Ms. Chen Chunjun (陈楚君), a former accountant at the local railroad company, was arrested on May 10, 2008 in Huaihua city by agents of the 610 Office, an extra-legal task force created in 1999 and charged with wiping out Falun Gong. (6-10 Office) She was walking to a bus stop on her way home when she was detained. Chen was one of dozens of Falun Gong practitioners arbitrarily detained that month in Hunan, as part of a crackdown by local officials ahead of the passage of the Olympic Torch relay through the province from June 1-3, 2008.

Sources inside China recently discovered that Chen died in March 2009 at Huaihua Psychiatric Hospital (a.k.a. Huaihua No. 4 People’s Hospital).

Read more…

Here’s hoping that South Korea is able to do the right thing.

Falun Dafa Information Center Urges Korean President to Protect Falun Gong Refugees

Excerpt:

However, a wide range of eyewitness accounts and third party reports – including those from Amnesty International, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and the United Nations – document the ongoing systemic and widespread nature of persecution against Falun Gong in China. Practitioners fleeing the country are regularly granted asylum in the United States and Western European countries, as well as protection from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees because of the risk they would face should they be forced to return to China. South Korea has ratified several international human rights treaties that prohibit repatriation of individuals to countries where they risk torture.

Here’s a powerful excerpt:

Though the same persecution as those done to the Falun Gong practitioners happened to our family and Gao himself, because of his three open letters, and Gao’s whereabouts is not known currently, we have never regretted his actions. Gao has said, to end this nation’s sufferings, we need people with high morals, Falun Gong practitioners have done it, and we must also do our part. Not to mention that there is also God, whose will cannot be resisted. When God is standing with us in this battle, dawn won’t be too far away.

Read her full speech here:

Wife of Human Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Speaks For Falun Gong on Anniversary

“There are only a tiny group of lawyers left in China who are brave enough to take the risk of representing victims of human rights violations. A further crackdown against human rights lawyers is a major blow not only to these legal professionals but to the human rights defence movement in China,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director.

There are more than 140,000 lawyers and 14,000 law firms in China but only a small proportion take the risk of taking on cases involving human rights violations, including providing legal aid to Tibetans who were detained in connection with the March 2008 protests. Others cases these lawyers worked on involved Falun Gong practitioners, human rights defenders detained for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression and families of victims affected by the baby milk powder scandal.

The Justice Bureau of Beijing Municipality issued a notice stating 53 lawyers’ licences, including Jiang Tianyong’s, were revoked in accordance to articles 23(1)(3) and 23(1)(4) of Methods for the Management of Lawyers’ Practice.

The justice bureau also issued a list of 24 Beijing-based lawyers who will not have their licences re-registered. According to the list these lawyers “failed their assessments” and include prominent human rights lawyers, Li Heping, Li Xiongbing, Li Chunfu, Wang Yajun and Guo Shaofei.

Without a license, lawyers are restricted in their ability to represent those seeking to obtain justice and redress for human rights violations.

Congressional letter calls Falun Gong plight “one of the most unjust and cruel persecutions of our times.”

WASHINGTON DC — In a bi-partisan letter sent to President Obama yesterday, sixty one members of Congress urged the President to “speak very clearly and specifically” in support of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

“We applaud these members of Congress,” says Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Mr. Erping Zhang, “for articulating in no uncertain terms that the United States government will not tolerate the arbitrary arrest, torture and death of Falun Gong practitioners — peaceful, law-abiding citizens — as a result of a systematic Communist Party-run campaign. We hope President Obama and his administration will heed their call.”

Initiated by Congressmen Rob Andrews (D-NJ) and Chris Smith (R-NJ), the letter highlights how Falun Gong practitioners were first targeted by the Chinese regime ten years ago and how an extrajudicial security force known as the “6-10 Office” was established to stamp out the traditional Chinese practice. “The ‘6-10 Office’ ruthlessly implements the ban [on Falun Gong],” the letter states, “through massive propaganda campaigns intended to demonize Falun Gong and…supervises the arbitrary detention, beating, torutre and ‘transformation through reeducation’ of Falun Gong practitioners.”

Read more at Falun Info Center.

New York—A Falun Gong practitioner imprisoned in Harbin’s Daqing Prison died on May 23, 2009 due to abuse in custody, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. Mr. Li Min (??) died at the age of 51, after being tortured and denied medical care when he suffered the symptoms of a stroke.

Li is just one of several family members who have been victims of severe rights abuses at the hands of the Chinese authorities because of their identity as Falun Gong practitioners. In 2007, Li’s brother-in-law died in custody at a labor camp after being tortured. Li’s wife is currently imprisoned in Harbin’s Women’s Prison and at risk of abuse.

“Falun Gong spread in the 1990s primarily by word of mouth as people saw their relatives and friends’ health and outlook on life improve. So it was not uncommon for multiple members of one family to take up the practice,” says Falun Gong spokesperson Erping Zhang. “But that’s also why – ten years into a brutal persecutory campaign – it is not uncommon for multiple members of a single family to have been killed, tortured, or imprisoned.”

“The story of Li Min and his family is not an exceptional case. Rather, it is a microcosm of the way in which the CCP’s campaign against Falun Gong has targeted one of the most fundamental units of Chinese society, making forced separation, torture, and death a daily reality for millions of families across China.”

Read more at faluinfo.net.

Interestingly, the year 2009 sees the 50th anniversay of the Tibetan takeover, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and now the 10th anniversary of the Falun Gong persecution.