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Thursday, March 04, 2004 |
China Attempting To Intimidate Hong Kong Citizens By Making Example Of Residents in "Espionage" Case. China Holds Group From Hong Kong For Espionage Charges May Signal Push for Security Bill By Philip P. Pan Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, March 2, 2004 BEIJING, March 1 -- China has quietly detained a group of Hong Kong residents, including at least three British citizens, and begun to prosecute them on espionage charges, according to people familiar with the cases. The prosecutions may signal a new push to enact the stringent internal security bill that prompted huge demonstrations in the territory last year before it was withdrawn. The exact number of people arrested is uncertain, but the group appears small. Most are former employees of the Hong Kong branch of the New China News Agency, the Chinese government's... [Free North Korea!]
4:35:05 PM 
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Advancing Human Rights in North Korea [Human Rights Watch]
Testimony by Tom Malinowski before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Thank you Mr. Chairman for giving me the opportunity to testify today, and for ensuring that North Korea's appalling human rights record remains part of the picture as we consider the way forward with Pyongyang. All of us here agree that North Korea is a country over which we should be losing sleep. I would argue that there are two reasons for that, not merely one -- certainly the nuclear program, which threatens our security, but also political repression so complete that it should seriously disturb our conscience.
Some day, when North Korea does open up, and we see with our own eyes the conditions we can now only glean from refugee accounts, we will be horrified. And I predict we will ask ourselves whether we should have said and done more today, just as people wonder whether they should have said and done more to defend the victims of persecution when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union or during the Cultural Revolution in China. North Korea is to our time what those experiments in negative utopia were to their time. [more]
9:42:57 AM
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UZBEKISTAN: Authorities close Christian church in Khorezm |
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By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service |
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On 27 February, Forum 18 News Service has learnt that the authorities in Khorezm region decided to close the Urgench Baptist Church. The only other church in the region is the Protestant Korean Church. It was decided to close the church as it had been working with children and would not revise its statute. Statute revision requires church re-registration, which the authorities have denied to other churches making them illegal. The authorities claim that children's work was taking place without parental consent, but parents had given their consent – only to have the NSS secret police pressure them into denying this. Those parents have now asked the church's forgiveness, Forum 18 has been told. Article 3 of Uzbekistan's law on religion forbids "the enticement of underage children into religious organisations, as well as the religious instruction of children against their or their parents' will". Unregistered religious communities are illegal and banned from operating, which provision is against international law. [read more...] |
9:32:04 AM
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Persecution of Falun Gong in China update from "Falun Gong Today" Tuesday March 2, 2004, No.9, Volume III
The No. 2 Prison at Prison Complex in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province Has an Annual Quota of Twenty Deaths
The No. 2 Prison of the Prison Complex in Shenyang City colluded with courts and prosecution in torturing Dafa practitioners. They have an annual quota of 20 "normal" deaths, which encourages police to torture Falun Gong practitioners without any restrictions. [Read full story]
Yan Yutao's Eyewitness Account of the Treatment of Dafa Practitioners at Fanjiatai Prison, Shayang City, Hubei Province
Tempted by the promise of a reduction of prison term, inmates from Fanjiatai Prison lashed out in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners ... the persecutors easily got away with and were even rewarded for their persecution.... "My disability forced me to walk only on one leg. If the officers were hard on a disabled person like me, one could imagine how hard they had treated the healthier practitioners. In the last few years, the 7th division prison had more violence than all other divisions put together." [Read full story]
Mr. Liu Zhichen, a Practitioner from Dafangshen Town, Dehui City, Jilin Province Is Persecuted to Death
Dafa Practitioner Mr. Liu Zhichen of Dafangshen Town, Dehui City, Jilin Province was detained at the Yinmahe Forced Labor Camp in Jiutai City in 2002. ... On February 6, 2003, Liu was released and in poor health due to the mental and physical suffering he endured from the persecution. Even in his state, Dafangshen Town local police still harassed him and illegally searched his home. His family did not have any peace. At the age of 32 years old, Liu died in Dehui City Hospital on October 7, 2003. This is another crime the Jiang's regime has committed on an innocent Falun Gong practitioner. [Read full story] |
9:29:45 AM
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Last Update: 4/4/2004; 9:12:32 AM
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