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October 28, 2007 (Sunday) － Issue No. 124 |
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Chinese Lawyers' Motion Defends Falun Gong in Court for
First Time |
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Heard
During the 17th National Congress |
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Behind
the Arrest of Japanese Organ Broker in China |
| Gao
Yaojie: A Doctor with Conscience She discovered that the spread of AIDS in Henan was due to governmental corruption and deliberate oversight. Since then she has traveled far and wide throughout the nation to raise awareness about the deadly disease....…Full Article |
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New CCP Leaders Offer Little Change The leadership reshuffle is seen as further establishing Hu's leadership, but still accounts for former leader Jiang Zemin's influence......…Full Article |
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In a daring and unprecedented motion recently smuggled out of China, six Chinese lawyers have for the first time formally defended Falun Gong adherents' right to freedom of belief in court. "Falun Gong … which advocates 'truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance,' has been banned and persecuted for no justifiable reason at all," says the document. "The current various punitive actions against Falun Gong believers do not have any legal basis, and must therefore be stopped." The defendants in the case are a family of three—Wang Bo, 27, and her two parents, Wang Xinzhong and Liu Shuqin. All three practice Falun Gong, a Chinese meditation and spiritual discipline. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) banned the practice in 1999, when several leaders perceived Falun Gong as a threat to their power after its adherents reportedly outnumbered Party members. To strengthen the campaign against Falun Gong, the CCP issued directives barring attorneys from defending practitioners. Since then, the authorities have disbarred or arrested most attorneys who have tried. Defense on Multiple Fronts The lawyers' 14-page motion, which was submitted to a court in Hebei Province in April 2007, combines legal theory on freedom of belief with an analysis of Chinese law. Drawing on sources ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Japanese legislation on religious organizations, it reflects extensive research on the part of its authors. Enumerating multiple ways in which the campaign against Falun Gong violates China's constitution, the lawyers argue that the criminal charges against their clients lack any legal basis. But in a move typical of Chinese courts' treatment of Falun Gong, the judges did not acquit the three practitioners. Without responding to any of the arguments raised in the defense motion, on May 9, they upheld the previous court's decision and sentenced Wang Bo and her parents each to three years in prison where they remain today. In 2002, Wang Bo was sentenced to a labor camp for raising a Falun Gong banner on Tiananmen Square. By manipulating statements Wang made under torture, China's state-run television station produced an influential anti-Falun Gong program claiming Wang had been convinced to give up the practice. Upon her release, Wang posted an online video recounting the abuse
she suffered and denouncing the television program. Soon after, Wang
and her parents were arrested and sentenced to four and five years
in prison, respectively, on vague charges of "using a heretical
organization to undermine the law." At the time of the first
trial, the three were unable to find a lawyer to represent them. Back Petitioners Attempt Collective Suicide The other incident occurred on Tiananmen Square, where several disabled people rode home-made motor-bicycles at great speed to the Great Hall of the People. Since Beijing police did not receive any advance notice from informers, the scene was in chaos. Police arrested all the people in both incidents; most of them are petitioners from outside Beijing. Delegates' Communications Tightly Controlled The organizers explained that all these measures were for confidentiality considerations and the security of the Congress. Nevertheless, people who know communist politics pointed out that real purpose was to prevent the delegates from organizing themselves, in case a collusion of delegations would influence the election of the new central committees. Delegates Must Use Assigned Cell Phones The Voting Record Will Not be Made Public Whoever Appeals in Beijing Will Be Sent to Falun Gong Detention Facilities China's Department of Civil Affairs vice minister Dou Yupei said the Chinese communist regime is committed to economic development in hopes that its citizens can become rich. However, the elderly population will approach more than 400 million in 30 years, with this aging sector becoming older before they ever become richer. China.com interviewed Dou on Oct. 17, 2007. Dou said that China entered a mounting aging population as of 1999. There are a few notable characteristics of an aging society in China. The first characteristic is the elderly population base number is very large and has now exceeded 144 million. In 2014, the elderly segment will exceed 200 million. By 2026, the population will surpass 300 million and in 2037, it will go beyond 400 million. The population will reach its peak in 2051. By then, the elderly sector will be more than 30 percent of the entire population. The second characteristic is the increasing rate of the elderly. The third is the aging trend is very obvious. Dou said that right now there are 16 million people over 80 years old. In 2010, there will be 20 million. By 2020, there will be 30 million and after 2050, there will be 100 million. Dou pointed out that another characteristic of this aging society is "people will get old before they get rich." In western developed countries, when people move into the elderly category, the average GNP per person is approximately US$5,000–10,000. Outside of the elderly segment of the population, it averages US$20,000 per capita. However, when the mainland China population steps into the elderly sector, its average GNP per capita is about US$1,000. Its people will get older before they ever become rich. Dou believes this phenomenon has a profound influence on mainland
China politics, economy, culture, and social life. To sustain development,
China must start now to prepare for rainy days and actively deal with
this issue. Back On October 16, Chinese authorities announced that a Japanese man named Hiroyuki Nagase was arrested in China for illegal organ brokerage. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, Nagase is an employee of IPC Information Service Co., a Japanese-funded enterprise in Shenyang City in northeastern China. Some consider the arrest as proof of the Chinese authorities' determination to regulate the notorious organ trade black market in China. However, the website of the International Organ Transplant Support Center stated that the large amount of organ trade is made possible and continuously supported by no other than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself. The Center's website was again shut down. The same website has been shut down and re-opened since the discovery of the large-scale organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong is an ancient way of self-cultivation whose theory is based on the principles of "Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance." For the past eight years Falun Gong and its over 100 million followers have been brutally persecuted in China. Nagase is the first person China has arrested with charges related to organ trading. The high publicity of the arrest has inspired speculation that the authorities' real aim is the bigger fishes behind the massive live organ harvesting. Nagase's IPC Information Service Co. was registered in December 2003. Since then the International Organ Transplant Support Center had served as a major portal for bringing numerous foreigners to China for organ transplants. The website did not provide information on the sources of the organs. On its website, the Organ Transplant Support Center listed the typical waiting period for each major organ. According to the list, livers and kidneys can be provided within one to two weeks, with the longest waiting time of around one month; for hearts and lungs, the waiting period is about one month. Moreover, the website promised that if the organ found is not the right match for the patient, the center will find another one within a week. Obtaining fresh organs in China is disturbingly easy and quick, especially when you consider that in all other parts of the world people have to wait many years for an organ transplant. Experts say that the only possible explanation is that a huge number of living people are used as convenient organ sources. According to the Center's website, China had conducted 85,000 organ
transplants by 2006, and in 2005 alone 12,000 were conducted. This
number is many times higher than that of executed prisoners in China
according to official statistics. Back It would be naïve to think that all grandmothers are simply a social burden. Gao Yaojie, for one, an 80-year-old retired gynecologist in Henan Province, has been a thorn in the side of the Chinese communist government for the past 10 years. In 1996, she discovered that the spread of AIDS in Henan was due to governmental corruption and deliberate oversight. Since then she has traveled far and wide throughout the nation to raise awareness about the deadly disease. Suppressed by the authorities, she has spent over a million yuan (US$125,000) from her own savings to print and distribute AIDS-awareness flyers, save patients and orphans, and—most courageously—expose the truth of the widespread AIDS epidemic that has resulted from blood-selling campaigns throughout the nation. In 2001, Dr. Gao was awarded the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights by the Global Health Council. In 2002, she was named in Time Asia's 25 Greatest Living Asian Heroes, and in 2003 she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. House Arrest In 2007, after years of house arrest, she was again detained at home by a dozen police officers on February 2 to prevent her from traveling to the United States to receive an honor bestowed upon her by the Vital Voices Global Partnership, a well-known nonprofit organization. Finally, on February 16, due to the efforts of international organizations, NGOs, and foreign media, the Chinese regime finally gave way. When asked why the Chinese communist government did not want her to travel to the United States to receive awards, she answered, "They're afraid that I will expose the fact that (illegal) blood selling is the main reason for the AIDS epidemic in China." When asked about a future remedy, Dr. Gao replied, "There are still many (underground) blood-selling stations throughout the nation, and there are many sellers who still frequent them in order to have an income. At many of these stations, the sellers sell their blood once every two days—and the AIDS infection rate is almost 100 percent." According to Chinese official figures, the projected number of HIV-positive citizens in the nation will be approximately 10 million by 2010. Dr. Gao believes the number will be much, much more if it is not controlled. Back New
CCP Leaders Offer Little Change Back The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has completed its 17th National Congress with the announcement of a new leadership line-up and promises of democratic reform, but China observers say state control remains entrenched and there is little real reform on the horizon. Party leader Hu Jintao mentioned the word "democracy" 61 times in his main address to the Congress, the International Herald Tribune reported, but democracy activist Dr Wang Juntao—now a political scientist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand—says none of the reforms will be democratic. "The real reform is the Party and state organ," Dr. Wang told The Epoch Times. "This [Hu's vision] is not for freedom, it is not for equality, it is just to control some socio-economic problem." Four new members have been appointed to the nine-man Politburo Standing Committee, the highest authority in the country. Traditionally, the focus in the National Congress is on the power play between rival factions. The leadership reshuffle is seen as further establishing Hu's leadership, but still accounts for former leader Jiang Zemin's influence. Jiang is considered to have ruled with a heavy hand and has been sued in over 15 countries for his role in initiating the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Hu, 64, is now entering his second and final term as party general secretary, head of state and military chief. He has set broad goals to address the country's many problems that include a growing income gap, major environmental concerns plus healthcare and social security problems. Endemic corruption is also a major issue, with nearly 100,000 members of the Communist Party penalized for corruption last year and the files of 3,530 members handed to prosecutors, according to the Australian Financial Review. Professor Barme said China's political past had been "murderous," but the present offered little light for the future. "It is just regularized autocratic repression of freedom as opposed to erratic political persecution," he said. Back |
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