December 19, 2005

Chinese government continues to brutalize Falun Gong practitioners

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In the latest reported incident of the Chinese government’s crackdown on its citizens who practice Falon Gong, two women in Hebei Province were beaten, stunned on the breasts with a stun baton, and raped by police officers. Other female detainees report that they have been stripped naked, beaten, kicked in the breasts and genitalia, raped, and subjected to vaginal probes with stun batons. Pregnant women and nursing mothers have reported similar treatment by the Chinese police.

Torture, murder, and psychological abuse are all said to have been perpetrated on Falon Gong practitiioners, and many are said to have disappeared, never to be seen again.

Falon Gong was outlawed by the Chinese government in 1999, when then-Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin declared it the number one enemy of the Communist party. It is estimated that between 70 and 100 million people in China practice Falon Gong, which is not a religion, per se, but rather, a spiritual practice loosely based on Buddhism and Taoism, and which is referred to by its detractors as a cult. Falon Gong-related human rights abuses have been verified by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. Department of State.

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