Behind the Olympic Spectacle: A Journalist’s Walking Guide to the Persecution of Falun Gong in Beijing

NEW YORK – To assist journalists covering the 2008 Olympic Games, the Falun Dafa Information Center released today a report providing detailed leads on 16 Chinese citizens detained or killed recently in Beijing and surrounding provinces for practicing Falun Gong.

At least nine of the 16 have died in police custody since the beginning of 2008 and several were persecuted with the complicity of local hospitals and educational institutions.

The report features the profiles of 16 individuals, ranging from a 33-year-old retail worker, to a 42-year-old musician, to a 67-year-old retired professor.

“Most of those traveling to Beijing this week for the Olympics have likely heard of Falun Gong and the Communist Party’s brutal campaign to crush it,” says Levi Browde, the Center’s Executive Director. “But few realize that the violence meted out against these peaceful believers has been so pervasive to have affected most neighborhoods in Beijing, including those within walking distance of Olympic venues, hotels, and prominent landmarks.”

The report includes the following:

• 16 profiles, each including a photograph of the individual, their address, their former workplace, the date of their detention, place of detention, names of alleged perpetrators, and a brief summary of arrest and treatment in custody, as available.
• The names of relatives and acquaintances living overseas who are available for interviews upon request.
• Interactive maps highlighting landmarks related to the individual cases and nearby Olympic venues.
• Brief responses to the most commonly asked questions about Falun Gong.

“We realize the challenges facing journalists seeking to cover a taboo topic like Falun Gong, but we hope this guide will assist them in overcoming these obstacles,” says Browde. “Telling the stories of the individuals relayed in this volume is vital for understanding China today, for they reflect not only the tragic human costs of a religious minority being brutally suppressed, but rather, the very real dangers any Chinese citizen might face at the hands of the Party-state.”

The Falun Dafa Information Center has received reports of at least 8,037 arrests of Falun Gong adherents across 29 provinces, major cities and autonomous regions since December 2007. Of these, over 500 individuals have been arrested in Beijing and at least 30 of them sentenced without trial to RTL camps for up to 2.5 years.

Links to report:  Download Report as PDF

Interactive Maps:   Interactive Map of Beijing| Interactive Map of China

Related report:  Torture Outside the Olympic Village: A Guide to Chinas Labor Camps, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) presents a guide to labor camps and detention facilities just a stone’s throw from Olympic venues.