A civil lawsuit against high-ranking Chinese Government officials for torture and wrongful arrest has advanced a step, with the granting of a time extension for serving legal documents to the defendants.
Associate Justice Harrison of the NSW Supreme Court ordered on March 19 that an extension of six months would be given, which owing to circumstance the plaintiffs learned about three weeks later. The plaintiffs understand the Registry will promptly deliver the documents to be served to the defendants in China.
Leave was also granted to add as a defendant Luo Gan, the Party Secretary of Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CPC Central Committee. He will now join Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party, with both men accused of being responsible for torture and wrongful arrest of artist Ms Zhang Cuiying, as part of their roles in the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China.
Lucy Zhou, member of the plaintiff's co-ordinating team, said that serving legal documents has been very difficult, as the defendants are in another country and unwilling to co-operate with the court proceedings.
Ms Zhou said it was a breakthrough that a time extension was granted and that the Registry would itself transmit the legal documents to China.
Plaintiff Zhang Cuiying was detained for eight months in a Chinese jail without legal process after appealing in China for and end to the persecution of Falun Gong. She says that while in detention she was regularly beaten about the head and body, deprived of sleep for long periods, as well as subjected to other physical and psychological torture methods.
Ms Zhang said she was pleased with the result. "I would like to give my deepest appreciation to the Australian Government and the public, who are concerned about the persecution of Falun Gong in China," she said at a press conference outside the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney.
"I appeal to the Australian Government and the public to make even stronger condemnations of the Chinese Communist regime's persecution of tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners."
Falun Gong is a meditation practice defined by slow-moving exercises and the core tenets of Truth, Compassion and Forbearance. It was outlawed in China in 1999 by dictator Jiang Zemin. According to the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) Information Centre more than 3000 Falun Gong practitioners are known to have been tortured to death, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.