Friday 29 October 2010

Brainwashing and Religious Torture Accelerate in China

Brainwashing and Religious Torture Accelerate in China

Gao Rongrong, in hospital after being tortured by Chinese security forces.

The Falun Gong remains the major target of Communist authorities and practitioners in China according to a series of internal Communist Party documents, some of them posted online.

Included are details of a new three-year, multi-billion dollar campaign targeting Falun Gong practitioners across China.

The campaign’s stated goal is to “transform” 75 percent of all known practitioners, who number in the tens of millions despite eleven years of brutal suppression. Specifically, the campaign calls upon security forces to go into “villages and households” to “educate and conquer” Falun Gong practitioners.

Transformation—a euphemism for forcing practitioners to renounce Falun Gong and pledge allegiance to the Communist Party—has been at the core of the anti-Falun Gong campaign since its inception. As part of the
transformation process, individuals are typically subjected to physical and psychological torture. (report)

"What these documents call for is a campaign of surveillance, extralegal abductions, physical torture, and psychological abuse on a massive scale," says Falun Gong spokesman Erping Zhang. "The scenes playing out across China could be taken right out of Orwell’s 1984."

"When Chinese authorities talk of ‘transforming’ Falun Gong practitioners, what they mean is torturing out of people the aspiration to be honest, kind, and tolerant. They torment healthy, rational people to the point where the victim either betrays his or her most deeply held beliefs and completely submits to the will of the Communist Party, dies from abuse, or is driven to the edge of sanity. They push practitioners to the point where life is a living hell."

The Falun Dafa Information Center has obtained eight documents from various localities describing a campaign to intensify efforts to transform Falun Gong practitioners from 2010 to 2012. Seven of the documents are available online, while the eighth was obtained from an internal source whose identity and location cannot be revealed for fear of retribution.

Based on details in the documents, the campaign is a multi-billion dollar initiative. On one webpage from Xinglong township in Sichuan province, the instructions call for an increase in funding for transformation
efforts. The document states that “to transform one Falun Gong person costs on average 45,000 yuan [$6,750] nationwide, 40,900 yuan in Sichuan provice, in my township, 39,000 yuan.” Given that Falun Gong practitioners in China number from 20 to 40 million (demographics), the total cost reaches tens of billions of dollars.

Although all eight documents are from the level of county or below, there is little doubt that the instructions originated at the top echelons of the Communist Party. One document explicitly states that the campaign was initiated by the central 6-10 Office, an extralegal security force that has led the persecution of Falun Gong since 1999.

A timeline of Falun Gong abuse and persection as well as this latest report can be found online at The Falun Dafa Information Center here.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Obama Skips Golden Temple Visit

Obama Skips Golden Temple Visit
President Caves in to Domestic Political Ignorance
over His Religious Identity Rather Than Standing for Religious Freedom
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Alexandria, VA (October 20, 2010) - THE INSTITUTE on Religion and Public Policy is deeply disappointed President Barack Obama has decided to opt out of an expected visit to the Sikh Golden Temple, one of India's holiest shrines, out of fear that wearing the requisite headgear might make him look like a Muslim.

"The Obama Administration has an abysmal record on international religious freedom issues. This could have been an unique and historic opportunity for the president to stand in the holiest shrine of an often-discriminated religious minority and to speak for the rights of all minorities around the globe," commented THE INSTITUTE's Founder and Chairman of the Board, Joseph K. Grieboski.

Obama was to visit the sprawling golden complex in Amritsar, "but the plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple," wrote the New York Times.
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Sikhs are often mistaken as Muslims, and since 9/11 they have been the unintentional targets of anti-Muslim violence in the United States.

"By turning down a visit to the Golden Temple, President Obama disappoints not only the global Sikh community, but also every religious minority in the world who saw his visit as a demonstrable sign of support for their rights," continued Mr. Grieboski. "Instead of standing for religious freedom and against religious intolerance, President Obama has caved in to an ignorant minority in the United States who hide behind a conspiracy theory that he is a Muslim."

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THE INSTITUTE on Religion and Public Policy

500 N Washington Street
Alexandria, VA 22314

703.888.1700 (p)
703.888.1704 (f)

www.religionandpolicy.org

Contact:
 Sarah Channing Grieboski
Director of Communications
sarah@religionandpolicy.org

Saturday 9 October 2010

FRANCE: Religious Minorities stigmatized as "mutating viruses" and "pathology of belief"


FRANCE

Religious Minorities stigmatized as "mutating viruses" and "pathology of belief"


CAPLC - HRWF (07.10.2010) - www.hrwf.net - Created over ten years ago to fight against discrimination of religious or belief minorities in France, the Coordination of Associations and Individuals for Freedom of Conscience which I am representing wants to express its strongest disapproval concerning the statement made on 26 November 2009 by the French Secretary of State for Justice, Jean-Marie Bockel, about minorities of religion or belief derogatorily labelled as "sectarian".


According to him the growing quest of personal fulfilment and the emergence of unusual religious syncretism are significant of the sectarian phenomenon which "can be analyzed as pathology of belief on a background of individuation and deregulation of belief."

This public statement made in 2009 at the first national conference of the Inter-Ministerial Mission of Fight and Vigilance against Sectarian Deviances (MIVILUDES) is still posted on the official site of the Ministry of Justice to this day. For the French authorities, it is necessary to repress minorities of belief they consider as deviant and to attempt to regulate beliefs.

The Secretary of State added that "sectarian deviances" are "comparable to mutating viruses which spread in often insidious ways the poison of manipulation of human behaviours and spirits". We understand that viruses as such should be eliminated.

In spite of the French government's assertions to the OSCE and the United Nations that MIVILUDES does not take in consideration the content of beliefs, the fact is that the main criterion retained by MIVILUDES in its 2008 Report to characterize mental manipulation is that "one or more people start to believe in certain ideas which differ from the ideas generally accepted by society".

Monday 4 October 2010

RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS URGED TO INVESTIGATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN JAPAN

RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS URGED TO INVESTIGATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN JAPAN

http://stopjapanabductions.org/

Speaking to the Center for Studies on New Religions (CENSUR), Dan Fefferman, President of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, urged religious scholars from Europe and North America to conduct independent investigations into the kidnappings and forced de-conversions of Unification Church members in Japan.

CESNUR is the world’s premier gathering of scholars dedicated to the study of new religions and religious minorities. Approximately 150 scholars attended the conference, held in Turin, Italy at the University of Turin.

Fefferman reported to CESNUR attendees that 10 to 20 Unification Church members are currently victims of forced de-conversions each year in Japan. Two new victims were abducted against their will during the month of August, and several more church members remain missing.

While so-called “deprogramming” has been eliminated in the United States for nearly 20 years, there exists a well organized movement in Japan to kidnap Unification Church members and hold them against their will for months or even years at a time.

Most Japanese government officials turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses, and police refuse to investigate in part because there are not enough independent voices demanding justice.

“Scholars are not involved in Japan,” Fefferman told the CESNUR audience. “One of the reasons they are not involved is that they are taking a professional risk if they defend the Unification Church.”

Fefferman shared real life stories of deprogramming survivors who report beatings, threats with knives, humiliation and other psychological abuse, food depravation and rape. Despite the clear abuses of civil liberties, Japanese authorities refuse to intervene, calling religious affiliation a “family matter.”

In the United States, American citizens are being encouraged to sign a petition for Congress to hold hearings on Japan’s human rights violations. Specifically, the hearing would be held by the Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights, co-chaired by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA).