GERMAN FALUN GONG INFORMATION CENTRE – PRESS RELEASE
November 19th, 2003
BERLIN (GFGIC) - On November 20th 2001, 36 western Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated on China’s famous Tiananmen Square, calling for justice for Falun Gong in China. They were forcibly arrested and expelled from the country. Now, two years later, some of the German participants are submitting charges to the Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe, Germany, against the former leader Jiang Zemin and other senior officials and persons responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The complaint charges them with genocide, crimes against humanity and torture, as well as dangerous bodily harm to Falun Gong practitioners in China.
The lawsuit is filed by a total of 39 victims of this persecution, the German Falun Dafa Association and dedicated citizens who support an end to the terror campaign against Falun Gong in China by taking part in this lawsuit. The lawsuit features the personal testimonies of 15 victims of torture, living outside of China. The official documentation contains the cases of over 800 deaths in this persecution, as well as other victims, providing an exposition of the unimaginable extent of this terror campaign, torture methods and persecution of people from all walks of life in China.
Lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck from Berlin, known as a representative for German victims of the Argentine armed forces Junta, represents the prosecutors. In terms of its consequences and significance, this lawsuit should be held in equal regard to the prosecution of Milosevic and Pinochet. As Johannes Rau commented in Nanjing: “Human rights have a universal meaning.” In September 2003, the German Federal President went on to say in a statement about human rights given in front of about one thousand students and professors in the University of Nanjing: “If it concerns a person’s fundamental rights to life, freedom, and the protection from torture, arbitrary imprisonment and discrimination – the prerequisites for being able to ‘walk upright’ – then there cannot be any compromises in the basic attitude.” The submission of the lawsuit prepared for November 2003 in Germany stands on this intellectual background. This lawsuit focuses entirely on the crimes of Jiang Zemin and his followers, who do not represent the Chinese people or the Chinese state.
The persecution of Falun Gong is based on Jiang Zemin’s order: “Discredit Falun Gong. Cut off Falun Gong’s financial resources. Physically destroy Falun Gong practitioners." For the past four years, this order has interfered with the lives of millions of Chinese people. Practitioners’ relatives, friends, businesses, schools and other educational institutions are coerced into taking part in the persecution against Falun Gong and incited to betray practitioners, or they are made to pay fines to prevent Falun Gong practitioners being illegally detained. Up to one hundred thousand Falun Gong practitioners in prisons and forced labour camps have been abused, tortured, brainwashed and forced to give up their moral principles. Families are torn apart, people are forced to live on the streets, women are raped and forced to have abortions, and the innocent are tortured to death.
The Code of Crimes against International Law, introduced on June 26th 2002, article 1, part 1, § 1, states: “This Act shall apply to all criminal offences against international law designated under this Act, to serious criminal offences designated therein even when the offence was
committed abroad and bears no relation to Germany.”
The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 states: “Article 2: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
This UN convention was prepared and signed by the contracting parties, including Germany: “in recognition of the fact that genocide of mankind has caused great losses in history in all times, and in the conviction that for mankind’s liberation of one such despicable scourge international cooperation is required.”
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Here is a timetable for events leading up to the lawsuit. There will be separate invitations to the press conference in Berlin on November 24th at 11am.
Saturday November 22nd
8am-10am: Approximately 500 Falun Gong practitioners from Europe will meet in Berlin. Meditation and exercise practice take place in front of Rotes Rathaus.
11am-1pm: March from the Rotes Rathaus to Lustgarten, across the street from Unter den Linden, Brandenburger Tor, Ebertstrasse to Potsdamer Platz.
Main messages: “Bring Jiang Zemin to Justice!” and “Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong in China!”
Monday November 24th
9am-2pm: Approximately 300 Falun Gong practitioners appeal between the German Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor.
1pm: Demonstration with guests - “Bring Jiang Zemin to Justice!”
Contacts in Berlin
Mrs Zhihong Zheng: 0179 - 325 83 11; Renate Lilge-Stodieck: 0162 - 134 54 78
For further questions and interview wishes please contact:
Mrs Waltraud Ng, Tel.: 06201-15672, mobile: 0173-3135532
Mrs Andrea Fischer, Tel.: 030-7523594, mobile: 0160-95012757
e-mail: [email protected] web page: www.faluninfo.de
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