Now China’s cancer has spread to Viet Nam in earnest as innocent people are being persecuted not for violations of the laws of the land but as a favor to appease Chinese thugs in a boldly illegal kangaroo court trial of Falun Gong practitioners. Imagine, being charges for a crime that is not even on the books. The real crime is the crime against humanity as Viet Nam joins China in the relentless witch hunt for Falun Gong members for the crime of living a discipline and a moral lifestyle. The corrupted Chinese Communist Party is not communist by any stretch of the imagination but more a blue print for the morally bankrupt New World Order. For it is money that is all that matters to the members of China’s most lucrative criminal cartel, The C.C.P.
On a sidebar, let it be known that there is a reward for nations who persecute their own people for corporate interests for this is truly the time of great change. The earth has only begun to rumble with distain for the wholesale disregard for life. And the show has only just begun. Like the ole addage goes, what comes around goes around and eventually the world will harvest the bitter fruit of our ambivalance.
Chinese Embassy memo prompted pair’s arrest, prosecution
05 Apr 2011
New York—Two Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners are scheduled to stand trial Friday for broadcasting uncensored news programs into China, following a request from Beijing to crackdown. Under such pressure, the Vietnamese authorities have been stepping up harassment of the local Falun Gong community in recent months. The Falun Dafa Information Center urges members of the international community to press for the pair’s immediate and unconditional release.
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| Photo of Vu Duc Trung. (Courtesy of Vu Duc Trung) |
The pair were abducted on June 11, 2010 and have remained in custody since, with little possibility for their family members to visit them. At the time, in addition to computers and broadcasting equipment, police also confiscated their personal Falun Gong-related materials.
According to the indictment, the Vietnamese government arrested the men after a diplomatic memo was sent on March 5, 2010, from the Chinese Embassy to Vietnam’s Ministry of Investigation and Security.
“The memo stated that the Police Department in China discovered radio signals coming from the Vietnamese territory containing the same content about Falun Gong as heard on the ‘Sound of Hope’ radio station,” the indictment reads. “It was recommended that all illegal activities of Falun Gong individuals in the Vietnam territory must be attacked and stopped.”
Eight days after their detention, charges were pressed against the pair, an action that their lawyer says is unjust and in violation of Vietnam’s own laws.
“Falun Gong is a practice which helps people to improve the mind and the body,” Mr. Tran Dinh Trien, the pair’s lawyer, told Radio Free Asia. “There are no official documents saying Falun Gong is prohibited in Vietnam. Consequently this information does not affect public security, politics and public order in society. Therefore it is against law if he is prosecuted for … broadcasting information.”
As Chinese Communist Party officials have directly urged their Vietnamese counterparts to crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners in the country, the case is widely viewed as a test for whether Vietnam will bow to such pressures.
“Falun Gong is practiced freely and welcomed by people in over 100 countries around the world. It has already improved the health and well-being of hundreds of Vietnamese citizens,” says Falun Gong spokesperson Erping Zhang. “We urge their government not to given into the Chinese Communist Party’s pressure and follow its irrational decision to persecute Falun Gong. That fateful move has only caused immense suffering to tens of millions of people in China, Falun Gong and non-Falun Gong practitioners alike.”
In recent months, other incidents of restrictions being imposed on Falun Gong practitioners in Vietnam have also been reported. Most recently, according to the Epoch Times, a memo dated March 30, 2011 cites an official order requiring the Official People’s Committee in Bến Tre to halt all distribution of Falun Gong materials.
Although Falun Gong keeps no member lists, it is estimated that several hundred people follow the spiritual discipline in Vietnam. Two weeks ago 15 police officers reportedly detained 11 Falun Gong practitioners in Bien Hoa. One local practitioner told Radio Free Asia that he had been taken into custody by the police, who handcuffed him and burned his arm, leaving marks.
Urgent Appeal
The Falun Dafa Information Center calls on the Vietnamese authorities to drop the charges against these two men, immediately release them from custody, and allow Falun Gong practitioners to continue to pursue the spiritual path of their choice without interference.
The Center urges journalists, human rights groups, and Western government officials to act quickly and urgently call on the Vietnamese to drop the charges and annul the trial. The following is one relevant phone number that can be called:
Deputy Minister of Investigation and Security, Huong Van Nguyen, at +84 (0)4-38226602 or +84(0)69-42545. Faxes can also be sent to: +84(0)69-41038 or +84(0)4-39420223.
Additional Information
The Epoch Times: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/54162/
YouTube video with additional details (Vietnamese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAg_dv6LaRg
BBC article on Falun Gong’s spread in Vietnam, Apriil 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7987230.stm
Additional details and interviewees available upon request
Background
Founded in 1999, the Falun Dafa Information Center is a New York-based organization that documents the rights violations of adherents of Falun Gong (or “Falun Dafa”) taking place in the People’s Republic of China. In July of 1999 China’s autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda with the intent of “eradicating” the apolitical practice; it is believed certain leaders feared the influence of the practice’ 100 million adherents. The campaign has since grown in violence and scope, with millions having been detained or sent to forced labor camps. The Center has verified details of over 3,000 deaths and over 63,000 cases of torture in custody (reports / sources). Falun Gong is a traditional-style Buddhist “qigong” practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for health and spiritual growth.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER
Contacts: Gail Rachlin (+1 917-757-9780), Levi Browde (+1 845-418-4870), Erping Zhang (+1 646-533-6147), or Joel Chipkar (+1 416-731-6000)
Fax: 646-792-3916 Email: contact@faluninfo.net, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/
Two Vietnamese to Stand Trial for Broadcasts Into China
On Friday two Vietnamese men go on trial in Hanoi because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) objected to short wave radio broadcasts they were beaming into China. Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners see these arrests as the most dramatic instance of a campaign inspired by the CCP to suppress Falun Gong in Vietnam.
The men, both of whom practice Falun Gong, used their broadcasts to inform the Chinese people of the twelve-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice.
The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the indictment against them. It makes clear that the Vietnamese government arrested the men in response to pressure from Beijing, applied through a March 5, 2010, diplomatic memo sent by the Chinese Embassy to the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security.
“The memo stated that the Police Department in China discovered radio signals coming from the Vietnamese territory containing the same content about Falun Gong as heard on the ‘Sound of Hope’ radio station,” the indictment read. “It was recommended that all illegal activities of Falun Gong individuals in the Vietnam territory must be charged and stopped.”
Vũ Đức Trung is the CEO of a high-tech company headquartered in Hanoi and a Falun Gong practitioner. According to the indictment, in April 2009 Trung installed short wave radios in the home of his brother-in-law, Le Van Thanh, and his father-in-law, Le Van Manh. The short-wave radios were then used to broadcast into China.
The Sound of Hope radio station mentioned in the indictment is a media partner of The Epoch Times. Since its inception in 2003 it has undercut the Communist Party’s efforts to control information in China, using shortwave broadcasts to deliver news directly to the Chinese people about China’s politics, economy, culture, and environment.
According to its website, Sound of Hope reaches tens of millions of people in China. It reports on human rights abuses, protests, and official corruption, and is not afraid of addressing one of the issues the Chinese regime most attempts to censor: the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China.
According to Allen Zeng, spokesperson for Sound of Hope, anyone may download Sound of Hope’s programs, as Trung and Thanh did.
Through interviews with Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners and documentary evidence, The Epoch Times has pieced together a chronology of events leading up to and succeeding the arrest.
On June 10, 2010, Trung’s broadcasting equipment was confiscated.
Also on June 10 officers from the Bureau of Radio Frequency Management recorded a memo of “administrative offense” against Mr Thanh for using broadcasting devices without a permit, which violates Item 64, Article 1 of the Postal and Telecommunications Law.
On June 11, Trung, his brother-in-law, who is also a Falun Gong practitioner, and his father-in-law were arrested.
On June 19, the stakes were raised as, in addition to this administrative action, criminal charges were filed under Vietnam’s Article 226, which prohibits “transmitting information illegally onto the telecommunications network.”
The three men were detained without bail. Their families were told they could not visit, because the charges were said to be political in nature.
On Sept. 1 the father-in-law, Mr. Manh, was released from custody. Mr. Trung and Mr. Thanh remain in prison.
In early 2011, the People’s Police magazine published an article claiming that Trung’s short wave broadcasts had interfered with air traffic control and damaged Vietnam’s diplomatic relations.
Diplomatic Relations
The memo says in part, “Spreading Falun Gong in Vietnam and spreading the information about China’s persecution of practitioners in China directly affects the diplomatic relations between Vietnam and China…
“The government and the ministry of investigation and security gives direct orders to stop the practice of Falun Gong in the country to avoid problems with China. It orders officials they must deal with the situation when they detect it.”
A memo from Provincial Department of Education and Training in Bến Tre to its Offices of Education and Training issued on March 30, 2011 corroborates the 2009 memo’s picture of systematic state suppression. The 2011 memo states that it was issued in compliance with an official order dated March 29, 2011 from the Official People's Committee in Bến Tre to halt all dispersal of Falun Gong materials.
Vietnamese practitioners date the attempt to suppress Falun Gong to 2006. In Hanoi police came to a park where practitioners were doing the Falun Gong exercises and arrested the practitioners. Later the police went to their homes, confiscated materials relating to Falun Gong and pressured families into trying to get practitioners to give up Falun Gong.
Since then, the harassment has gradually intensified, with incidents reported throughout Vietnam. In some cases, practitioners have been roughed up by police.
Two weeks ago 15 police detained 11 Falun Gong practitioners in Bien Hoa. The police confiscated all their Falun Gong materials and required practitioners to sign documents promising not to practice Falun Gong and not to distribute fliers about the persecution.
Extra-legal Grounds
Mr. Trung and Mr. Thanh are represented by the lawyer Tran Dinh Trien. Mr. Trien believes the real reason for his clients’ arrest involves Vietnam’s attempts to appease the CCP.
In a Radio Free Asia broadcast translated from Vietnamese by The Epoch Times, Mr. Trien points to a document issued by the Ministry of Public Security around the same time as the decision by the state to prosecute his clients. The document emphasized that propagating Falun Gong affected diplomatic relations between Vietnam and China.
Trien believes the criminal case against his clients is without merit.
In a letter to the Ministry of Public Security and the People’s Supreme Procurator, Mr. Trien explained how the criminal charge brought against his clients does not actually apply to them: Article 226 originally did not apply to radio broadcasts. It was revised to include radio broadcasts, with the revised law effective January 1, 2010. But, Trien argues, since his clients had begun radio broadcasts in 2009, the revised law is not binding in their case.
At most, he says, his clients should be charged with an administrative offence of broadcasting without a license, the punishment for which would be the confiscation of their equipment and a fine.
As for the claim that the broadcasts interfered with air traffic control, Falun Gong practitioners in Vietnam say that the broadcasts were made on international short wave frequencies, and such interference is not possible.
Trien points to the aggressive actions of China toward Vietnam—occupying Vietnamese islands and exploring for Vietnam’s mineral resources on Vietnam’s continental shelf—as reasons why the Vietnamese state has felt it needed to please the CCP by suppressing Falun Gong and, in particular, arresting his clients.
The police who raided the homes of Trung and Thanh not only took away broadcasting equipment and computers, they also confiscated books and other materials related to Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that involves practicing five meditative exercises and following moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After first being taught in 1992 in China it rapidly became very popular. An issue of the U.S. News and World Report from February 1999 cited Chinese officials in claiming that Falun Gong had 100 million adherents.
The popularity of Falun Gong frightened the then-paramount leader, Jiang Zemin, who in July 1999 ordered that the practice be “eradicated.” The Falun Dafa Information Center estimates that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have died from torture and abuse and hundreds of thousands are held in China’s labor camps or prisons.
In its foreign relations, the CCP’s diplomats make clear that criticism of its policy toward Falun Gong is unacceptable. Where the regime has influence, it attempts to suppress the practice.
Vietnam has bowed to the CCP’s influence. While Falun Gong is officially legal in Vietnam, the state has put systematic pressure on Falun Gong practitioners, as witnessed by documents obtained by The Epoch Times.
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