The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group has a new report out on the round-up and torture of Falun Gong practioners by China in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
An example from the report:
In 2000, at the Changchun Women’s Labor Camp Ms. Zhang was forced to do slave labor, often until midnight, and was beaten and shocked with electric batons. In 2003, just two years after the Communist regime promised to “improve human rights” in order to get the Olympics, Ms. Zhang’s father and brother were tortured to death for practicing Falun Gong. On November 28, 2007, the police arrested Ms. Zhang, and caused her to “disappear.” The authorities refuse to give her family any idea of her whereabouts, or even tell them whether she is still alive.
A quick primer on totalitarian thinking: Since Falun Gong is a spiritual movement, and since totalitarian regimes like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot tolerate belief systems outside the control of the state, the obvious solution to the popularity of Falun Gong in China is to round up its practitioners, torture them and then “disappear” them.
And yes, these guys actually get to host the Olympics.
Media advisory on the report here.
Great analysis of Communist China’s fear of Falun Gong here.
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