How Do We Know the Persecution is Brutal and Ongoing?

Over the past decade, a wide range of international human rights groups, Chinese lawyers, former prisoners of conscience imprisoned with practitioners, United Nations Rapporteurs, and U.S. government reports have documented and recounted the systematic rights abuses – including torture and deaths in custody – suffered by those who practice Falun Gong in China. Below is a small sample of such statements for your reference with corresponding links to other pages on this site that include more extensive compilations.

“Falun Gong practitioners were among those most harshly persecuted by the government [in 2008]. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, thousands were reported to have been arrested, with hundreds imprisoned or assigned to Re-education through Labour camps and other forms of administrative detention where they were at risk of torture and other ill-treatment sometimes leading to death.”
– Amnesty International Annual Report, 2009 [more from Amnesty International]

“The central government intensified its nine-year campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in the months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games… Official accounts of the crackdown were publicly available on Web sites for all 31 of China’s provincial-level jurisdictions in 2007-2008.”
–    2008 Annual Report, Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC)  [2009 CECC report and U.S. State Department Annual Human Rights reports]

“China’s efforts to equate the Falungong with terrorists are ludicrous. Most Falungong members are peaceful, law-abiding citizens, and there is no excuse for the human rights violations they have endured… The charge that Falungong threatens the stability of China does not hold up. Its claim that belief in Falungong is a public health menace is equally bogus. The danger to health comes from the treatment its practitioners receive at the hands of the police and prison officials.”
–    Sidney Jones, Human Rights Watch, 2002

“Several petitioners reported that the longest sentences and worst treatment were meted out to members of the … Falungong, many of whom also petition in Beijing. Kang reported that of the roughly one thousand detainees in her labor camp in Jilin, most were Falungong practitioners. One Beijing petitioner said: ‘Petitioners are usually locked up directly. But the worst is Falungong. They have terrible treatment, not like the others.’”
– Human Rights Watch report, 2005 [more from HRW]

“More than half of our 13 interviewees [mostly petitioners] remarked on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in [labor] camps. They said Falun Gong practitioners make up one of the largest groups of detainees in the camp.”
– Chinese Human Rights Defenders, 2009 Report on Re-education Through Labor camps [more excerpts]

“At 4:20 p.m. on October 28, 2005, Ms. Wang Shouhui (mother) and Mr. Liu Boyang (son) from Changchun City were followed by 6-10 Office staff and were illegally arrested. The two were brutally tortured by the police. At about 8 p.m., 28-year-old Liu Boyang died from the torture. About 10 days later, his mother was tortured to death.”
– Prominent Chinese lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gao Zhisheng, December 2005 [more from Gao Zhisheng and other lawyers]

“Persecution cases of Falun Gong practitioners across the country have noticeably increased recently, and I think this deserves attention. Freedom of religious belief is being violated even more severely during such a special period [of the Olympic Games], and citizens’ constitutional rights and universal values are under attack in China.” “I defended more than 20 cases involving Falun Gong practitioners. Physical torture was quite common. After their arrest, they were often beaten to the point of being paralyzed or [dying].”
– Prominent Chinese lawyer Jiang Tianyong, 2008 and 2009

“The Special Rapporteur continues to be alarmed by deaths in custody in China. Reports describe harrowing scenes in which detainees, many of whom are followers of the Falun Gong movement, die as a result of severe ill-treatment, neglect or medical attention. The cruelty and brutality of these alleged acts of torture defy description.”
– Asma Jahangir, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, 2003 [more from the United Nations’ experts]