March 20, 2003, Ottawa –

On March 20, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (“WOIPFG”) issued a statement, “Jiang Zemin’s Regime Draws Upon Massive National Financial Resources In Its Persecution of Falun Gong”, in the Canadian Parliament to disclose to the Canadian government and media how the regime has expended one quarter of the country’s financial resources to persecute Falun Gong.
“Jiang Zemin carries out a policy of ‘defaming their reputation, bankrupting them financially, destroying them physically’ in an attempt to eradicate Falun Gong and has so far drawn upon an enormous amount of manpower and financial resources nationwide. A great deal of funding has been taken out of the state treasury and other sources to support this persecution. Therefore, Chinese people’s money that was earned with sweat and blood through hard labor was instead used to persecute these people themselves. This has caused tremendous pressure on the livelihood of people throughout China and brought grave consequences to the nation’s economic development,” said the statement.

The statement listed the following evidence:

1. The regime has expended one quarter of China’s financial resources to persecute Falun Gong, which is one of the main reasons why the persecution is able to last.

This funding comes from diverting foreign investments and Chinese citizens’ earnings, as well as the illegal fines forcibly imposed upon Falun Gong practitioners and their family members and work units. A great deal of funding has been allocated to public security, national security, the criminal “610 Office” across the nation, and the foreign affairs department. For example:

· In December 2001, Jiang Zemin allocated a lump sum of 4.2 billion Yuan to build brainwashing centers aimed at “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners.

· On July 4, 2001, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that “close to half” of those held in China’s labor camps were Falun Gong practitioners. In order to contain the ever-increasing number of practitioners who went to appeal, large amounts of funding were used to expand the labor camp facilities. For instance, the total cost of relocating the Quanyang labor camp in Shangxi province was over 19 million Yuan.

· Monetary incentives were used to drive more individuals to participate in the persecution. For example, a lump sum of 50,000 Yuan was awarded to Su Jing, Director of the notorious Masanjia labor camp, while Shao Li, Deputy Director of the same labor camp, was awarded a lump sum of 30,000 Yuan. In many areas, rewards for catching one practitioner range from thousands to tens of thousands of Yuan.

· In 2001, internal sources at the Ministry of Public Security revealed that in Tiananmen Square alone, the daily expenses associated with searching for and arresting Falun Gong practitioners ran as high as 1.7 to 2.5 million Yuan, which is equivalent to an annual expenses of 620 to 910 million Yuan.

· From the cities to the remote countryside, officials at the local police and public security departments, as well as the “610 Office”, search for and arrest Falun Gong practitioners everywhere. It is estimated that Jiang has employed at least several million individuals to participate in his persecution of Falun Gong. The wages and salaries, bonuses, overtime pay, and allowance could add up to well over hundreds of billions of Yuan annually.

2. The sustained defamation campaign and information blockade have cost a great deal of the country’s financial resources.

According to report from outside China, on February 27, 2001, Jiang allocated a lump sum of four billion Yuan to install large-scale, ubiquitous surveillance devices to monitor Falun Gong practitioners.

Large amounts of hate literatures slandering Falun Gong – such as books, booklets, VCDs, and posters – have been produced by dozens of publishers; at least two movies defaming Falun Gong have been produced and played nationwide; one 20-episode TV series vilifying Falun Gong is currently in production.

3. Enormous amounts of investment have been made to attack Falun Gong overseas.

Large numbers of agents were sent out around the globe to monitor, interfere with, and slander overseas Falun Gong practitioners, and to collect information to maintain a “blacklist”.

Each Chinese Embassy and Consulate around the world not only posted pages of libelous slander on their web pages, but also provided dozens of propaganda publications that are used to defame Falun Gong and incite hatred within Chinese communities. Poster exhibits slandering Falun Gong have been held in the Chinese Embassies and Consulates in at least 15 countries, including Canada.

Jiang Zemin has been handing over people’s money, earned with their sweat and blood, as free economic aid to developing countries, in exchange for gaining allies and votes against the criticisms of its human rights record in the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights and other venues.

There is also heavy investment in controlling overseas Chinese media. In one of its 2001 publications, the Jamestown Foundation reported that all the major Chinese-language media in the USA were directly or indirectly controlled by the Chinese government. Four main tactics characterize the Chinese government’s effort to influence Chinese media in America. They are: 1) direct control, 2) use of economic ties to influence independent media who have business relations with China, 3) purchasing of broadcast time and advertising space, and 4) deployment of government personnel to work in independent media.

4. China’s so-called economic prospects are a false illusion.

According to reports from Hong Kong’s Open and Contend magazines, Mainland China now ranks fourth after Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina in capital loss from large numbers of high-ranking officials fleeing with the country’s financial resources. As illustration, in the year 2000, China suffered a loss of US$48 billion, but overseas investment was only US$40.7 billion.

Working class citizens’ hard-earned money and all sorts of foreign investments have been continuously thrown into this vicious persecution in various ways. However, Jiang Zemin’s regime has tried hard to conceal this information from the rest of the world.

WOIPFG particularly urges the governments of each nation to pay attention to this fact: In this unprecedented, money-exhausting persecution of Falun Gong, investing your money in China is the same as supporting the persecution.

For more information, please check:
http://www.upholdjustice.org/Eng/ or contact Shawn Li at (613) 852-7494, (613) 599-7494

Contact information:
E-mail: contacts@upholdjustice.org (general), jubao@upholdjustice.org (case-related)
Telephone: +1-617-325-3481
Fax: +1-617-325-8729
Mailing Address: PO BOX 365326, Hyde Park, MA 02136, USA
Web site: http://www.upholdjustice.org

World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong
To investigate the criminal conduct of all institutions, organizations, and individuals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong; to bring such investigation, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far and deep we have to search, to full closure; to exercise fundamental principles of humanity; and to restore and uphold justice in society.