Seven members of the Taiwan Falun Dafa Institute filed a lawsuit at the Taiwan High Court on Nov. 17 accusing former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), former Chinese vice premier Li Lanqing (李嵐清) and Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Luo Gan (羅幹) of committing genocide.
This is the first time that Taiwanese people have invoked the genocide statute, which was put in place in 1953 in accordance with the UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
We have four statements to make regarding this lawsuit.
First, we demand that justice be served to safeguard basic human rights and freedom.
Falun Gong pursues no political ends and its followers do not harbor any political interests. We are following a judicial path to safeguard humanity's basic rights to free religious expression, free speech and individual liberty. We hope for a fair trial that will encourage the basic values of justice and goodness.
Second, violators of human rights should be punished by law so that international justice can be realized.
The Falun Gong is a group that cultivates the heart and the mind through exercise and meditation. It does not oppose any political regime. China's suppression of Falun Gong is motivated purely by Jiang's self-interest. Since July 1999, and with the assistance of Li, Luo and hundreds of government agencies, Jiang has arbitrarily threatened political groups, schools and business entities all around China to misrepresent the pure, good and peaceful Falun Gong as an illegal religious sect and target it for political struggle.
Using the media, the Beijing government has planted false evidence, slandered the group and stirred up public hatred toward Falun Gong. They have also brainwashed, tortured and killed Falun Gong followers. Such vicious and terrifying means of persecution are quite simply beyond the imagination of Tai-wanese people living in a society that upholds freedom and the rule of law.
These atrocities, stretching over more than four years, have deprived millions of Chinese Falun Gong practitioners of their freedom of religion and basic human rights. The atrocities have even occurred outside China. After lengthy investigation by international human rights organizations, including the UN Commission on Human Rights, irrefutable proof of this has been collected. Amnesty International named Jiang one of its "Human Rights Scoundrels" of the year 2000.
Over the past four years, governments around the world have issued more than 130 statements condemning China. The persecution that Jiang's system has inflicted on Falun Gong followers has become a focus of world attention.
Third, Jiang's brutalities have violated Taiwanese people's rights and must be stopped.
The fact that some Taiwanese Falun Gong followers suffered persecution proves that the Jiang clique's atrocities have encroached on Taiwan's territory.
Over the past four years, Taiwanese followers have been illegally detained, mistreated and forced to give testimony while in China. When they attended officially approved activities in Hong Kong and Iceland, they were illegally detained and repatriated, and harmed financially, psychologically and physically for no reason.
Even the livelihood of the residents of Matsu has been threatened because of China's brutal repression of Falun Gong. Several Chinese women married to Taiwanese men have been secretly detained and questioned after returning to China and then charged, jailed or forced to leave home.
The safety and privacy of Taiwanese people are now controlled by China. How can the Taiwanese public allow its good and honest people to live under the shadow of Jiang's conspiracies and threats?
Fourth, we call on Taiwan's courts to try the case fairly and we call on the public to view the matter conscientiously.
The seven plaintiffs are not the only victims. All Falun Gong followers are victims. In fact, everyone is a victim. The Jiang clique deceived China and the rest of the world with blatant lies. Yet some people failed to see the truth, and they too harbored hatred toward Falun Gong and even participated in Beijing's crimes.
The Jiang clique has fabricated data to cover up a weak Chinese economy. It has lured international investors into providing capital for their suppression of justice. Many governments have been blinded by China's economic illusion and have sacrificed their own traditions of human rights and protecting their peoples.
A famous quote in the 1980 US human rights case Filartiga versus Pena-Irala said that whoever adopts torture is the enemy of humanity. Now, in addition to the lawsuit filed in Taiwan against Jiang, Li and Luo, human-rights lawyers from around the world have joined hands to help persecuted Falun Gong practitioners sue Jiang and other Chinese officials who joined with him in committing crimes.
Since October last year, plaintiffs in the US, Belgium, Spain and other nations have lodged charges of genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. Plaintiffs in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Ireland are also planning to follow suit.
Our government has pledged to make Taiwan a human rights-oriented nation. Amid the international wave of support for a public trial of Jiang, we declare that he and other human-rights scoundrels will be brought to justice in Taiwan so that justice can be safeguarded for all. We also call on everyone in Taiwan, China and the rest of the world to try these public enemies in the court of their own consciences.
If all the righteous people of the world can condemn these atrocities with one voice, the worst human rights tragedy within Chinese society in the 21st century can be stopped.
Then Falun Gong followers, who believe in "truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance," can enjoy freedom, innocent Taiwanese will no longer be threatened by China's persecution of human rights and the light of truth, goodness and justice will shine in every corner of the world.
Translated by Jackie Lin
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan in late February. During their various meetings with Taiwan’s leaders, this delegation never missed an opportunity to emphasize the strength of their cross-party consensus on issues relating to Taiwan and China. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their instruction upon taking the reins of the committee was to preserve China issues as a last bastion of bipartisanship in an otherwise deeply divided Washington. They have largely upheld their pledge. But in doing so, they have performed the
It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition is to rejuvenate the Chinese nation by unification of Taiwan, either peacefully or by force. The peaceful option has virtually gone out of the window with the last presidential elections in Taiwan. Taiwanese, especially the youth, are resolved not to be part of China. With time, this resolve has grown politically stronger. It leaves China with reunification by force as the default option. Everyone tells me how and when mighty China would invade and overpower tiny Taiwan. However, I have rarely been told that Taiwan could be defended to
It should have been Maestro’s night. It is hard to envision a film more Oscar-friendly than Bradley Cooper’s exploration of the life and loves of famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was a prestige biopic, a longtime route to acting trophies and more (see Darkest Hour, Lincoln, and Milk). The film was a music biopic, a subgenre with an even richer history of award-winning films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody. What is more, it was the passion project of cowriter, producer, director and actor Bradley Cooper. That is the kind of multitasking -for-his-art overachievement that Oscar
Chinese villages are being built in the disputed zone between Bhutan and China. Last month, Chinese settlers, holding photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), moved into their new homes on land that was not Xi’s to give. These residents are part of the Chinese government’s resettlement program, relocating Tibetan families into the territory China claims. China shares land borders with 15 countries and sea borders with eight, and is involved in many disputes. Land disputes include the ones with Bhutan (Doklam plateau), India (Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin) and Nepal (near Dolakha and Solukhumbu districts). Maritime disputes in the South China