A high ranking Chinese Communist Party official visiting Sydney has had a lawsuit filed against him for his involvement in the persecution of Falun Gong* practitioners in Guangdong Province, China.
"Chen Shaoji is the former Party Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party of Guangdong Political and Judiciary Committee", said Mr John Deller, from the NSW Falun Dafa Association, at a press conference after the second serving of legal papers upon the Chinese official.
"Now the role of that committee has a direct bearing and direction on the persecution, the torture and murder of peaceful and innocent Falun Gong practitioners in China," he told reporters.
"A [civil] lawsuit has been lodged by Sydney residents Mrs Yan Xi and Mrs Li Fuying…they are seeking damages in the NSW Supreme Court for wrongful imprisonment and assault and battery [and] for the torture and detention [they experienced] while in Guangdong labour camps, detention facilities and prisons," said Mr Deller.
In the role as the Party Secretary of the Guangdong Political and Judicial Committee, Mr Chen was responsible for those labour camps during the time the two plaintiffs were persecuted in Guangdong Province, Mr Deller said.
"The crimes that Chen Shaoji has been charged with are no less serious than those of the war crimes of World War II; such criminals are denied entry into Australia and there should be no difference for human rights abusers like Chen Shaoji," stated Mr Deller.
Serving legal documents
In Sydney last week three attempts were made to serve legal papers to Chen Shaoji.
The first attempt on Thursday, December 7, followed an official ceremony marking a tourism agreement between the Chinese delegation and the Sydney Royal Easter Show. A woman acting on behalf of the plaintiffs handed Mr Chen legal documents after the ceremony while he was getting into his car. The documents were thrown from the car before the vehicle drove away.
A second attempt was made by a professional legal document server at a restaurant in Chinatown, where the Chinese delegation was having dinner. The server was unable to deliver the papers to Mr Chen due to the high level of security.
The following day a Chinese woman acting on behalf of the plaintiffs served the documents to Mr Chen inside the Hilton Hotel where he was staying.
The plaintiffs
The son of Mrs Li Fuying, one of the two plaintiffs, told The Epoch Times that his 78-year-old mother was arrested in July 2000 at a Falun Gong exercise site. She was taken and held in police custody for three days during which, for two of those days, she was allowed neither food nor drink. A month later she was taken to a detention centre and deprived of sleep until she signed a form renouncing her belief in Falun Gong.
Later that year she was able to join her son who had moved to Australia in 1993. However, one of her daughters who remained in China, also a Falun Gong practitioner, was sent to a forced-labour camp for three and a half years.
Mrs Yan Xi, the other plaintiff of the action, was sent to a forced-labour camp for over two years for being in possession of printed material relating to the persecution of the spiritual practice. In the labour camp she and other Falun Gong practitioners were forced to work 16 hours per day, were physically tortured and subjected to mental brainwashing.
Among the tortures that the 37 year old experienced include being shackled for varying periods of time where she was handcuffed to the bars of a window at such a height as to enable her to just touch the ground. In this way, Mrs Yan was forced to either take her weight on tiptoes or hang by her wrists. She was subjected to this type of torture for an initial period of 48-hours of continuous suspension, followed by 18 hours a day for the remaining three days. Mrs Yan says other types of torture she endured included being bound by ropes for extensive periods, forced feeding and mental brainwashing.
Still in China
Last month in China, Mrs Yan's mother was taken by police and placed in a "brainwashing" detention centre in Haikou City because she practises Falun Gong.
Mrs Yan's mother had previously spent a month in a detention centre in 2001, during which time she witnessed a woman being beaten to death by guards. Mrs Yan's mother was also beaten and "not allowed to sleep or even close [her] eyes, during four days and four nights", Mrs Yan said.
Since the latest news of her mother's detention, Mrs Yan has been carrying out a calling campaign with the help of friends. She told Chinese officials that Australian politicians are aware of her mother's situation.
"I asked them to please help release a 60-year-old woman," said Mrs Yan. "She is a very good person and she is very good-hearted and that she is innocent."
The campaign appears to have had positive results.
"Now my father can see my mum and they promised to set her free very soon. Because she isn't released yet, I am not so sure…until they [release her], each day we will keep calling them asking for them to release my mum," said Mrs Yan.
However, a friend of Mrs Yan, a Chinese acupuncturist and Australian citizen, Doris Chen has had little results in calling officials in China in an effort to rescue her mother, who is being held in a detention centre in Pudong District, Shanghai.
"I have made numerous calls to them, but I do not have the direct number of the officers who are handling my mother's case, so I just call the bureau and every time I am asking about my mother's case and then they transfer me to [another line] where no one ever answers," said Ms Chen.
Australian resident Lee Ying, a Chinese labour camp survivor and friend of both Mrs Yan and Ms Chen, heard in October that her brother had been released after spending most of the past seven years in labour camps.
"The police still monitor him; he is not allowed to contact other Falun Gong practitioners, so he is still in a dangerous position," says Ms Lee.
Ms Lee spent a year in a labour camp herself and was subjected to torture because of her spiritual beliefs.
* Falun Gong is an exercise and meditation practice that includes a moral philosophy based on truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. It became well known in China after 1992 and was practised by over 70 million Chinese according to a Chinese government report. Falun Gong's popularity is claimed by practitioners to be the reason behind the Communist regime's crackdown on the practice, which began in July 1999. For information about the crackdown, see faluninfo.net
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