Exactly eleven years ago, the bloody persecution of the Falun Gong meditation movement began in China (07/20/1999). This Tuesday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is reminding the world about this tragedy and criticizing the European governments for ignoring the worst persecution of Chinese dissenters since the cultural revolution. "European econmic interests and Chinas growing economic importance have led to a double standard in European human rights policy that is humiliating,” said Ulrich Delius, the Asia consultant at the STP. Anyone who denounces the persecution of beliefs in Cuba or Iran should not remain quiet when it comes to China.” During her recent visit to China, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the disadvantages of German economic companies. She failed to mention, however, the violent deaths of more than 3,300 followers of Falun Gong.

"Since 1999, more than ten times as many Falun Gong followers have come to their violent deaths than the number of students killed during the Tiananmen Square massacre in June of 1989,” stated Delius. While the bloodbath in Peking provoked many international protests and sanctions against China, the brutal destruction of the Falun Gong movement, which has 70 million followers, went without consequences for China’s leadership. UN human rights experts continue to indicate the enormous magnitude of the persecution of this meditation movement, but to no avail. The three UN-experts for freedom of religion, security for human rights activists, and the abolishment of torture, respectively, just recently emphasized the dramatic situation of Falun Gong followers in May 2010.

The mass arrests of Falun Gong followers began on July 20, 1999. Two days later, the president at the time, Jiang Zemin, officially forbade the meditation movement, calling it a "threat to the social order." Since then, more than 150,000 Falun Gong followers have been committed to one of the 340 work and so-called corrections camps for up to three years. Many of the meditation movement followers have already been jailed multiple times because they refuse to abandon the Falun Gong. Approximately half of the inmates in the camps are estimated to be followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement. The persecution is particularly massive in the north east of the People’s Republic.

Since January 2009, more than 120 practicers of Falun Gong have died as a result of torture, either during their time in custody or immediately after their release. The fate of Ms. Zhu Guilian, from the provence of Hunan, who was arrested multiple times since 2000, is typical. After her most recent arrest in April 2009, her state of health deteriorated to the point where she was let free in February of 2010. She died on May 5th. Those who are critically ill are regularly released from prison in order to avoid deaths in the camps. Furthermore, the families of the public authorities are put under pressure to keep the death out of the public eye. Those who don’t give Falun Gong up after multiple arrests are threatened with hospitalization in psychiatric clinics.

Translation: Sophia Chambers