Falun Gong deaths in Chinese prison

[Jagat 1]

<h3>Mass deaths at Falun Gong camp</h3>

 

Beijing - Fourteen imprisoned followers of the banned Falun Gong sect committed suicide in a north China labor camp, making ropes from sheets and hanging themselves from bunk beds, a government official said Wednesday.

 

Falun Gong, however, blamed camp authorities, saying in a statement Tuesday that at least 15 women followers were tortured to death at Wanjia labour camp in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang on or around June 20. The statement cast doubt on the official claim of a mass suicide, saying the victims were watched around the clock.

 

The reported suicide at Wanjia would be the most deadly involving Falun Gong practitioners confirmed by the government since it banned the spiritual movement in July 1999.

 

Lan Jingli, director of the Heilongjiang government's judicial bureau, said that another 11 followers were rescued by camp guards. In all, 25 Falun Gong members tried to kill themselves on June 20 in Wanjia labor camp, he said.

 

Mr. Jingli said guards watched the practitioners closely, patrolling every five minutes. But the followers took advantage of a gap in patrols to hang themselves from their cell beds with sheets, he said.

 

"One minute is enough to kill," Mr. Jingli said. "While 11 of them were immediately rescued by the camp guards, 14 others died."

 

China's government says Falun Gong is a cult that has led more than 1,600 followers to their deaths, mostly by encouraging practitioners to use meditation instead of medicine to cure medical ailments. Officials claim followers also have killed themselves in the belief they will to go heaven when they die.

 

Falun Gong, however, says its teachings forbid all forms of killing, including suicide. The group disputed government claims that five people who set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square in Beijing earlier this year were Falun Gong practitioners.

 

The meditation sect says the government is running a smear campaign against it and that hundreds of practitioners have died of torture and abuse in police custody during the crackdown on the group.

 

It said the Wanjia labor camp used torture to make practitioners renounce Falun Gong. Guards doused one practitioner with water and shocked her with an electric baton, and threw 50 female followers into cells with male prisoners after they refused to sign statements denouncing the group.

 

In Hong Kong, Falun Gong members staged a sit-in protest Wednesday outside China's representative office to call on the United Nations to investigate the deaths.

 

The sect members accused the Chinese government of "inhumane and beastly crimes" and denied that the 14 had tried to commit suicide.

 

"S.O.S.: Save Falun Gong practitioners from being killed in China," said one banner displayed during the protest as members practiced their slow-motion exercises. Mr. Jingli accused Falun Gong practitioners overseas on having a hand in the suicide.

 

"Those organizations are using all possible channels to pass on the so-called `instructions' to the practitioners in the reform camp in order to make them believe that going to heaven after their death is the highest level of practicing," he said. "The mass suicide of June 20 could also be caused through this way."

 

The government denies that imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners are mistreated.

 

Mr. Jingli said Beijing officials ordered labor camps to improve surveillance of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners following the suicide. Falun Gong followers would now be watched 24 hours a day, he said. AP

 

[Guest guest]

<h2>Falungong denies mass suicide and claims 15 tortured to death</h2>

 

BEIJING, July 4 (AFP) - The Falungong movement Wednesday denied reports of a mass suicide by followers at a labour camp in northern China and accused guards of torturing 15 female practitioners to death.

 

 

A Falungong statement from New York said the authorities at the Wanjia reeducation through labour camp in the city of Harbin had been ordered to portray the deaths around June 20 as suicide.

 

 

The statement said the camp had been authorised to use "many different kinds" of torture against detained practitioners to ensure they renounced their belief in Falungong, which was outlawed in China in July 1999.

 

 

"Sources report that women were all tortured to death in the Wanjia Reeducation Center around June 20, and an unspecified number of Falungong practitioners are undergoing emergency treatment for injuries," it said.

 

 

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said Tuesday that at least 10 Falungong followers had died in a mass suicide attempt by 16 practitioners.

 

 

The center said the suicide attempt came after the camp authorities extended the practitioners' detention in response to a hunger strike.

 

 

Labor camp officials denied the report when contacted by AFP.

 

 

An official at a police station in the town where one of the deceased lived confirmed to AFP that "several" Falungong followers had died.

 

 

"We were told (by the camp) several of them died, but they didn't tell us how many," said the police official at Lequn township in Heilongjiang.

 

 

He confirmed the center's report that one of the dead people was Zhao Yayun, a 51-year-old woman from the township.

 

 

A township government official also confirmed Zhao died by suicide and said her body was cremated Tuesday. Asked whether 15 others attempted suicide and 10 died, he said: "That's what I heard."

 

 

The issue of alleged Falungong suicides has become a major issue in the propaganda war between China and the movement.

 

 

In January five people identified by the government as Falungong practitioners set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and two of them later died.

 

 

The Chinese authorities repeatedly showed grisly footage of the injured people and launched a massive new media campaign against the movement.

 

 

The Falungong headquarters in New York insisted the five were not members of the movement and that true believers would never commit suicide because it was against the teachings of the group's US-based guru Li Hongzhi.

 

 

Li advocates a quirky blend of Buddhist-based philosophy that advocates clean living and forsakes traditional medicine.

 

 

China banned the Falungong movement three months after it organised a silent demonstration by 10,000 followers around the leadership's compound in central Beijing.

 

 

Since then hundreds of Falungong followers have been sentenced to prison terms and tens of thousands sent to reeducation camps. Human rights groups say more than 100 have died in police detention.