Citizens from Six Countries Submit Legal Case Against Chinese Leader to United Nations

CHICAGO, October 21, 2002 (Falun Dafa Information Center) – Today, citizens and residents from Canada, the US, France, Australia, Ireland and Hong Kong jointly submitted a legal case against Communist Party Head Jiang Zemin and two other top Chinese officials to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in instigating and carrying out the brutal persecution of Falun Gong.

The other two officials named in the case are Zeng Qinghong, Head of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China, and Luo Gan, Secretary of the Central Commission of Politics and Law. Among the outcomes sought from the legal case, the submission calls on the Prosecutors’ Office of the International Criminal Court to launch an international criminal investigation into the three named officials.

Among the plaintiffs, Mr. Chu O-Ming, a Hong Kong businessman, had previously submitted a legal case against the same three officials to the Supreme People’s Procurator of China in August 2000. Shortly after submitting the case, however, more than ten police broke into a private residence in Beijing and arrested Mr. Chu.

“As a group [of seven plaintiffs], we have personally faced kidnapping, prolonged incarceration, extortion of money and property, forced labor, prolonged beatings, severe torture, sexual assault and the murder of our family members under Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong,” said plaintiff Zenon Dolnyckyj, of Canada. “We are merely a cross-section of the millions who have been affected.”

“Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong has taken the life of my husband and torn apart my family,” says Ms. Jane Dai, an Australian citizen whose husband was tortured to death by Chinese authorities last year because he practices Falun Gong. Ms. Dai’s sister-in-law was also sent to a forced labor camp because of her practice.

Ms. Dai is a plaintiff in the legal case. She was in Chicago this morning to announce the case at a press conference at Federal Plaza.

A press conference was also held in Toronto, Canada, where Mr. Joel Etienne of the Etienne and Associates Law firm addressed the media: “We claim in these communications that the essence and the particularized rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have been grossly violated…The Communications explain how and why the named defendants have a direct responsibility in what is involved.”

Six plaintiffs have joined Mr. Chu O-Ming in this case. They include:

Mr. Zhao Ming, an Irish resident; Ms. Jane Dai, an Australian resident; Ms. Jennifer Zeng, an Australian citizen; Ms. Helene Petit, a French citizen; Mr. Levi Browde, an American citizen and Mr. Zenon Dolnyckyj, a Canadian citizen.

“Today’s submission marks the beginning of international legal action against those responsible for the brutal and unlawful persecution of Falun Gong in China,” said Mr. Dolnyckyj. “They must be held accountable for the terror they’ve brought to innocent people, and they must be stopped.”

For more information on-line, visit: http://www.faluninfo.net/focus/icc/