APPENDIX 36
Memorandum submitted by Miss Ze Xia
I am a Falun Gong practitioner and writing to
request your kind help regarding the massive abuse of human rights
by the Chinese government against Falun Gong practitioners.
You may have heard of the crackdown on Falun
Gong by the Chinese government. It is the worst and largest human
rights violation in China since 1989, and escalating at this moment.
So far:
— 19 Falun Gong practitioners have
been tortured to death in police custody;
— 35,000 have been arrested at Tian-An-Men
Square alone;
— 3,000 have been sent to labour camps
without trial; and hundreds have been put into prisons following
show trials; and
— many have been viciously forced into
mental hospitals for injections and detention.
Mrs Chen Zixiu, 59, Shandong Province, died
of extensive injuries on 21 February 2000 following repeated torture
in unimaginably cruel ways by Chinese government officials and
police (reported by Ian Johnson enclosed)[25].
However, despite the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners have
remained peaceful in our public passive protests—not a single
incident of retaliation or violence against the police or government
has been reported.
Five Falun Gong practitioners who live in the
UK now were arrested during their holidays back to China. They
are Qing Ling SONG (student in Oxford), Mr Xiao Bing DENG (student
in Cambridge), Zheng Fang MO (student in Swansea), Yi YOU (student
in Swansea) and Xiao Yan LIU (British citizen).
In addition, the Chinese government has also
tried to interfere with the Falun Gong activities in the UK. I
organise free weekly Falun Gong classes in Central London. At
midnight on Tuesday 16 May my parents who currently live in China
telephoned me. They told me that they had been interviewed by
some officials from the Chinese National Security Ministry. About
a week later, they called me again and told me that a second interview
with officials from the same Ministry had occurred. At the interviews,
a message was delivered to them with pressure that they must try
to stop me joining any Falun Gong activities in the UK and they
would be in trouble if they did not do so. Both my parents are
over 70 years old now. They are very frightened by the interviews.
I am really disappointed with this and feel that my personal beliefs
should not cause any trouble to my parents. I have benefited from
practising Falun Gong as both my health and mind have improved
a lot. I would like to carry on practising it and introduce it
to anyone who may be interested in it.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice rooted in
the ancient Chinese culture and history. It contains five sets
of tranquil meditative exercises and is based on the universal
values of Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truth-Compassion-Forbearance). Falun
Gong has been practised by about 100 million people over 40 countries
in the world.
Concerned about the large number of practitioners
and the absence of Communist Party control over the practice,
the Chinese government has been suppressing Falun Gong for many
years, with widespread telephone bugging, searching of homes,
banning of publications and sacking from jobs. This culminated
in the beating and arrests of dozens of practitioners in Tianjin,
which sparked off a rally of 10,000 practitioners in Beijing in
April 1999. After that, the Chinese authorities intensified its
suppression and banned Falun Gong on 22 July last year.
The Falun Gong practice is completely benevolent
and law-abiding in nature. The Chinese authorities have conducted
large-scale investigations of Falun Gong in 1997 and 1998 but
found no criminal activities whatsoever. In fact, the Chinese
government could not name any criminal activities associated with
Falun Gong when banning it in July 1999.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you
need further information. Alternatively, you can visit our web
site: http://www.falundafa.ca
The founder of Falun Gong, Mr Li Hongzhi, made
a statement to call a "direct dialogue to resolve the issue
peacefully on a fair and just basis" (copy of the full statement
enclosed). I hope you would raise Falun Gong issue in the Parliament
and organise a meeting between a group of members of Parliament
and the Chinese Ambassador in order to urge the Chinese authority
to stop its persecution of the peaceful and law-abiding Falun
Gong practitioners. I met the Vice-Chairman of Parliamentary Human
Rights Group, Lord Avebury, last month. He expressed his consent
to attend the meeting with Chinese Ambassador.
25 Not printed. Back
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