, the Center has do***ented the cases of 129 Falun Gong
practitioners that died of abuse, passing away either in police custody or
upon release as a result of injuries incurred while in detention. A
complete table of the names and available details surrounding these known
cases is available here:
http://faluninfo.net/downloads/FDI_Press/deaths-as-of-01-01-07.pdf.
The
table was compiled from a variety of sources, including testimony of
relatives or friends of the deceased, photographic evidence, and follow-up
phone calls made by researchers to the relevant police or prison
authorities.
The following are a number sample cases. Additional details that lend
themselves to independent verification can be made available upon request.
Tables with the names of those Falun Gong practitioners who have died in
the past 15 months are attached:
Examples of 2007 deaths occurring shortly after arrest:
* On March 10, 2007, police arrested Ms. Tang Xingyun, 65, from the
city
of Shenyang in the northeastern province of Liaoning as she distributed
printed material about Falun Gong. She died the same day at the police
station, re****tedly as a result of being shocked simultaneously by eight
electric batons.
* Mr. Deng Wenyang, a former employee of Shanhaiguan Bridge Factory in
Hebei province who was in his thirties, was arrested on September 26,
2007.
He was already in weak physical condition following an earlier detention
in
August, but was nevertheless was sent to Gaoyang RTL camp. He died ten
days
later, on October 8.
Examples of 2008 deaths occurring shortly after arrest:
* Ms. Gu Jianmin, 53, from Pudong New District in Shanghai was
arrested
on March 1, 2008. Twelve days later, on March 13, an agent from the local
610 Office called her husband, saying she was unwell and was to be
released
on medical parole. After spending several hours completing forms for her
release, Ms. Gu's husband was taken to a local hospital, where a doctor
declared her dead after a brief attempt to rescue her.
* Mr. Wang Guiming, 40, from Tonghua City in Jilin Province was
arrested
on February 13, 2008, while selling sweet potatoes. He was taken to
Changliu Detention Center and within days was sentenced to re-education
through labor (RTL). He was transferred to Chaoyanggou RTL camp on Feb 17,
2008, where he was re****tedly shocked with electric batons. He died on Feb
29, 16 days after his initial arrest. His family was permitted to see his
body on March 3, and found large bruises on his face, chest and anus.
Such deaths appear to be the result of official enactments of Chinese
communist party policy. Official statements and do***ents have repeatedly
named Falun Gong as one of the key targets for monitoring and repression
in
anticipation of the Olympics. (fact sheet) This fits a regular pattern of
cracking down on the group before im****tant national events, such as the
recent 17th Party Congress in October 2007. (fact sheet)
According to one re****t from an intelligence journal in 2005, for example,
China's deputy minister of public security, Liu Jing, was assigned the
responsibility of wiping out the practice before the Games. (news) More
recently, according to Amnesty International, in preparing for the Games,
former Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang issued the following order
in
the context of 'successfully' holding the Olympics: 'We must strike hard
at
hostile forces at home and abroad, such as ethnic separatists, religious
extremists, violent terrorists and ' the Falun Gong.' (re****t)
In total, since 1999, the Center has do***ented the cases of 3,137 Falun
Gong practitioners, who have died as a result of various forms of
persecution, not only from abuse in custody, but also of destitution and
other traumas related to the campaign. Despite the apparently high count,
due to the secrecy surrounding such cases and the danger posed to families
sending information overseas, the actual death toll is most likely much
higher.
http://www.faluninfo.net/
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