Transcript
The Transcript for Tansmission 6-10 is made publically available, along with the original interview transcripts (on the Interviewees page).
Documentaries are frequently scrutinised for their misrepresentation or omission of facts. Therefore, in the interests of transparency, all interview transcripts are now freely available to download from the Sources page to ensure that no information has been taken out of context. Dialogue used within the film has been highlighted in yellow, and ‘…’ represents where separated conversations have been woven together. The transcripts are raw in terms of grammar, but they are, within reason, a verbatim representation of what was said during the course of interviews and conferences.
T610-Transcript.pdf00:00:00:00
Segment 1: History Repeated
Ethan Gutmann
...this resistance...resurrection...started in, in those cells, where no-one can hear them.
Message
we may never know
Inform others
David Kilgour
...since 1949 terrible things have happened regularly to the population of China at the hands of its own government.
Chen Yonglin
...for the purpose of taking power...the peasants had been used...
File
Campaign: The Great Leap Forward
Dictator: Mao Tse Dong
Objective: Increase economic output of the Nation
1950s
Estimated Death Toll: 40-60 Million
Primary Cause: Starvation
...destroy the temples, destroy the churches...control, spiritually control, people...
File
Campaign: The Cultural Revolution
Dictator: Mao Tse Dong
Objective: Eradicate traditional Chinese culture
1960s
Estimated Death Toll: 4-40 Million
Method: Persecution
...the Chinese Communist Party recruited all the...well educated people. If you don't want to, they will try to force you to join the party. So I was allocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
File
Campaign: Tiananmen Square Massacre
Dictator: Deng Xiao Peng
Objective: Destroy democratic uprising
June 4th 1989
Death Toll:
CCP estimation 300
NATO estimation 6000
Edward McMillan-Scott
...for a generation there's been no controversy. There is now going to be a controversy, and it's not just me saying it. It is members of the US congress, it's other members of the European Parliament, it is national parliamentarians right around the world who are saying “hang on”, look at Beijing and lets see what the regime is doing before we give our consent to the Games going ahead.
Chen Yonglin
...they have never stopped trying to control the people's spirit.
Zek Halu
So the question really is "Why do we need Human Rights Torch Relay for the Olympics in China?" Why?
Message
Political pressure
Economic incentive
Media manipulation
Lord Avebury
We see their veiled influence in Africa. For example in Sudan, where Chinese oil is more important than doing something about the genocide in Darfur...in Zimbabwe where they're propping up the dictator Mugabe...We see their veiled influence all over the world...
Message
Criminalised
Hunted
Kidnapped
Extorted
Imprisoned
Brainwashed
Enslaved
Raped
Tortured
Murdered
Sold
Edward McMillan-Scott
In 1964, the International Olympic Committee, urged by people like Lord Avebury and others, boycotted South Africa's participation in the Olympic games.
Message
Spin
Propaganda
Counter-propaganda
Counter-spin
John Michaels
The Olympics will not be cancelled, but, they can be moved...Athens in 2004, Sydney in 2000 and Barcelona in 1992, all have the infrastructure and the stadia to take the 2008 Olympic Games. It is pointless to threaten China with anything else, we cannot go in there and invade them for God's sakes.
Lower 3rd
12 minutes earlier
Edward McMillan-Scott
...and we believe, we believe that...
Lower 3rd
London, 2007
Trafalgar Square – Northern Terrace
Lord Avebury
I'm here because I want to support the Olympic ideal, and that is justice for all people...
Edward McMillan-Scott
This is ridiculous nonsense. I'm sorry, i'm going to complain to your Chief. Why are we not allowed to? Because Falun Gong is opposed by the British Government, is that why? It is why! Falun Gong is an entirely peaceful movement...
Lord Avebury
I believe that we do have a megaphone...
Policeman
Ladies and gents.
Edward McMillan-Scott
This is pathetic. Outrageous.
Chen Yonglin
To my understanding the Chinese Communist government has been very successful in overseas propaganda to convince the world it's turning to democracy, it's not a brutal dictatorship anymore...That's a lie, totally a lie.
David Kilgour
In 1999 the government of president Jiang Zemin declared a brutal war on Falun Gong practitioners.
Information Screen
Jiang Zemin
Dictator of China from 1989-2002
gave three orders:
Information Screen
Ruin their reputations
Information Screen
Bankrupt them
Information Screen
Destroy them physically
Title
The Honourable David Kilgour
Former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific
No doubt because the president, Jiang, was afraid of its growing popularity as an exercise spiritual movement, which is deeply rooted in the Qigong, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism traditions of the Chinese people.
Title
He Bin [survivor]
Now lives under UK asylum
He Bin
I started to practice Falun Gong in 1997. At that time Falun Gong was actually the most popular Qi Gong in China
Information Screen
Falun Gong can be described as a
high-level Qi Gong of the Buddha school
to cultivate mind & body
for health and spiritual growth
with origins dating back
over 3000 years
Information Screen
Qi Gong exercises harness the energy
that forms the basis of
traditional chinese medicine
and martial arts such as Tai Chi
Lower 3rd
Kowloon Park, Hong Kong
Morning exercise class
Title
Dr Chan Shun Hing
Professor of Sociology & Religion, Hong Kong
These very typical chinese elements of religions now have become very attractive to non-chinese people, across race and culture, and I think this is a very important break through.
Title
Jeff Priore
Practitioner of Falun Gong
I've practiced for about 8 years now. And it seemed like all my old habits, my bad habits, just kind of faded away without me trying. As a practitioner of Falun Gong we practice and assimilate to the qualities of Zhen Shan Ren. And Zhen, for lack of a better word, is truthfulness, being truthful, being honest, not cheating anybody and trying to be a true man or true woman. And Shan is about benevolence, kindness, compassion. And Ren is kind of about forbearance, tolerance, endurance. So I try to assimilate to these qualities in my life at all times. And it's had a big effect on me. As it has a big effect on tens of millions of other practitioners all across the world.
00:07:43:06
Segment 2: Recollections of the Ban
Information Screen
April 1999
The City of Tianjin
An article was published
denouncing Falun Gong
and Qi Gong in general
as superstition
Ethan Gutmann
One of the things people should know about China, is that articles like that are not like in the West!
Information Screen
Local Falun Gong practitioners
gathered for a peaceful demonstration
If an article appears in a Chinese newspaper, it's a State run newspaper, it's a signal. It's a signal that an idea is being tried out very seriously by somebody at the highest levels of the Chinese government.
Information Screen
45 were unlawfully arrested
by riot police
...you have two choices. You can ignore it, or you can say something about it.
File
Name: Ethan Gutmann
Occupation: Author and Journalist
Resident of China: 1998 – 2002
Status: Conducting investigative research into
the clash between the Chinese State and
Falun Gong
Spirituality: Agnostic
If you ignore it, maybe that becomes law! If you say something about it, you take a big risk! It's that simple. Ok? So all this business about Falun Gong being very political on this is really kind of irrelevant.
Information Screen
The next day
over 10,000 practitioners
of 4 million in Beijing
gathered outside the headquarters
of the communist party
David Kilgour
...there were no signs, nobody said anything, there were no slogans shouted. But Jiang Zemin heard about this of course inside, and he got in his tinted window car, and he drove around....
Ethan Gutmann
There was no danger. There's nothing going on of that nature, he's perfectly confident of doing that!
David Kilgour
...and he saw these thousands of people, including members of the Party; retired Military, retired diplomats, very wide representation of occupations in Falun Gong and ages and so on. And he went in and he panicked, and he wrote a letter that night which basically said...Marxism will defeat Falun Gong.
Title
Chen Yonglin
Joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1995
...he recognised that because of 10,000 people it's a surprise to the communist party. They are worried the party may be threatened by such a big group.
Information Screen
Volunteer representatives of Falun Gong
Met with
Premier Zhu Rongji
Information Screen
The 45 were released without charge
Jonathan Mirsky
I think there is something about the Falun Gong which is emblematic of all the things the Chinese government gets very nervous about.
Title
Jonathan Mirsky
Journalist and Chinese historian
First of all it's a non-violent form of opposition. Second of all, it involves an amazing number of people...silently expressing their disapproval of how the Chinese government had behaved.
Ethan Gutmann
I was in Beijing...I called, maybe the top reporter......the bureau chief at the South China Morning Post, and said, "what the hell's happening Jasper? Whats going on?". And he said "Ethan, we really don't know, we've been caught with our pants down, we don't know anything about this group!". And from that minute on, in a funny way, I was a little hooked...
Information Screen
After its introduction in 1992
Falun Gong was described
by the authorities
as
"Leaders in the cutting science”
of Chinese Qi Gong
Information Screen
The government now claimed it to be
a dangerous group
that was going to
destabilise the nation
...July 20th 'Night of the Long Knives', where the main organisers are rounded up, in Beijing. July 21st, the secondary ones are rounded up. July 22nd, the ban is made known to everybody in China, and the world...
Information Screen
In a nationwide media campaign
It was reported that Falun Gong
Also known as Falun Dafa
was:
Information Screen
Anti-sience
Information Screen
Anti-society
Information Screen
Anti-humanity
Information Screen
It was redefined
By the CCP
As a 'heretical religion'
He Bin
...on that day when I went to our normal practice site in a park, nobody was there......there was no Falun Gong practice in public at all....I was told by my parents to go back home and sit in front of the TV for the so called important information message from the TV. From the TV, by the government. So that means, as far as I understand, that means everyone in the work place was told the same...
Ethan Gutmann
...a couple of colleagues ran into my office......I was the only...the only white guy there...."Ethan, they're talking about Falun Gong on television". And since it was basically a forbidden topic at the time, that was shocking! And they didn't mean television, they meant China Central Television. They meant the real network, the big controlled network. I came out and there was this expose, sort of a 'inside edition' style report.
Information Screen
The report stated
that people who studied Falun Gong
had been brainwashed
and thousands had died
as a result of their practice
...we heard this sound, a scratchy shouting on the street outside. And we looked out the window and there were sound trucks, that looked as though they'd been built in the 50s during the Cultural Revolution. Painted red and huge, "his master's voice" type devices on them. And they were driving around kind of aimlessly and screeching "do not practice Falun Gong. Falun Gong is illegal". One of the women who was there, one of the producers, from Hong Kong, started crying. And she said "this is like the Cultural Revolution all over again". It was a very disturbing, very strange moment.
Information Screen
Falun Gong was relabelled
an 'evil cult'
Jonathan Mirsky
there's something about the word cult. The Ku Klux Klan is a cult, the National Front is a cult. It always has a kind of black background to it, so by using that term in China...the Chinese government was able to get people to say to themselves, "well if it's a cult, that's bad".
He Bin
...I was just starting my job as a university lecturer in Beijing......after the persecution started I was dismissed, by the university authority...
Lower 3rd
Hotel Sign
'No Falun Gong people allowed'
They told me they have to follow the government's policies, of how to deal with Falun Gong people, if they just stick to their practice, their beliefs...
Information Screen
Tiananmen Square is a landmark
routinely Covered
by Western and Chinese media
Title
The Honourable Albert Ho
Chairman of the Democratic Party, Hong Kong
...people, find no right...no place to ventilate their grievances and no avenue for them to defend their lawful rights. Such that they have to stand up and protest, to defend their own rights.
Information Screen
Many turned up with home made banners
reading
'Truth Compassion Tolerance'
or
Falun Gong is Good
Ethan Gutmann
...unleash a banner, or just stand there and do the exercises. But they're just being arrested. Taken out one by one.
He Bin
...2001, when I went to Beijing again, but this time I was to go to Tiananmen square to appeal for Falun Gong because...from our experience I know Falun Gong is very good, and all the government, all the TV stations, what they have said is totally wrong and untrue....they are deliberately misleading people, I don't think it's right. I think that people should have the right to know the truth, so that's why I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, because that's my right.
Ethan Gutmann
There's no co-ordination whatsoever. One group will stand up, boom, the vans will move in, take them out, and then another group on another part of the square will stand up. The vans move over there.
Information Screen
With practice sites banned
the square became a focal point
...what we call 'the battle of Tiananmen', begins in December 1999, and really reaches its first peak in January 2000. This is where thousands of practitioners start showing up. Thousands upon thousands, streaming in from the countryside.
00:17:30:03
Segment 3: Arrested & Abused
He Bin
...I was arrested on Tiananmen Square...straight away, and as you can imagine i was beaten on the spot and taken away by the police, plain clothed police...
Ethan Gutmann
...lambs going onto the slaughter. Half of them are going to Tiananmen Square. Half of them are going to the Appeals Office, which is, you might as well be just putting your hands in cuffs yourself, because they're going to take anything you write on your appeals form, rip it up, and then take you back to your province, and put you in jail.
He Bin
...during the, about ten hours or even more, interrogation process, they used...electronic baton to shock my head, fingers, anywhere sensitive, just to make you feel painful....at one stage they even used the hot chilli powder to put in my nose and mouth. I don't know I think the police just went quite crazy; four or five of them just came up and used what they have, like their belt, and batons, to beat me up. That's what they, that's what they were doing, as a policeman, to treat Falun Gong practitioners.
Ethan Gutmann
This is something that I think journalists have had a hard time understanding. The fact that they weren't organised by some sort of central command, also made it extremely hard to break.
Information Screen
The Chinese government
proclaimed Falun Gong to also be banned
overseas
Information Screen
A group of westerners
turned up in Tiananmen Square
It's around the years 2002, that it sets in, in the West, within practitioner's circles, that the West is not going to save them. That nobody is going to do anything.
Information Screen
Arrested
beaten
deported
and placed on a black list
few have been since
Title
Dr Charles Lee [survivor]
Former neuroscience researcher, Harvard University
...I studied medicine in China and I came to the United States of America in the year of 1991...Falun Gong is such a powerful meditation system, it worked so well for me, I was very pleased. Two years after I started the practice the Chinese Communist regime started the persecution of Falun Gong, because there were so many people to practice this and at the end of 1998 it was estimated that there were 100 Million people in, China alone, practicing Falun Gong. So the Communist regime got paranoid.
Jonathan Mirsky
...it was certainly known that there was some significant number of Chinese bureaucrats or officials, or maybe even army officers, who were either in Falun Gong or practised it's methodology, as they had been involved with Qi Gong, with that kind of traditional exercise before.
Information Screen
During the Tiananmen Square Massacre
the Chinese government
had difficulty convincing the army
to mobilise against the demonstrators
due to a conflict of interests
Information Screen
Among the students
were relatives
of high-ranking army officials
Chen Yonglin
...ban the party members first, and then ban the Civil Servants, and later totally ban the Falun Gong.
Charles Lee
I went back to China in...2000, trying to get contact with the practitioners inside China...then I kept in touch with them for a long time. And during that process I understood how they were treated inside China, almost all of them had been sent to the mental hospitals because they labelled these practitioners as mentally sick or something.
Information Screen
3000 cases of psychiatric abuse
were presented to
the World Psychiatric Association
for investigation
Robin Munro
So important in human rights work that we get our facts straight, and sufficient volume of facts, preponderance of facts to persuade people, so that when you come out with an allegation, people will believe you.
Information Screen
In 1990
leading expert on human rights in China
Robin Munro
began independently researching
the political abuse of psychiatry
by the CCP
I thought I was researching a type of human rights abuse that was in historical decline.
Information Screen
In 2004
The General Assembly of the WPA
gave mandate for
a fact finding mission
to enter China
to carry out investigations
This was something that was done a lot in the 60s, 70s and 80s, sending sane dissidents to police run mental hospitals and throwing away the key.
Information Screen
The terms of reference
for the initial application
were turned down at the last minute
by the Chinese authorities
Then, in the late 90s, with the crackdown on Falun Gong, it starts up again. Large numbers of Falun Gong sent to mental hospitals. Falsely accused of being mentally ill, and forced to take electric shock treatment, psychotropic drugs, all the rest of it. Now that is still going on, and it's disgraceful.
Information Screen
As a compromise
a one week collaboration
with their counterparts in
the Chinese society of psychiatry
was conducted by the WPA
Information Screen
The delegation concluded
that all 300 cases
were “misdiagnosed”
and that no systematised abuse
of psychiatry
exists in China
It's very convenient, there is no comeback, you have no right of judicial appeal. The police can put you in a high security institute for the criminally insane forever. You have no rights until the doctors there decide that you are, quote unquote, "sane enough to be released". So it's very frightening, it's an extremely effective way to silence critics.
Document
Dangerous Minds
Political psychiatry in China today
and its origins in the Mao era
Lower 3rd
Published by Human Rights Watch
2002
Ethan Gutmann
I've interviewed about 120 people. Extended sit-down interviews...Bangkok to Australia, weeks and weeks in Taiwan, to Canada, all over the United States, and Europe as well. To try to talk to the refugees......it would be great to go into China and it would be great if I had some sort of invisibility cloak and I can do that. But I don't. And I am a white guy and I will be followed in China. I'm not really welcome in China after writing 'Loosing the New China'...I would simply get Falun Gong practitioners in trouble. And they don't need that extra trouble at this point.
00:25:13:02
Segment 4: Torture the Evil Cult
Lower 3rd
Jiutai Camp
Re-education through forced labour
Charles Lee
Many of them were sent to the labour camps. The Communist Party labelled as re-education, because they want to reform people, they want to reform people's mind and behaviour according to their own...doctrinents. I was from China, and my friends and family are all there. As a Chinese I had this responsibility to help people.
He Bin
I was taken, taken away to a cell, for about five or seven days, without informing my family at all. And then I started to refuse they're food and water. It's the only way I can protect my right, because I don't think I have done anything wrong, even according to the laws. After about four days without their food and water...they tied me up to a chair. They used a pipe just to push very hard through your mouth, or nose, to pump in some stuff. The whole process was very hard....hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners actually died during the force feeding process.
Information Screen
Deaths are recorded as
suicide
and family members called
to collect the bodies
Ethan Gutmann
...Zhao Ming started doing the exercises. There's some motion from the policeman's office, and a policeman comes charging in and hits Zhao Ming squarely in the cerebral cortex. He goes crashing to the ground and Mah looks at him and thinks...he's dead! But he's not, and she looks away, she looks back, he's up. He assumes the second position, that's where he was, and just as he assumes the second position the policeman starts beating him up. But this time it's different. He goes after him, he doesn't want him to fall. He, kicks him in the balls, he takes him in the chin. One after the other, or after the other. Eventually he crumples, he goes down. She looks away, she looks back, he's up again; second position. Guy goes after him, this time she looks away, we don't really know what happened, and he doesn't remember very well at this point, but it went on for a couple of minutes. Ok. Bone crunching sounds, she looks up, back in the second position. Cop gives up. Now, is that a made up story? I don't think so.
Information Screen
Zhao Ming signed a ‘transformation’ form
denouncing his belief in Falun Gong
after being tortured for 30 minutes
with electric cattle prods
Chan Shun Hing
One of the crucial questions about Falun Gong is that "is Falun Gong a cult, or evil cult?"
Albert Ho
Personally I am not a believer in Falun Gong, in its philosophy, or in its Qi Gong, but I am deeply committed, strongly committed to the view, that Falun Gong is a peaceful organisation. I have no legal, or other moral reason to support the accusation that Falun Gong is an evil cult.
Chan Shun Hing
I would rather say, Falun Gong is a spiritual movement.
Albert Ho
It has no plan, or ambition, so far as I know...to threaten the peace, order and stability of a society, including the society I am living in.
Lower 3rd
Kowloon Park, Hong Kong
Wednesday night exercise class
I see no reason at all why we should interfere with the freedom of the Falun Gong members in continuing to do what they have been doing.
Chen Yonglin
...make people believe that Falun Gong is a cult and so that it should be banned. And in China should be eliminated.
Albert Ho
Now of course, one has the freedom to pass judgement on other people. But I think it is a very very serious matter for people to do something to restrain other people's freedom; freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of association, or freedom of demonstration, because you take the view that this organisation is evil.
Lower 3rd
2006
Information Screen
The Honourable Albert Ho
was beaten in Hong Kong
by three Mainland Chinese men
with baseball bats and a truncheon
after a pro-democracy demonstration
Information Screen
He had recently joined
The Coalition to Investigate
the Persecution of Falun Gong
(CIPFG)
Title
Annie Yang [survivor]
Now lives under UK asylum
The first of March, without any legal trial or process, I was arrested and sentenced for two years in a labour camp.
Document
Finger torture
Document
Suffocation
Document
Shackling for
long hours
They forced me to sit on the very hard stool, which is thirty centimeters square and the surface is very uneven.
Document
Strapped and
suspended
Document
Ridged
seat
I have to sit there for over twenty hours a day, and without permission I am not allowed to move a little bit.
Information Screen
Over 100 methods of torture
Have been
Documented
Demonstrated
Drawn
And painted
By survivors
Document
Standing on stool
for long hours
Document
Drowning
in bucket
Document
Hung by wrists
for long hours
My knees have to be closed. My feet have to be closed, and my back have to be very straight and put my double hand on my knees. And not allowed to close my eyes.
Document
Shock by
electric baton
Document
Strapped
to floor
for night
And sitting like this for over twenty hours a day. And just a week later, all my bottom is broken. And some other practitioners, their bottom already all rot, become rot; they couldn't sit anymore. And because I suffered both mentally and physically, so all my hair turned white. Now you look my hair, my hair is dyed colour; it all has gone white. And my memory is very bad now, very weak. And even my eyesight is very very bad.
Information Screen
Annie was a single mother
Information Screen
Her 16 year old son
witnessed her being taken
from their home
Title
Dr Herman Salton
International Human Rights Lawyer
The Chinese government, like any other authoritarian government, they want to control people's minds. I am more surprised when people are surprised that the Falun Gong has been treated so harshly in China. Obviously I am not condoning anything that has been done in China, but I am just saying that it makes perfect sense from an international politics, and even from a political science perspective, if you are a leader of an authoritarian regime, you don't really want to have growing numbers of people going into the Millions who believe in Truth, Compassion and Forbearance. All three are a problem for any kind of authoritarian government. But I think the Truth one is the one that certainly doesn't sound very good for the authorities.
Ethan Gutmann
...there've been Qi Gong movements out there for years, but Falun Gong separated itself out very quickly because Master Li was promoting a morality based idea, and saying even the Universe was controlled by these moral laws. Not controlled by the Communist Party...The explosive growth of the Falun Gong through Chinese society, through all lawyers of it, ok; going from peasants in the heart-land, right, all the way up to University professors, and in fact, members of the Chinese Communist Party. And this starts very early. This was like a fire spreading through the rocket. I mean, it starts down here at the bottom, shoots up all through the stages. The smoke is in the capsule. Maybe a little more than smoke, by the time they decide to put an end to this fire. So from their perspective, this was extremely dangerous. The idea that anybody could have two Masters. The fact that he was called Master Li.
Information Screen
In 1992
the title Grand Master
was conferred upon Li Hongzhi
by the state run
Qi Gong Science Research Society
The fact that Master Li had come almost from nowhere. The fact that he didn't give orders, I think in some ways was one of the most striking things...and that yet it spread so quickly! This is what worried them.
Charles Lee
they have controlled people's mind by not allowing any other information. And they control all media...They have continuous political movements, have brainwash campaigns......everybody, according to them, should be reformed by the Party line.
Information Screen
Charles was forced to write
‘thought reports’
Examining his progress
In understanding
Chinese communist ideology
00:35:11:17
Segment 5: Propaganda & Counter-propaganda
Charles Lee
So in this case, especially in the persecution of Falun Gong, they have told so many lies about Falun Gong. People had no way to know the truth. If they always listen to the lies they will eventually believe, part or whole, what they say because there's no other reference to compare what is really truth.
Information Screen
The government declared
practitioners of Falun Gong to be
murderous and suicidal
Information Screen
The papers reported that Master Li
was a reincarnation
of Adolf Hitler
Herman Salton
I think it's important that people are aware of the facts, and they are told the facts, and then they will just come up with their own opinion. But if you only give your side, you will play into the hands of the Chinese propaganda, because to some extent then they will say, "well they don't even consider our point of view, we had good reasons". And as I say, from their perspective, I think they had very good reasons to be afraid of the Falun Gong, to be afraid of Tibet.
Information Screen
According to the communist ideology
only state sanctioned modes of thought
are permitted
Information Screen
All other forms of thought
including orthodox religions
are either controlled
or eliminated
Ethan Gutmann
You'll see a lot of Chinese Communist Party propaganda about the crazy primitive beliefs...aliens, UFOs or anti-evolutionary theories and so on.
To Yiu Ming
They have a very tight scrutiny on the media about everything they write on Falun Gong, and it's members, and all their activities.
Information Screen
In the year 2000
the Chinese government
declared Falun Gong to be
99.5% eliminated
Ethan Gutmann
In fact the elimination was supposed to be over by the end of the year 1999. Now we're coming into 2001.
Title
To Yiu Ming
Assistant Professor of Asian Media, Hong Kong
Basically they will be banned and they are not allowed to appear on the screen or on any media, unless there are some negative news about Falun Gong. I think it is a policy of the propaganda department...
Ethan Gutmann
The problem also seems to be that the public has gone along with the persecution of Falun Gong, but not as enthusiastically as all that. They see this basically as some sort of retread of the Cultural Revolution...."Why don't they leave these people alone?" That changes, with the self-immolation. The self-immolation is the single defining point. The single worst day in Falun Gong history...
Information Screen
On the 23rd of january 2001
the state-run Xinhua News Agency
reported that 5 practitioners
set fire to themselves
in Tiananmen Square
Information Screen
The Falun Dafa Information Center
immediately called for
a third-party
independent investigation
David Kilgour
Well I think it has to do with the intense media campaign that has been levied against the Falun Gong community since about April of '99. They put things on television I gather, and I've seen a couple of them, where they suggest that Falun Gong practitioners tried to Immolate, Self-Immolate themselves in Tiananmen Square. And yet, if you have a follow this thing closely you can see it's pretty obvious that it's kind of a set-up thing, and that you see a hand come into the screen very quickly, and the people arrive within thirty seconds...Did they not know, it looks so, it looks pretty phony.
Information Screen
A CNN camera crew
filmed the incident
Information Screen
Chinese Central Television
claimed that the footage shown
was from their confiscated tapes
Ethan Gutmann
He was on the far side of the square. Now he started shooting, but he had a standard way of shooting, which is; he'd shoot 5secs, 10secs of tape, pull tape, hide it, another one in, pull tape, hide it, another one in, and advance. Ok. He didn't get very far. Ok. He made it something like 50 yards down the square. Police jumped on him, took his tape, but they didn't take all of it!...it shows burning figures from a long ways away. Nothing like what the Chinese government is showing you as the footage there.
Information Screen
The Washington Post
reported on the 4th of february
that Liu Chunlin
who died as a result
was not a practitioner of Falun Gong
If you go to a Hollywood stuntman and ask them "whats one of the most exciting tricks you can do?" They'd say "set myself on fire!" And you'd say, "well that sounds really dangerous!" They'd say "no, no, it's really not! It's no problem. Just do it under the right conditions, you'll get through it."
Information Screen
August 14th 2001
the International Education Department
made a statement
to the UN Sub-commission
on the Promotion and Protection
of Human Rights
claiming:
Information Screen
The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident
Was a staged act
They condemned China
for state-run “terrorism”
...the story is not accurate the way it has been told by the Chinese government. We know that Falun Gong didn't encourage this. That we can say with some confidence. There's not suicides all over the place...
Information Screen
3 months prior
over 30 Congressmen
and college professors
in the US & UK
nominated the founder of Falun Gong
and his students
as candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize
But we do know one thing. We know this had the most dramatic impact; the sight of a child burning, on that square, even if it was a stunt, even if it was meant to be just a stunt. Even if these were convicted criminals who were under some intense pressure, and were told that they could do the stunt and they'd thereby release any bonds they had to the State. That sight changed the Chinese public's view of Falun Gong. It became extremely negative. And that's when, in the prison system, you start to see the deaths really increase.
Chen Yonglin
Convince the world that the Communist Party policy of persecuting Falun Gong is legitimate, it's reasonable, it's from the will of the people. It's not for any political purpose.
Information Screen
Despite 9 pieces of evidence
indicating that
the self-immolation incident
was orchestrated by
the 6-10 Office
under the control of CCP leadership
6 months later
Beijing was awarded
the 2008 Olympic Games
Ethan Gutmann
Remaining inhibitions, about torturing practitioners, to get them to transform, drop away at this point. And it becomes clear that the 6-10 Office...allows prison systems now to have a death quota. To have a certain amount of practitioners they're allowed to just kill off, at any given time...
Charles Lee
In this case it's extremely important to break through this media blockade by the Communist Party. So inside China a lot of Falun Gong practitioners, they risk their lives, to hand out the flyers, to hand out the DVDs, and tell the people by word of mouth. And starting from March 2002 some practitioners successfully used the TV network to broadcast the truth of persecution of Falun Gong, and I saw that it was extremely effective because you can reach thousands of people at a time...
Ethan Gutmann
They all have personalities; there's the jock, there's the smart guy and there's the tom-boy girl one, who shows them how to climb up a telephone pole......but they actually pull off this feat, of changing something like six channels all simultaneously to a Falun Gong truth clarification video, exposing the lie of the self-immolation on Tiananmen Square. For 45 minutes. That's pretty good.
Information Screen
This was the first occurrence
of counter-propaganda
infiltrating the airwaves
...we've tried talking to the State, now we have to talk to the people. We have to take our case directly to them....this is very very effective political work. That's followed by one of the worst round-ups in modern Chinese history.
Information Screen
5000 practitioners
were arrested in retaliation
Information Screen
15 were sentenced
to 4-20 years in prison
One of them is released...
Information Screen
Ms Li Rong
Ms Shen Jianli
Mr Liu Haibo
Mr Liu Yi
Ms Li Shuqin
were beaten to death
for their roles in the tapping
We find this unbelievable in the West, because we think of the press and so on, but they don't have that in China, ok. So to release a dying practitioner was to send a warning message to the home province. Don't try this at home!...there is some fantastic footage out there of him walking around, after his spine has basically been broken.
Lower 3rd
Lei Ming
Died August 6th 2006
00:44:22:17
Segment 6: In Prison
Jeff Priore
Some people ask "are Falun Gong practitioners getting political?" Here's my thought on this...and this is a delicate situation here. Could you imagine if it was your personal lover, your personal wife, your parents, your children that were actually in slave labour camps or were killed. What would you do? Would you just stand there? I don't think so. I think if it was a personal thing you would probably do something to help out.
Charles Lee
In October 2002 I went back to China, to Jiangsu province, because that is also the hometown of the Communist Party head, so I think that's extremely important for people over there to know the truth. And I spent three weeks to prepare the tapping devices. October 22nd I was carrying five sets of devices in two bags, and walking in the city of Yangzhou at night and I was planning to tap into the TV network on that night. But when I was walking in the street I was stopped by the patrol police...
Information Screen
Charles was taken to a detention centre
Information Screen
After studying the movements
of the police
he took an opportunity to escape
Information Screen
He went back to China a second time
with more advanced equipment
but was arrested at the airport
He Bin
To be physically beaten by the police, yes it's painful, but compared with the forced brainwashing, the latter is more, is more, more difficult to endure as a human being.
Lower 3rd
Yu Hong District Nursing Home
Detention Centre, Shenyang
Charles Lee
After two weeks, my mind would go very slowly because there was no information at all...
Information Screen
Unlawful
“black jails’
Are innocuous detention centres
Lower 3rd
Wuhan
Re-education Centre
Lower 3rd
Fu Shun
Re-education Centre
Charles Lee
...no TV, no talking, no nothing. Just sit there. So that kind of mental torture it's like you become nuts. Your mind is getting slower and slower. I was trying to recall some things I learned before to make my mind active. Otherwise it would be like mind dead you know? So that is extremely suffocating actually...
He Bin
They spend a lot of money and manpower. Almost every Falun Gong practitioner in the brainwashing centre, they have at
least one people to follow them 24 hours...
Charles Lee
Even when I was taking a shower, they would stand beside me...
Lower 3rd
Fu Shun City South Garden Prison
Detention Centre, Nan Hua Yuan
He Bin
From the early morning until very late at night, you have to watch, to listen to and to read all the propaganda. You know it's propaganda, you know it's untrue, but you have to watch it. If you don't, they will use some methods, like use electronic baton or other torture methods, to force you to do what they ask you to do.
Charles Lee
They just kept torturing me. Because I refused they used all different ways to torture me. Like force me to sit...straight all day long, from seven o'clock in the morning to...nine o'clock in the evening...the longest was like forty eight days consecutively, every day I was forced to sit on little stool until i had a heart problem...
David Kilgour
I should probably mention here, especially after what we just heard a few moments ago, that other Falun Gong practitioners who have managed to get out of China, such as Zhu, have told David Matas and myself that they, without any charges or court proceedings, worked as unpaid workers in reeducation camps for up to 16 hours daily in unhygienic and brutal conditions.
Information Screen
The International Labour Organisation
is a UN specialised agency
which seeks the promotion of
social justice
and internationally recognised
human and labour rights
David Kilgour
Making things, if you could imagine, like chopsticks, shoes, garments and various promotional items for foreign companies.
Information Screen
Dr Charles Lee
made slippers in the form of
a popular Western cartoon character
David Kilgour
All for export markets. I ask rhetorically, "where is the World Trade Organisation?".
Information Screen
The World Trade Organisation
which China is a member of
seeks guidance on labour rights
from the ILO
Charles Lee
Sixty people crammed in the small room, sitting one next to each other and do those manual work, on a small table. And in the summer the temperature was forty two degrees centigrade. There was no air condition, and even if you did not do anything, you sit there, you sweat. So you still were forced to do all those labour works.
Information Screen
China is a member of the ILO
but has not ratified
the convention on elimination
of forced and compulsory labour
And they also had this kind of, they called it Condemnation Session; this is like a political term inside China, inside the communist regime system. The condemnation session is a sort of rally. The so called criminal or those who should be reformed, would stand in the centre, and all the other people would surround him or her to yell at him. To call her name or his name to say you are such a bad person, you should be doomed. Things like that, all those bad words, very dirty words, I will not able to repeat those. So they had this kind of condemnation sessions all the time. One group did this to you, to try to shame yourself, like shame on you. Things like that. And after this group left another would come. So they try to exhaust those people. They do one thing after another. They give you no break at all. After slave labour then they would do this study session, brainwashing session, condemnation session......my treatment, even though it was extremely suffocating, it's still better than those practitioners inside China, because we know that many many people had been tortured to death, literally just tortured to death, beaten to death. Right now it's like more than three thousand, as what we know, their names and address and their stories. But what we don't know is far beyond this number. And also we know that they took the Falun Gong practitioners organs out for profit, when they were alive.
Information Screen
Thousands of children
have been orphaned
Information Screen
Charles holds a US passport
Information Screen
His case was high-profile
and involved Amnesty International
Information Screen
To reduce media attention
his release coincided with
the US invasion of Iraq
...because I was an American citizen, I was not treated like that; tortured to death. I was able to get out of the prison with my body intact.
Message
[Names of the dead in Chinese]
Lower 3rd
Some of the names on record
00:52:29:18
Segment 7: The Campaign Begins
Lower 3rd
1989
Ethan Gutmann
Tiananmen had a trickle down effect to society. What it had done was opened up the minds of the Chinese people. The 80s had opened up the minds of the Chinese people. In many ways the 80s was a much freer period in China, than the 90s or the present time is. You could, you could talk about anything, for a little while. It meant you could think anything...A lot of spiritual practices, which had lay unused in the corner somewhere for a long time, were suddenly being pulled out, dusted off, looked at anew. And that's partly what the Qi Gong thing is about. The Qi Gong craze. But Falun Gong was was actually pulling on a much stronger tradition, something even deeper...no churches, no organisation, no money. It's a very significant thing. it's almost, it's almost never commented on in the West. These things are very threatening, again, to the Chinese Communist Party, from their perspective. But from a Chinese standpoint, they're incredibly familiar. Even people who didn't have any religious background, who just maybe had one Granny or one Grandpa who used to talk about something. Or even just some folk belief. Everybody has almost a genetic memory, sleeping, of a different time in China, when things were in harmony.
Information Screen
In 1998
The Chinese National
General Athletic Bureau
investigated the health benefits
of Falun Gong
Information Screen
From a sample of 12,553 practitioners
it concluded that 97.9%
registered a positive effect
Li Hongzhi did not actively promote himself, so much as I understand it, he showed up at a Qi Gong conference, took the crowed by storm, and that was it. Falun Gong was off and running. It was about that simple. From a practitioner's perspective he's given them a treasure, a unique treasure, something they couldn't imagine. He's a very important guy to them, to say the least.
Information Screen
Officials stated
that Falun Gong was
taking the strain off
the nation health system
as health care
was abolished in the early 90s
David Kilgour
A friend of mine, who's a Falun Gong practitioner, now, was a Chinese diplomat. In the mid-nineties, mid late 90's, he went back to Beijing and he went to the Foreign Ministry and he noticed that in the Foreign Ministry people were doing meditation. And he said to his colleague, “why do you pay these people to do nothing?” And his colleague said, "well, basically we believe in Falun Gong, we encourage the diplomats to do Falun Gong" because it's good, as you've just heard, for their health. This is the mid-nineties. I'm told that the consul general in New York, the diplomatic staff gave a course on Falun Gong, for New Yorkers, to show them about Chinese culture.
Information Screen
Certificates of authenticity & award
from China & around the world
Ethan Gutmann
We also know that the Chinese government was actively promoting those ideas as well. During that period he was invited to Paris, to lecture in the Chinese Embassy in Paris. We've talked to people who were there at the time. He was very well received. The Qi Gong organisations of China promoted Falun Gong.
Information Screen
Zhuan Falun
the principle book of Falun Gong
became the number one best seller
You can go back and look at the news coverage of Falun Gong at the time, which was very positive.
Information Screen
In april 1996
Falun Gong broke free of the
Qi Gong Science Research Society
alleging that it conducted no research
and was a mechanism for the control
of Qi Gong organisations
and extraction of money
...he does represent, or he resembles, what we would think of as a spiritual leader, a little more cleanly than any we've seen in quite some time.
Information Screen
In june 1996
Falun Gong was reported on negatively
by state run media
for the first time
Information Screen
A month later
the Chinese News Publishing Bureau
under the Propaganda Department
prohibited the publishing
of Falun Gong books
with the decree that they were
“spreading superstition”
Ok, maybe they didn't want the competition. This kind of thing happens in China. It is not a complete signal that the government had chosen to suppress the whole spiritual practice.
Information Screen
In 1997
undercover police
began monitoring practice sites
Information Screen
Despite pressure
public interest increased
Information Screen
In 1998
intimidation at practice sites began
and raids on homes
David Kilgour
...but as the numbers grew, which you just heard, I think Jiang Zemin panicked, and he thought, he may have known that Falun Gong is not political, and it isn't, they want nothing to do with politics. And as I told you, when they were sitting around the Party headquarters, they didn't say anything, they didn't say down with Communism or anything. But he figured that this, movement is growing so quickly, that pretty soon, 'if' they became political, they could topple this wonderful Communist Party of China...
Ethan Gutmann
The important thing to understand about what happened on Zhongnanhai that day, is that this campaign against Falun Gong had already started years before.
Document
Interpol press release
3rd August 1999
Information Screen
After his books were banned
Master Li emigrated to the USA
Information Screen
The Chinese government
requested his extradition
Information Screen
As no crime had been committed
Interpol refused to intervene
Information Screen
He remains a resident of the USA
and enemy number one
of the Chinese State
Ethan Gutmann
I recently did an interview with a finance minister, who's now in exile, in Sydney. And he revealed that...he was told to start turning down anybody who was Falun Gong for a business license. A couple of months later he was told, actually, get rid of the people who have business licenses. Remover their, eradicate their business, revoke their business licenses. Anyone who's Falun Gong. Now that is a 'campaign'! And he was very clear about it. What Jiang Zemin had chosen, and what the Party had chosen, and it was already in place in 1998. Eliminate Falun Gong. 1999 is just a playing out, month after month, of that. So first you have Tianjin. Then you have Zhongnanhai.
Zek Halu
Perhaps I can add to this. In The Nine Commentaries on The Nature of the Communist Party, published by The Epoch Times, it say's clearly that Communism is not a Chinese idea. It's a western import into the Chinese culture from Russia. Alien idea to Chinese traditional tolerance, truthfulness and these qualities embedded in Chinese culture, and that's why it doesn't sit well with the Chinese people.
Title
Zek Halu [practitioner]
UK Spokesperson for the CIPFG
And throughout its reign of 56 years, it has periodically undertaken purges in which it was wiping out vast numbers of the population, whether they were land owners or the intelligentsia, or the artists. And there were about six or seven of these waves in which 80 Million people, Chinese people, lost their lives. And the last wave is now the Com...the Falun Gong apparently. So this is something that the communists do to stay in power in that country...
Information Screen
1998
An investigation into Falun Gong
was conducted by former chairman
of the People’s National Congress
Qiao Shi
and other senior retired members
Information Screen
They concluded
“Falun Gong has hundreds of benefits
for the chinese people and China,
and does not have one single bad effect.”
Ethan Gutmann
In Tianjin practitioners are told to go to Zhongnanhai, told to go to the National Appeals Office in Beijing to make their case. That's what they're told, by the police.
Information Screen
The Appeals Office
was closed for the day
When they showed up at Zhongnanhai, it was treated as high-insurrection. A day of infamy.
Information Screen
Police
arranged practitioners
around the Party Headquarters
A lot of journalists have bought into this, and it's a funny one, is that the Chinese government was taken completely by surprise. Two practitioners, I trust them, completely, they were walking by the Forbidden City...and they stumbled into an armed unit, fully armed, bayonet ready, in military vans.
Information Screen
State run media
portrayed the demonstration
as being a siege
Months progress. By June, the government is on one hand saying...“there is no interference with Falun Gong”...but in fact what the government is doing, in June, on the 10th of June, is creating the 6-10 Office, the machine that will lead to imprisonment and death, of thousands.
David Kilgour
How much money was spent on it, and far worse, how much cruelty was used by it, is a subject that I hope somebody will write a book about?
01:02:06:06
Segment 8: The 6-10 Office
Sarah Cook
There's a representative latched onto every level of the CCP hierarchy, that is pervasive and goes all the way down to neighbourhoods and townships and, streets. With their little neighbourhood watch groups.
Title
Sarah Cook [practitioner]
Former research advisor to the United Nations
There were orders for everyone, each one of those, down to that level, to create their own 6-10 Office. There was one bit of research I came across where there was an archived website of a University in Qingdao, and it was from their Public Security Bureau's website - I guess they have their own Public Security Bureau - and in it they were talking about how they were creating a 6-10 Office in the University.
Information Screen
Before being dismissed
He Bin had just started work as a
lecturer in finance at a Beijing University
Information Screen
After being arrested
his parents were extorted
4 months wages
to have him released
Information Screen
He now operates as it support
at a university in London
David Kilgour
This policeman told me that if he didn't have 100%, they call it re-education or some stupid term like that.
Ethan Gutmann
...well, that's actually a very good question! Transformation in its simplest form meant sign a peace of paper saying you renounce Falun Gong, and that you won't practice it. Actually, no, but it didn't just mean that. Actually it meant, you need to make sort of a more personal statement of what Falun Gong means to you, or what it meant to you, how it led you astray, and why you're rejecting it. Actually, it doesn't just mean that. It means that after you've made such a statement you really ought to put that on camera. Maybe on National TV. Actually it doesn't just mean that. It means you're probably going to go to some conferences and things like that, and show up, and say that same statement there. And then actually it doesn't just mean that. It means you're going to spend a lot more time in prison, trying to help transform other practitioners. And when you've transformed enough practitioners, then, perhaps, your transformation will be accepted, and you will be released. That became the big problem, for a lot of practitioners. It was one thing when people would say "ok, just sign the stupid statement, get out, you can go practice again." That was genuinely tempting. It was these other aspects to transformation which became so vexing! For a practitioner to have to do those things. To actually, the worst, I think, is actually trying to convince another practitioner that Falun Gong has done them harm! I think this just became absolutely odious, and many practitioners, and I think they're quite sincere when they say this, said "this was the worst torture of all!"
Information Screen
The transformation campaign
was code named
'Spring Thunder'
David Kilgour
If somebody signed a form that said they had renounced Falun Gong, and they went back, and became a Falun Gong practitioner again. That was a blot on his office. And you know what he told me, that they were authorised to do, if they had any doubt, say about Annie, that Annie might go back to being a Falun Gong practitioner? He said if we had doubts about somebody we were authorised to kill them. That's the way the government of China operates.
Information Screen
Defector
Hao Fengjun
became disillusioned with his role
as a 6-10 Officer
after meeting a female victim of torture
by steel rod and electric baton
Information Screen
Hao was placed into solitary confinement
for 30 days
after calling anti-Falun Gong propaganda
“lies”
Information Screen
His hands became
“swollen like steamed buns”
and his ears emitted pus
Sarah Cook
There's a speech actually from Jiang Zemin that was circulated to all levels of the communist Party, telling them that this is the leadership team and that they have to co-operate with them...regardless of what it says in the law. And that actually violates Chinas own constitution, because article five of the constitution says that 'no organisation is above the law'.
Information Screen
“The 6-10 office
is just like Hitler’s Gestapo.
They are powerful
and they [have] got enough
financial support from the government
so...they secretly control
all the Falun Gong practitioners
In their local areas.”
Information Screen
Guo Guoting
Chinese human rights lawyer in exile
Information Screen
It operates globally
Information Screen
Each office is rated on its success
At implementing the Party policy
of eliminating Falun Gong
Information Screen
Promotions are given to those who excel
Ethan Gutmann
By September you have the first reports of a death...under captivity. As the Autumn deepens, more deaths are recorded, more serious stuff starts to happen, and the group, for the first time, is called a 'cult'.
Information Screen
Western media used the therm ‘cult’
as a translation of
‘heretical religion’
The cult that frightens the Communists
The description in still in use today
Information Screen
The term was later adopted
By the Chinese Communist Party
Ethan Gutmann
It is called an 'evil cult', and laws are passed to make evil cults illegal, and to basically create an 'extra-legal' situation, where the government can do anything it wants to destroy them. By January, Falun Gong starts fighting back.
01:08:02:21
Segment 9: The System
Ethan Gutmann
some practitioners were very quietly trying to hold conferences, just like the old days. At great risk! Tremendous risk! Right. While others were working directly on documenting the persecution, and others, sort of the, if you like, the kind of the foot soldiers of the thing, were mainly the peasants, coming streaming into Beijing. The initial arrests in China did not mean such serious consequences....they might be brought in, they'd be ruffed up a little bit...if they wouldn't sign the transformation statement, they were often let go, initially. It was the repeat offenders who started to get into real trouble. The conflict shifts, from Tiananmen Square itself into the prison system. Into Labour Camps. This is where the real resistance began. In a prison no one can hear you scream. No one can see your pain, and i'm sure that point was made again, and again and again, in prison..."Your sacrifice is utterly useless." And, so it seemed. But in fact, certain people, and you see this in Zhao Ming's case, you see this in quite a few cases actually, put up such a resistance, were so stubborn, so difficult to defeat, that they started to slow down the entire system.
Information Screen
Transformation campaign
‘Spring Thunder’
was failing
...hardened criminals would work them over. They know they won't fight back; they're non-violent, they won't fight back. Shipments of cattle-prods start appearing. The system starts to have trouble. And you can even see this reflected in the memos that are coming out of the security forces at the time, which are identifying Falun Gong as a really really difficult problem.
Sarah Cook
You try to visit a prisoner, you try to visit someone in a labour camp, you try to, you know, some people get sentenced to prison, people lose their jobs, money confiscated, torture, all of it, it's all run by the 6-10 Office.
Title
Chen Yonglin
Former Chinese Consul for Political Affairs, Sydney
Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a part of the 6-10 Office system, majorly in propaganda role, as a propaganda machine overseas. When I came to Sydney in 2001, there was a new role, in the political issue, that is the Falun Gong issue. So, there's a role of persecuting Falun Gong, even here in Sydney. If there is any Falun Gong activities, we will be there monitoring to report back to China. And also, according to the policy, any specific instructions from the central government, must take any counter measures, including; try all the ways to influence the local government, to limit the Falun Gong activity, to convince the local counsellors, members of the parliament, that Falun Gong is abnormal, is evil. That Falun Gong should also be banned in Australia.
Document
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
Information Screen
This letter was sent
from the Chinese embassy in London
to a British
Member of the European Parliament
concerned about allegations
of organ harvesting
Document
The Sujiatun lie, as one of the latest myths created by Falun Gong, shows itself a mere farce, in which its antic players follow the tactic of the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”, intending to cover up its cult essence by taking advantage of the innocent people who have limited knowledge about China.
I would like to take this opportunity to earnestly request your insight into the Falun Gong trickery, and convey the truth to your constituents.
So that's one of the major role, actually, I have played in the
Consulate. That's totally against my conscience.
Information Screen
Chen Yonglin claims there are
1000 Mainland Chinese spies
operating in Australia
Stock Footage - Chen Yonglin
“I feel Guilty when I, at the beginning period, I followed very strictly of the government policy of a persecuting Falun Gong people here. You will find there are a lot of a Chinese secret agents, and Chinese consulate staff, be hiding somewhere. ”
Information Screen
He now lives in hiding
Charles Lee
...after three years in prison, after I came back and I was told by some people - they had access to the secret file inside the Chinese Communist regime - and they told me the information was from Oakland in California. Which means there were spies watching us all the time, so whatever we did they just report to the Communist regime...
Ethan Gutmann
...there's full surveillance on it. Right. Every time they start to use cell phones, they're rounded up because Motorola has given the GPS co-ordinates, given the Chinese police the way to use the GPS co-ordinates to do that accurately.
David Kilgour
I was in Australia a couple of weeks ago and I met Jennifer Zeng. You may know Jennifer also went through the same kind of experience that you went through Annie, and she was caught by an internet email that was sent by somebody else. And if I'm not mistaken, the government of China spends millions and millions of dollars a year on this gruesome internet censoring system.
Ethan Gutmann
Cisco setup a system so that you can basically track every communicae on the internet, and use it for arrests. They've actually specifically given it to the 6-10 Office at this point, and they've even, according to our 6-10 Officer now in Australia, they actually have created an actual list of Falun Gong practitioners; a sort of a database.
David Kilgour
...Canadian company Nortel has helped the government of China to develop a filtering system, whereby Falun Gong practitioners and others can be caught...
Document
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
Information Screen
The Chinese Embassy in London
Was contracted for an interview
Information Screen
The interview request was ignored
Details of the production company
a copy of the film and phone numbers
were solicited
Jonathan Mirsky
...people feel that if they criticise China something bad will happen to them. I call that the China magic.
Information Screen
1991
Jonathan Mirsky Accompanied
the British Prime Minister
on his trip to China
Information Screen
The first diplomatic visit
by a foreign leader
after the Tiananmen Square Massacre
...they were very determined that, not in terms of the Chinese, but that in terms of British opinion, that they would be known to have tackled the Chinese on human rights.
Information Screen
He was consulted
on how to raise
the sensitive issue
of human rights
They just didn't do it, and that everything they said was a lie. That they in fact did not bring up these matters, but that they wanted the press, and including me, to think that they had.
Information Screen
Jonathan Mirsky
had lived in China
since the mid 1970s
Information Screen
He was immediately
thrown out of the country
and banned from returning
The China magic is what makes the Chinese impervious to criticism that would be leveled easily at any other country.
Herman Salton
No one wants to lose the money that comes form China. And that is perfectly understandable, except that you should also consider that...you cannot just shut down protests because a lot of money is involved.
Jonathan Mirsky
When the Chinese practice persecution, torture, execution on people with whom they disagree...I think this has to be confronted, and just spoken about and written about.
01:16:14:11
Segment 10: The Iceland Incident
Information Screen
June 2002
Jiang Zemin visited Iceland
Information Screen
Practitioners on the blacklist
were denied entry to the country
Information Screen
The Icelandic Ministry of Justice
provided their
passport and flight details
to Icelandair
at airports around the world
Title
Dr Herman Salton
Leading Researcher - 'The Iceland Incident'
I asked the Icelandic authorities about the source of this blacklist and the Icelandic authorities took immediate responsibility for it and they said, well we compiled the blacklist....it was not a prohibition of protesters cannot get into Iceland, it was a very specific prohibition targeting the Falun Gong....to all effect and purposes it was secret in the sense that it was not intended to come out explicitly.
Information Screen
The authorities expressed concerns
that their police force
was only 200 strong
Only two hundred practitioners of Falun Gong who actually came into the country; so a ratio of one policeman per practitioner, or per potential protester, is I think a situation that every chief of police in every country would find desirable...
Information Screen
The origin of the blacklist
Was debated
The Icelandic Ministry for Justice said we got this information from Chi... sorry, from Germany and the United States, and Interpol was also involved in the process of gathering this information. They were asked specifically whether the information came from the Chinese government, they said absolutely not, the Chinese government was not involved at any stage.
Information Screen
Germany the USA
and Interpol
denied being involved
with the blacklist
Information Screen
With the assistance
of Icelandic policemen
operating on foreign soil
Icelandair was ordered to
“refuse carriage to known or suspected
members of the Falun Gong movement”
...if you were on the blacklist you were prevented from boarding the plane. There was some embarrassment from Icelandair because they didn't know how to explain the matter to the practitioners.
Information Screen
Icelandair
is a privately owned company
...a group of about seventy practitioners who came, and who arrived at Reykjavik airport; they arrive into the country, they were questioned about their spiritual beliefs. The Icelandic police determined that they were there as members of the Falun Gong...
Information Screen
Racial profiling
was used to identify
those who were not on the blacklist
...something unprecedented for Iceland happened in the sense that these people were at a certain point arrested, and they were put in a make-shift detention centre. And obviously you have to remember that at this point they haven't done absolutely anything.
Information Screen
News of their arrest
was reported by the media
Haflidi Helgason
Icelanders aren’t really easy to get out to demonstrate or things like that, but I think people were rightly dissatisfied with what was happening and thought that it was not right for a democratic society to obey to demands like removing people,...and taking actions on the grounds of what the Chinese government wanted to do.
Title
Haflidi Helgason
Editor of Business News, Reykjavik
I think there were no obvious threat or anything, it was just to please a foreign guest, by means that are not accepted in our society.
Herman Salton
What upset the Icelanders most was the approach of the Icelandic government was unethical. The problem in this case was that there was the targeting of a very specific group, which is a spiritual group...who were peaceful, who did not create any kind of trouble, and who did not intend to create any kind of trouble from the beginning....the Icelandic government did not know what the Falun Gong was. This is a very important point, there is an ignorance point. There's not, I don't think, there is any kind of bad faith from the part of the government itself.
Information Screen
After september 11th 2001
The CCP claimed Falun Gong
To be a terrorist group
Haflidi Helgason
China is becoming an economical giant. There is pressure on governments all over the world not to be unfriendly to the Chinese nation...But in this case I think obeying orders from the Chinese government was going much too far.
Herman Salton
...some members of the Icelandic diplomatic corps, and the Icelandic security officials, basically to some extent interfered with the freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration of the Icelandic people.
Information Screen
Iceland
is one of the oldest
democratic nations
Lower 3rd
Chinese Embassy
Reykjavik, Iceland
You had cases of spying on the Falun Gong activities. You had cases of bogus demonstrators who were put there by, apparently, Chinese officials.
Information Screen
Overseas members of the CCP
are encouraged
to support their government
by opposing protests
You had cases of people and hotel owners in Iceland who were visited by Chinese security officials. They were told you need to cancel the bookings of these Falun Gong people because these are dangerous people. So it is against your interest, these are people who are mentally unstable and will create problems to your guest house or hotel.
Information Screen
A leading broadsheet in Iceland
published a four page article
apologising for the incident
Information Screen
It was countersigned by 450
noted Icelandic citizens
The problem is that these security officials, in addition to do this, also said they were coming on behalf of the Icelandic police, and the Icelandic police obviously denied that. And it came out very clearly because many of these documents were released...
Information Screen
Incidents have occurred outside of China
Including
Tapping of phones
Theft of computers
Physical intimidation
Pressure on local authorities
And
Attempted assassination
Information Screen
Occurring in
The following countries
The USA
The United Kingdom
Canada
South Africa
01:22:53:20
Segment 11: The West
...in terms of the visits that the Chinese President made to other countries, there were problems before and afterwards....Italy......Germany......Switzerland......Australia...
...New Zealand...Lithuania for example, where the chief of the police himself, apparently, said that he could not guarantee that the Chinese body guards of Jiang Zemin would not shoot demonstrators, in that case it was Tibetan, from Tibet, on the spot.
Information Screen
During a visit to France
by Jiang Zemin
Chinese police were given
jurisdictional rights
to make arrests on the streets of Paris
Information Screen
Anyone wearing yellow
was viewed as a suspected
Falun Gong practitioner
Title
Matt Whitticase
Free Tibet Campaign spokesman
French Tourism ministry, in a pamphlet advised French businessmen and French hoteliers never to mention the 'Three T Words': Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen, because they didn't want to offend Chinese people. This is a direct attack on our democratic principles and norms that we've built up over hundreds of years. And the view that we have to literally bow down in front of China and accept its anti-democratic processes is an extremely worrying one for the future of democratic societies in the west.
Information Screen
Incidents affecting Falun Gong activities
have also occurred in
Argentina Bulgaria Cambodia
Denmark Fiji Hong Kong & Macau
Hungary Indonesia Israel Japan
Malaysia Mexico Myanmar Peru
Romania Russia Scotland Singapore
South Korea Sweden Taiwan
Thailand Ukraine Venezuela
Western Governments are hugely impressed with the recent breathtaking emergence of China as an economic and increasingly as a political and military power. And this has sadly led to many governments, and not just governments but corporations, censoring what they will say about China, because of course they have vested interests in the Chinese markets.
Ethan Gutmann
There was even a period where business leaders would come over and would put in an obligatory anti-Falun Gong point in their speech. It wouldn't be right out of the Chinese government playbook, it would be more something like "wow, these Falun Gong guys sure sound like a bunch of nuts!".
Title
To Yiu Ming
Assistant Professor of Asian Media, Hong Kong
...for the past ten years, China has been very, very clever when he's tried to deal with the international media as well as international organisations. They try to involve them, engage them, give them some interests, and in return they would ask for compliance with their rule of game.
Matt Whitticase
There's a dark underbelly of repression in China, and it is the responsibility of the international media to make sure they balance their coverage of China, so we don't just get some rosy picture of newly enriched people in Beijing or Shanghai, posing in front of towering office blocks. We have to know as well, that the Chinese government is delivering its policies on the back of a lot of repression, which is the only way it can keep itself in power.
Jonathan Mirsky
Some apologists for China say, no no no no if you bring that up it'll make things worse. There is no evidence for that.
Ethan Gutmann
Whats happened within the journalist community is now, if somebody goes out and follows Falun Gong around, what they're usually trying to do is is to catch Falun Gong practitioners in a kind of lie. That is they'll sort of say "are you political?", well in the Mainland...Well "no no no no we're not political!", and then they'll find them doing something political, and that's the story.
Jonathan Mirsky
Even if the Falun Gong were an avowedly 100% political organisation, and it were in some other country, and its adherents were being imprisoned, and died under questionable circumstances, as often as they do in China, foreign governments and others would speak up about this. So I don't think it's even important. I don't think that the degree to which the Falun Gong is or isn't political is the problem. The problem is that it exists in China.
Ethan Gutmann
You know, and you can say that's the story while expressing due sympathy for, you know, of course, the rather unfair persecution that's been levelled on the group and so on. The problem is that none of this is real reporting. Ok. And that we have a genocide, in slow motion, taking place, in China, and we have a genuine threat to the CCP, that has been building for some time, that from a news standpoint has to be taken seriously. Even from, if you were a business man, from a risk analysis standpoint, you'd have to look at it. But there's the third reason, which I think maybe is the most important; is that if you report on Falun Gong in a positive way, you will never push a cart in China again!
To Yiu Ming
This is what we call 'information management'...
Information Screen
2002
The BBC in China
was temporarily suspended
by Chinese authorities
due to a breach in contract
for mentioning Falun Gong
Ethan Gutmann
...they feel they must crush this. It is something that threatens the Chinese Communist Party. They loose sleep over this issue. Ok. So it's unusual that journalists aren't covering it for that reason.
To Yiu Ming
They have to kowtow with Beijing, in a way, in order to secure a workable relationship, they say, with China....in accordance with the Chinese Law. What if the Chinese Law, if put in force, is contravening the laws of international human rights? Which side would they be standing on?
Ethan Gutmann
Another thing suppressing the journalism is the lack of interest in the Human Rights organisations. And that one's very complex, and I don't really have a perfect answer for it actually.
David Kilgour
We know that the Amnesty methodology, which requires independent corroboration for abuses, is difficult to apply to our findings in a totalitarian society.
Ethan Gutmann
Many of them, most of them, if they have any success at all, they actually have to negotiate with the Chinese government for the few things they can get. A tour, maybe, of a Labour Camp. Perhaps release of a prisoner or two. Something like that. To go into that negotiation, and say that you want to talk about Falun Gong, ends it!
Information Screen
Chen Ying was forced
to make a false library
for the visit of a camera crew
It's the number one group that they're going after. It is the number one, the number one enemy of the State.
Information Screen
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Dr Manfred Nowak
reported that 66%
of torture victims in China
are practitioners of Falun Gong
01:30:35:03
Segment 12: Gao Zhisheng
David Kilgour
David Matas and I give Amnesty great credit for putting out an emergency bulletin recently about the arrest of China's most courageous lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, who has spoken out on for the human rights of many Chinese citizens, including Falun Gong practitioners. David and I in fact intend to nominate Gao for next years Nobel Peace Prize.
Albert Ho
People, especially human rights lawyers, who have been working very hard, to fight for justice and fight to defend the rights of the deprived citizens, are now themselves in problems.
Information Screen
Gao Zhisheng
is one of few lawyers
to have taken on cases
involving practitioners
Information Screen
He is known as
“The lionhearted lawyer from Beijing”
Matt Whitticase
In 2005 the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Dr Manfred Nowak, visited China and Tibet, and he reported, officially, that torture remains widespread in China and Tibet.
Information Screen
It had taken ten years
for the United Nations
to be granted a visit to send
the Special Rapporteur on torture
into China
to carry out investigations
Title
Sarah Cook [practitioner]
Co-editor of Gao Zhisheng's autobiography
...one of the people they met with was Gao Zhisheng. It was the first evening that they were there, before the mission had even officially started, and they met with Gao in a restaurant. And on his way there he was almost run off the road. The thing is though, that I don't know how much of this is on the record or off the record......he went to three different courts in one day, or in the span of two days, and every judge just looked at the papers and said, “don't you know we don't take Falun Gong cases"...
David Kilgour
...the court system in China is so bad, that there may be a judge sitting up here at front of the courtroom, but more than half of them are retired military who are, of course, only too glad in most cases to do the bidding of the Party...
Sarah Cook
The judges said, “ you lawyers clearly aren't members of the CCP, or aren't aware of CCP regulations: don't you know lawyers aren't allowed to take these kinds of cases? You better be careful you're gonna get in trouble.”
Information Screen
Gao wrote open letters to
the National People’s Congress
and
the Chinese Communist Party leaders
Hu Jintao & Wen Jiabao
Information Screen
Gao Zhisheng was one of
the top 10 lawyers in China
but there was no reply
Within two days they put him and his family under 24 hour surveillance....many people have had a lot of faith in Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao when they first came to power, that they were different from Jiang Zemin. People knew Jiang Zemin was brutal. But they thought Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao cared more about people.
Ethan Gutmann
...some practitioners said to me, "Ethan, a new power, new guy coming in, Hu Jintao. You better hurry your research up. You better be done in the next 3 or 4 months, because the persecution is going to end now." And that was about 2 years ago.
Lower 3rd
Recorded in 2008
This is not about one man. It never will be! This is about a system.
Edward McMillan-Scott
First of all can I thank Hu Jia for joining us on the telephone, and I realise he is doing so at some risk to himself.
Information Screen
Vice-President of the European Parliament
Edward McMillan-Scott
is talking to Hu Jia
an award winning human rights activist
and blogger
in Beijing
Information Screen
They know their conversation
will be monitored
but Hu Jia is the only means
of contacting
Gao Zhisheng
Edward McMillan-Scott
...I was supposed to meet Gao Zhisheng, but all the ambassadors said "do not meet him", and then I discovered that the people I had already met, had been arrested.
Translation in Mandarin
I therefore spoke to Gao on the telephone on the 4th of June, on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, and we discussed the Olympics and human rights, and the repression of Falun Gong and other religious groups, and the possibility of reform in China. And those are the questions i'd like to put to Hu Jia now.
Information Screen
Bloggers have been arrested
after information on them
has been given to
the Chinese authorities
by Western corporations
Could Hu Jia also make it clear to Gao Zhisheng that at the highest levels of the European Union, we are making strenuous efforts to have him released.
Translator
Ok.
Information Screen
During his first 129 day detention
Gao was handcuffed to a metal chair
for 590 hours
and illuminated by bright lights
Information Screen
He was forced to sit cross legged
for 800 hours
to examine his sins
Translator
He wants to tell you that Mr Gao’s family has been used as the hostage.
Information Screen
Many practitioners
refuse to state their name
to the authorities
to protect their families and friends
neighbours and work colleagues
Information Screen
There is no record
of the nameless
Mr Gao has said multiple times that if without his family, family members being held hostage, if that weren't the case, then he could have done a lot more. It really doesn't matter to him if the Chinese government would jail him or would torture him, he doesn't care.
Information Screen
When the torture did not work
his family were threatened with
deprivation of food and water
Information Screen
“Because of these inhumane
tortures and coercions,
I was forced to “plead guilty”
and “guaranteed” in writing
not to fight for human rights...”
Sarah Cook
While he was still under surveillance he somehow managed to sneak away from, lose the police, and go and do another round of investigations in northeastern China. And that's the letter where he really writes about some of the most horrific torture you've ever heard.
Information Screen
“The immoral act
that has shaken my soul the most
is the 6-10 Office and policeman’s
regular practice
of assaulting women’s genitals...
almoust every woman’s genitals and breasts
and every man’s private parts
have been sexually assaulted
in a most vulgar fashion.”
I mean, these torture chambers, where they, practitioners, talk about being stuffed into the trunk of a car, driven for two hours, taken out, taken to some room that's like a dungeon, that has three tiger benches and a bunch of electric batons. They get clamped in...Then they just do round after round of torture. And people get tortured to death, and they talk about there being a pit there where they bury their bodies. So he was doing that investigation for about fifteen days, and he talks about how though, at the end he, again, his inspiration for Falun Gong practitioners.
Information Screen
Gao was tortured to force him to write
three things:
Information Screen
An article condemning Falun Gong
Information Screen
An article condemning the founder
of Falun Gong
Information Screen
Articles praising
The Chinese Communist Party
Spring of 2006 you started having this evidence coming out...of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, and Gao started speaking out about that. He joins the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong. A coalition of, basically, people who don't practice Falun Gong, most of them a lawyers or politicians outside of China who's aim is to investigate, particularly the organ harvesting.
Information Screen
Gao Zhisheng
withdrew his membership of the CCP
and described it as being
the proudest day of his life
Information Screen
Since 2002
at the request of practitioners
over 60 million people
have quit the CCP
or affiliated organisations
01:38:46:14
Segment 13: Organ Harvesting
David Kilgour
I'll come right to the point. Ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming. Following our two months study, another Canadian David Matas, who's already been here, and I, published a report this summer. It concluded and I quote, "We have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners. Their vital organs, including; hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas, were virtually simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners." Close quote.
Tom Treasure
I knew a little bit about it already, because there had been the question of executed criminals......it has become known that the availability of, shall we say kidneys, which is one of the commonest, is the commonest transplanted organ, was way higher than you'd expect that it should be, in terms of the number of the population and the number of people who die, and so on. The sums just don't work out. There must be another source of organ donors.
Title
Professor Tom Treasure
Cardiothoracic surgeon and Research Fellow
The added dimension, of course, is the Falun Gong. Who, by any interpretation which I am aware of, these people are not criminals.
Lower 3rd
Years 2000-2005
David Kilgour
Yes, we found 41,500 transplantations across China which cannot be explained by executed prisoners, that is, executed criminals. Here we're talking about executed Falun Gong practitioners, who as Annie pointed out at the start of her statement, never went near a court. And I can't make that point too strongly, that there are, I think it's 68 offences in China for which you can be sentenced to capital punishment, but at least those people go to a so called 'court'. Annie and the Falun Gong practitioners in China never go near a court, virtually all of them. They're simply taken, as I think you said.
Information Screen
Annie Yang
was an exporter of chinese antiques
You were lucky, I believe Annie, partly because the government of China knew that you had a lot of friends in places like Britain, and that's why you, I don't think, were subject to this terrible risk of becoming an 'organ donor'.
Tom Treasure
When they're incarcerated, they'e 'blood-grouped', which is not part of the normal way of looking after prisoners. You might do their HIV status. There would be more reason in doing that. But just doing a blood-group, there was something about it, which again, adds weight to the argument.
Annie Yang
...blood test, blood pressure, chest X-ray, everything they done. Even the eyesight. Even they force me to take all my clothes off to check my body; where has a scar or not.
David Kilgour
...they're abused, they're tortured, but every three months a doctor arrives and gives them a complete medical examination...
Annie Yang
At the beginning I thought they care of our body, and later on, I understand, and I heard the news from the internet, they want our organ to take away.
Ethan Gutmann
...kind of a probing check of their liver and kidneys and so on. Urine test, and usually a blood test, extreme blood test, a lot of, about eight vials drawn for tissue matching. And sometimes an eye exam. At least looking at the corneas of the eye. And nothing else. That is, no lymph nodes, no genitals, no mouth, no ears, eyes; nothing involving actual seeing, because that's about brain function, and that's not a retail organ.
Information Screen
Organ: US$:
Kidney 62,000
Liver 115,000
Lung 160,000
Heart 145,000
Cornea 30,000
Conservative estimate of trade value to date:
$10 Billion
These examinations, given that these took place in the most extreme conditions of Labour Camp, were clearly aimed at retail...
David Kilgour
...quote, “organ transplantation has increased in China at a remarkable rate. One institution in China reported 647 liver transplant operations in about a year. The waiting times are between 1 and 2 weeks according to the Chinese hospital web pages” close quote. Where else in the world do you get 1 and 2 week waiting times? I think in Canada for some organs you wait years to get them.
Tom Treasure
...the ability to do the operations more or less to order, is very strange, and it just doesn't fit and there must be another explanation. Which is why, when I examined the report by Kilgour & Matas, by doing those calculations, I was able to say "they're on to something".
David Kilgour
In fact this man from Asia told us ladies and gentlemen, that the military surgeon, Dr Tan, Major Tan, who came into his room, while he was waiting to get a kidney that would work, with sheets of paper, and he would go down - there were lists of names on it. The doctor, the military doctor would go down the list, and there'd be blood types I gather and so on beside the list, and he'd go down and he'd pick out a name, and he'd go away and come back two or three hours later with a vile containing a kidney. And I asked him, “well did you think these people were alive when the doctor was going down the list?” And he said, “of course they were alive!” In other words, these people were killed in order to find a suitable kidney for him.
Information Screen
The Organ Harvest report
has been presented
by Kilgour and Matas
to governments and the media
around the world
Albert Ho
...obviously many evidence gathered by Kilgour and Matas are indirect evidence. This evidence does not come directly from the victims, or the eyewitnesses to the atrocities.
Title
The Honourable Albert Ho
Lawyer & Legislator, Hong Kong
So, but on the other hand, the sources of these evidence are different and independent from one another. So the cumulative effect of this evidence, gathered from different sources, are very forceful.
Edward McMillan-Scott
...so I just warn the regime, we know what's going on, we're taking names, we're taking down facts. In time, those responsible for genocide will be punished. As they have been in Africa. As they have been in other parts of the world. And one day, in China too. So do not sleep easy.
Tom Treasure
I began to think "does this all make sense? Is it credible, is it plausible? How can we come to terms with it?", because part of this must involve the medical practitioners.
David Kilgour
Doctor Tom Treasure, who, and I mention this in a statement, who wrote an article this month in the, The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; it's called, quote “The Falun Gong, Organ Transplantation, the Holocaust and Ourselves,” by which he means the profession. Treasure courageously reminds the profession that in the 1930's the first step on the road to the Holocaust were taken...with the complicity of doctors.
Information Screen
China is a member of
The World Health Organisation
But if your someone, a doctor or a citizen of China watching every second night or third night on the media, some news horror story about what awful people the Falun Gong community is, I suspect that this infects, or contaminates the doctors too. And one of the things we learned was that from a number of sources, but the doctors consider Falun Gong practitioners to be sub-human. That they're doing a favour to Chinese society in effect to kill Falun Gong practitioners.
Tom Treasure
...they wouldn't be able to keep up the numbers without the prisoners...
Information Screen
The UN have requested
that the Chinese government
investigate the allegations
of organ harvesting
01:47:16:07
Segment 14: Never Again
He Bin
Western people, it's very difficult for them to believe it, because this kind of thing just, normally, it's just out of people's imagination. As a government, a government who can, you know, actually are doing such terrible things.
Information Screen
“We have won a great victory in the
struggle against Falun Gong...We have
won the right to host the 2008 Olympic
Games. This shows that the international
community has acknowledged the fact
that China is marked by social stability
and progress, its economy is prospering.
And its people are living a peaceful and
comfortable life.”
Li Lanqing, Vice Premier of the CCP
July 20th 2001
2nd anniversary
‘Night of the Long Knives’
Edward McMillan-Scott
The parallel Olympics, which are the genocide Olympics of 1936, when already in Nazi Germany there were concentration camps and wholesale repression, and genocidal activities against, for example, the Jewish people.
Ethan Gutmann
We're really not going to have the full information on this organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience until after the CCP falls.
Edward McMillan-Scott
I personally believe that, even though the tyranny of Germany and it's effect on the world through World War Two was massive by comparison, the fact is that internally in China today, the situation is actually worse...
Information Screen
The Olympic charter
of
The International Olympic Committee
states ‘Olympism’ to include
“...respect for universal fundamental
ethnical principles.”
Matt Whitticase
What we have seen, since 2001 when the Games were awarded to Beijing, is China showing utter contempt for every promise it made to the IOC and the International Community before it was awarded the Games.
David Kilgour
Quote. "Display to the world a new image of China", close quote. That was one of their promises. And secondly, "To use the Games as an opportunity to foster democracy, improve human rights and integrate China with the rest of the world."
Information Screen
In 2008
the 6-10 Office
ordered its subsidiaries
to increase the campaign
against Falun Gong practitioners
Jonathan Mirsky
...it was an enormous public relations scam...and they got away with the imprisonment of people who were attacking the Chinese record on human rights inside China. Men like Hu Jia, who went to jail for saying “hey wait a minute, what kind of a country is this which is putting on the Olympics in the way that it is, but at the same time it oppresses its own people.” But the fact is, to a great degree, with most people, the Chinese got away with.
Information Screen
The Chinese Communist Party
has been a member
of the United Nations
since 1971
David Kilgour
Virtually nothing to prevent the harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners is currently being done in China. So it's crucial that action be initiated, now.
Information Screen
The official response
of the Chinese Embassy in Canada
to the Kilgour & Matas report
was:
Information Screen
“[T]he so-called
‘independent investigation report’
made by a few Canadians
based on rumours and false allegations
is groundless and biased.”
...the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China now has hundreds of legislators, lawyers, doctors, academics, religious and spiritual leaders in more than 20 countries who are ready to go to China to investigate our report findings. I think, I hope you do too, they should be allowed to go to China.
Information Screen
To reduce media attention
Gao and his family
Were removed from Beijing
Prior to the Olympics
Information Screen
Due to the severity of the torture
Gao considered committing suicide
Edward McMillan-Scott
Could you thank Hu Jia for his compassion and his clarity, and his courage. And could you, and could you ask him, to tell Gao, that I have not forgotten my promise of some whiskey when he is free.
Translation in Mandarin
Information Screen
Not long after the phone conference
Gao was abducted
in response to his letter
to the US Congress
Information Screen
He was taken to a secret location
and few have seen him since
Information Screen
Edward McMillan-Scott
does not know this yet
Edward McMillan-Scott
The next one we'll do I think we'll do in Brussels. And we'll have a press conference, maybe in a month or so's time and, either Hu Jia or somebody else. But it's a very good mechanism.
Information Screen
Their phone conference
was the first between
a Member of the European Parliament
and a China based dissident
I'm just sorry that no journalists apart from yourselves turned up. But it's not unusual, especially in August in London.
Information Screen
Hu Jia was arrested
on the 27th on january 2007
for the crime of
‘Inciting subversion of state power’
and sentenced to
3 and a half years in prison
Information Screen
His arrest came after
a press conference held via web-cam
with a European Parliamentary hearing
in Brussels
Robert Evans
...like my colleague who spoke earlier, Edward McMillan-Scott,
01:53:05:03
Segment 15: They have not been Abandoned
I'm a member of the European Parliament. And we have here members of the European Parliament and members of the House of Lords, and we are all here with the same message that it's not acceptable for the Olympic Games to go to Beijing next year and carry on as though nothing has happened and that everything is absolutely fine there.
Ethan Gutmann
One of the things Master Li said very early on in the persecution was that, and actually before the persecution he'd said this as well, is, practitioners are going to have to learn to do without me! That they're going to have to do this for themselves. I can't guide their every step....he disappeared for a while. Some people took that, from the Communist Party perspective, they said "a ha, you see, he's a, he's a, you know, this this guy is a, he's a nobody, he's ashamed. He's a charlatan." Well that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is to say he was carrying out this action. If I am the problem, i'll remove myself. But practitioners are going to have to figure this out. How did they figure it out? That's the focus of my book. What have they done? How have they learned to manage under these circumstances? How have things changed over time?
Brian Coleman
I have to say, i'm quite appalled by the behaviour of Westminster City Council, supported by the Metropolitan Police, in switching off the microphones here this afternoon. It is somewhat reminiscent, I hate to say, it is the behaviour of the Peoples Republic of China...
Ethan Gutmann
We don't judge people by what they say, we judge them by what they do. We don't judge the Chinese Communist Party by what it says, it's a, they're a bunch of liars. We judge them by what they do.
Information Screen
The official slogan
for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
was
“One World One Dream”
Edward McMillant-Scott
Matt Whitticase from “Free Tibet”. Matt.
Matt Whitticase
China loves to drape itself in the Olympic flag. It loves the Olympic movement to confer on China respectability. China wants to be a respectable member of the international order.
Ethan Gutmann
I'm quite interested in how they are able to withstand things that I don't think I could withstand!...there are practitioners who suffered almost every conceivable torture and walked out of prison alive. There's a few of them.
Zek Halu
"Should Olympic games be run in Burma, in Zimbabwe or Sudan?", and you will all say "of course not!"
Information Screen
Those who have escaped China
Join efforts to disclose the truth
Ethan Gutmann
If the media won't cover you, you create your own media. You create something which will cover it.
B-Roll - Peter Jauhal
“...the atrocities have culminated into the most despicable crime of all, removing organs...”
Ethan Gutmann
On the radio side, people are learning languages...And of course on the internet side, they're developing cutting edge technology that nobody has ever seen before.
Information Screen
‘The Great Firewall of China’
an Internet blockade
was eventually broken through
There is this feeling that they can try anything. It's built magazines...art shows, photo competitions, you name it.
Gutari Jurapanda
If you give up now, then everything your comrades have stood for, spilt their blood and sweat for, was of no use.
Ethan Gutmann
Financially this has required a huge sacrifice by practitioners. But long term, these things could actually become self-sustaining.
Gutari Jurapanda
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, and I quote, "First they ignore you...”
Ethan Gutmann
There's this cultural aspect....This is going on globally.
Gutari Jurapanda
“...Second, they laugh at you.”
Ethan Gutmann
...I see a powerful transformation that has taken place. Not on the spiritual side. The spiritual side has stayed remarkably constant.
Gutari Jurapanda
“Third, they fight you. Finally you win." As I see it, you're in the third stage, and the next, is victory.
Ethan Gutmann
Every practitioner feels like they're carrying the body of another dead practitioner, on them now. But it meant that people created. It was an extremely creative period. Explosive really. In fact it's one of the most impressive things that a group has ever done, who's been under this kind of, faced these kinds of conditions. Now it's true in terms of political effect, in terms of dollars and cents, making a profit, or results maybe, it's kind of a wash. But in terms of sheer volume, or production, very impressive. And actually it does lead to a perception, back in China, that something is going on in the West, and that they have not been abandoned. That practitioners, in the West, across the world, across the Chinese diaspora, have not abandoned them.
Jeff Priore
Theres a place called the peak...and it overlooks the view of Hong Kong. It's a lovely view. And we get 3, 4, 5,000 Chinese tourists there every day. We have many posters there and we actually have two TVs up there, and we show them another side of the story. Let them make a decision. So we give them another side. When I first got there, about three years ago almost, a lot of the tourists up there sometimes they would shoot me with a gun with their hands. They would go on the bus and go sha sha sha, they'd shoot me. Or people would be yelling at us. Some people would be crying. Some people would be happy. Some people would clap. Some people would give us a thumbs up. So there was many kinds of people doing many things. And, gradually, over the last few years, I've seen a big change. Things are becoming more clear up there. And many people are starting to embrace us. And they really want to know what's going on in China.
Chan Shun Hing
If Falun Gong face a persecution without enough reasons, we should defend Falun Gong, to help Falun Gong to enjoy this kind of basic human rights...
Haflidi Helgason
...this is a general human rights question, and in my opinion, in general, human rights opinions are not political in that sense. It's about the ethical basis of being human.
To Yiu Ming
Falun Gong never give up, and try it's best in all fronts. And try to fight it's cause.
Jonathan Mirsky
I have friends amongst the Falun Gong, and I will do what I can.
Jeff Priore
...now many people who don't practice Falun Gong from all segments of society are helping us out. Why? Because they see that what we're doing is the right thing. We're just trying to save people. Save people from being killed. I think it's that simple.
Chen Yonglin
It's a very, very hard time for Falun Gong practitioners. I can't see any possibility of finishing this persecution against Falun Gong, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
File
Estimated figures
Sent to psychiatric hospitals >1,000
Currently imprisoned 1.8 – 3.6 Million
[potential for harvesting]
Tortured to death [named] >3,500
Harvested for organs 62,250 – 87,750+
Over 5% of China’s population criminalised
And at risk
Ethan Gutmann
This resistance. This thing that we see, the sort of Falun Gong resurrection today, started in, in those cells, where no-one can hear them.
Message
Their names we may never know
Message
Inform others
David Kilgour
...since 1949 terrible things have happened regularly to the population of China at the hands of its own government.
The end/The beginning