Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Price of Persecution


October 29, 2011 | By Zhong Yan
(Clearwisdom.net) Due to the long-term high-pressure propaganda and slander by the Chinese Communist Party, many people have become unwilling to listen to the facts about Falun Gong and the persecution. Whether people are willing to admit it or not, everyone in China is suffering from the persecution. Everyone is paying a price, and they will soon realize this.
There were nearly 100 million Falun Gong practitioners when the persecution started, and their basic rights were taken away. This directly trampled on the judicial system, and drastically lowered moral values. As a result, society under the CCP has become even more chaotic and everyone, from ordinary people to high level officials, lives in an unjust society with high-pressure politics. Everyone is afraid that he or she will be affected, so everyone is a victim.
The “610 Office”: An Institution of Specialized Persecution
In order to suppress Falun Gong, former CCP head Jiang Zemin formed a Gestapo-like group called the “610 Office.” Over the past 12 years, this system has become more institutionalized and specialized in its actions of abusing human rights. Not only have a large number of Falun Gong practitioners become victims, but also those who are brave enough to speak the truth and protect their legal rights may become an object for persecution.
Right to Petition Lost
Since April 25, 1999, Falun Gong practitioners have peacefully appealed and petitioned in hopes of communicating with the Chinese government. However, Jiang Zemin gave the order to “destroy Falun Gong in three months” and the persecution soon expanded to the entire country. Even so, Falun Gong practitioners are still kindly and rationally trying to express to different levels of the governments their wishes to exercise their basic rights. Since July 20, 1999, all kinds of peaceful appeals or protests have been suppressed throughout China.
Today, people’s basic rights of peaceful appeal and protests, which are protected by the Chinese Constitution, have been lost, and peaceful protests will be suppressed with few exceptions. For instance, this August, in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, several tens of thousands of people went to the streets to protest the government’s toxic petrochemical PX project that would endanger people’s health. The Dalian government brought in a large number of armed police to try to stop the march. Some citizens clashed with the police and the police used batons and tear gas for “violence clearance” and even used them on children and the elderly. Afterward, the Communist regime’s propaganda newspaper People’s Daily‘s English version Global Timescommented that “protests are not the right way for Chinese people to express their dissatisfaction.”
However, with the intensification of social conflicts, people will be forced to intensify their actions to fight for their rights.
Petition System Destroyed
Wang Yonghang, a lawyer who spoke out for Falun Gong practitioners, wrote in 2008 to China’s highest judicial authorities, the Supreme People’sProcuratorate and the Supreme Court. He stated in the letter, “The facts over the past nine years prove that the legal difficulties encountered by Falun Gong practitioners yesterday will be repeated on other groups today, including the petitioners for various causes, people involved in mass incidents with great impact, Christian house church members, etc. We can say that the situation of Falun Gong practitioners, who have been subjects of lack of legal protection, exemplify the whole legislative and judicial branch since 1999.”
He also stated in the letter, “For the first time, in 1999 the government used legal and judicial interpretation to deprive Falun Gong practitioners’ right to appeal. This right is given to Chinese citizens, including Falun Gong practitioners, by the Chinese Constitution. In 2005, ‘Petition Regulations’ was introduced and it was referred to as the “evil law” by the legal world. Since then, it became illegal to ‘appeal to the higher levels’ and ‘with a group of more than five people’.”
Black Jails Everywhere with Excessive Use of Torture
“The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from an electric cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head. Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21.” (Wall Street Journal, “Practicing Falun Gong Was a Right, Ms. Chen Said, up to Her Last Day”)
Ms. Chen was arrested at the Weifang City Train Station, Shandong Province, on February 17, 2000, and was taken to Weifang Chengguan Street Office’s “transformation center.” There Ms. Chen suffered brutal beating and torture. These so-called “transformation centers” are in fact “black jails.” They are where local officials detain Falun Gong practitioners in order to stop them from appealing, and where practitioners are forced to give up their beliefs. Since the persecution began, countless Falun Gong practitioners have suffered physical and mental torture in these black jails and many died.
Officials’ Opportunities to Get Money
“Bankrupt them financially” was one of the goals Jiang Zemin’s group had for suppressing Falun Gong practitioners. The various levels of “610 Offices” and government officials were ordered to largely take away Falun Gong practitioners’ belongings and money to force them to give up their beliefs. As different levels of officials do this, not only do they complete their tasks, but they also fill their pockets, and become more and more greedy.
Call it Suicide”
“Deaths of Falun Gong practitioners from beatings is nothing and shall be counted as suicide,” “The body shall be directly cremated without investigating the person’s identity,” was one of the policies for one of the three Jiang Zemin’s objectives, “destroy them physically.” This policy allows different levels of government officials to persecute Falun Gong practitioners without reservation. In many cases, when Falun Gong practitioners are tortured to death, the police and officials just say they committed suicide, despite the fact that the family saw bruises, injuries and evidence of beating all over the body.
Now, officials and police are expanding the target of “Call it Suicide” onto a wide range of vulnerable groups. “Call it Suicide” has also become one of the topics widely discussed on the Internet today.
Internet Blockade
On January 12, 2010, Google announced that it would no longer tolerate China’s pressure to filter out sensitive information, and it would withdraw from China. Later investigation found that the CCP had forced Google to filter out 970f Falun Gong information.
The China Ministry of Public Security’s “Golden Shield Project” was launched on April 25, 2001 and finished at the end of June 2006. A lot of money and expertise was put into blocking and monitoring the Internet. A major target of blockage is of course the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong that the Communist regime does not want Chinese people to know.
On July 17, 2011, CCTV7 (China’s official television channel of military and agriculture) revealed that the Chinese Military School is researching and developing a network attacking system, targeting the overseas Falun Gong website.
As Chinese people awaken and the awareness of protecting their rights increases, people are using all kinds of ways to break through the Internet blockade, and they coming to know the facts in many areas. This has caused the CCP great panic, and it is blocking the Internet even more stringently. This closes off the average Chinese citizen even further, not only from the facts about Falun Gong, but general information the rest of the world has access to.
Ten plus years of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners have made ordinary Chinese people suffer a great deal. Knowing the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong would not only help every Chinese person to understand the evilness of the CCP and understand the source their suffering, but also make more people aware of how to protect their basic rights.
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