Falun Gong Persecution Recognised As Genocide

Banners On Tiananmen Square [Photo Source]

Link: Spanish Judge Calls Top Chinese Officials to Account for Genocide [Epoch Times]

This is an interesting story.  A Spanish judge has accepted charges of genocide and torture against five high ranking officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for their part in the persecution of Falun Gong.  It is the first time that a court has deemed the campaign of persecution against the Falun Gong to be legally fitting the definition of genocide. 

Falun Gong is a relatively new religion founded in China in 1992.  It has been labelled as a cult by the CCP regime that has also clamped down on the religious freedom of Roman Catholics, Protestants and Tibetan Buddhists too (drat, there goes my chances of ever getting a visa to China).  The repression is such that Falun Gong cannot even meditate in the privacy of their own homes for fear of raids and apart from imprisonment, re-education in labour camps and thought reform classes, Falun Gong have been subjected to “dismissal from work, expulsion from universities, deprivation of health care and pensions, divorce, homelessness, and a range of other forms of discrimination” [source].

Jiang Zemin, former leader of the CCP, is among the accused.  Zemin initiated and embarked on a campaign in 1999 to eradicate Falun Gong.

“In order to implement Jiang’s decision to wipe out the group, the country’s state-run media, security apparatus, and network of “re-education through labor camps” were mobilized in full force. Since then, experts estimate that hundred of thousands, possibly millions, of practitioners have been sent to labor camps, prisons, and thought reform classes” -  Epoch Times

According to the Falun Dafa Information Centre, there are over 3,000 documented deaths (although estimates put that figure in the tens of thousands) and over 63,000 accounts of torture.  Reports speak of the systematic use of torture to force people to renounce their faith. 

The Falun Dafa Information Center has several photo essays depicting the torture and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.  To be honest, they are too disturbing to link to from here but if you click on the link above, you’ll be able to find the photo essays on the site.  Just click with care as they are extremely graphic and horribly disturbing.

Link: Activists say China still using Falun Gong prisoners as organ sources [The Canadian Press]

Perhaps more disturbing are the allegations that organs are being harvested from Falun Gong prisoners for medical transplants. 

I just don’t understand it.  Is this the country that the South African government is bending over backwards to accommodate?  China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.  How is that possible?  I lived through a torture state, I witnessed my friends “disappearing” in university, only to return as shadows of their former selves months later (and this was after the ANC was unbanned and Mandela was released).  No matter how the Chinese government tries to hide it, despite their diplomatic ties and their propaganda machinations, the truth is that gross human rights violations are taking place and a deliberate attempt to destroy a religious group in part or whole is genocide.