Amnesty International: 2010 Annual Report (excerpts)

The severe and systematic 10-year campaign against Falun Gong continued […]

Freedom of expression

[…] As the internet was increasingly used to disseminate news and conduct debates, the authorities tried to control its use by restricting news reporting and shutting down publications and internet sites, including ones that … “publicized Falun Gong.”

Human rights defenders

Police and security forces detained, harassed and abused lawyers representing politically sensitive HRDs, Falun Gong practitioners, […].

Detention without trial

The authorities frequently used administrative punishments, including Re-education through Labour (RTL), to detain people without trial […] Former RTL prisoners reported that Falun Gong constituted one of the largest groups of prisoners […].

Freedom of religion

The government campaign against Falun Gong intensified, with sweeping detentions, unfair trials leading to long sentences, enforced disappearances and deaths in detention following torture and ill-treatment.

• Chen Zhenping, a Falun Gong practitioner, was sentenced to eight years in prison during a secret trial in August 2008. She was charged with ‘using a heretical organization to subvert the law.’ Before, during, and after her trial, Chen Zhenping ws denied access to her lawyer. In September, prison guards told her family that she had been transferred to another location, but refused to say where. Chen Zhenping’s lawyers have been unable to obtain any additional information concerning her whereabouts.

Read the full Amnesty report.