Spy Claims Terrify Falun Gong Followers

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1387898.htm

Broadcast: 08/06/2005

Spy claims terrify Falun Gong followers

Reporter: Margot O’Neill and Hamish Fitzsimmons

TONY JONES: Followers of the Falun Gong movement in Australia say they’re terrified after a would-be defector revealed details of how the long arm of China’s spying network kept tabs on dissidents in Australia. Last night on this program How Fengjun, who claims to be a former security policeman from the city of Tianjin, said he had received intelligence reports prepared in Australia about the activities of local Falun Gong members. Today we’ve spoken to the Australian woman whose file he claims to have read. And to others in the movement who say they were tortured in Chinese labour camps for their beliefs - and who also believe they’ve been targeted and harassed in Australia by Chinese agents. Our report was prepared by Margot O’Neill and Hamish Fitzsimmons. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Li Ying says she came to Australia in November 2003 for safety and freedom after imprisonment and torture in China for being a member of the banned Falun Gong movement. 

LI YING, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: Everyday I live in danger and very worry about everything but when I came to Australia, I think I can enjoy this freedom. Australia is beautiful country, I like to stay there. But from yesterday, the feeling when I was in China came back. I just worry about me, worry about how about tomorrow. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: That feeling returned after Li saw would-be Chinese defector How Fengjun on Lateline last night describing the information he received on Falun Gong followers in Sydney when he was a Chinese security official in Tianjin. One of the cases that came across his desk was that of Li Ying herself, now an Australian resident. 

HOW FENGJUN, ASYLUM SEEKER: For example, what time Li Ying went to a party or went to a gathering and what speech she made. What time she was outside the Chinese Consulate, at a protest, and it detailed all these things very clearly, straight back to the Public Security Bureau in Tianjin. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Ms Li says she’s terrified after finding out she’s been under such detailed surveillance by the much-feared 610 security office of the Chinese Government. 

LI YING: Because I think I live in a freedom country, I don’t think someone can watch me like in China, someone can follow me. Today, after this, I really scared. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Her husband, Grant, has experienced direct harassment from 610 agents in Sydney and says there may be up to 40 of them in Australia. 

GRANT LU, FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER: My van being - all the pictures being damaged and the front windscreen being broken and also I have the photos of that and also my phone being harassed. Somebody called me - within three hours, three calls just harassing so I have to change my phone number. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The couple says they were persecuted because they are Falun Gong followers. Falun Gong is a spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992. It describes itself as a practice for mind and body and has three main tenets - truthfulness, benevolence, and tolerance. In 1999, the Chinese Government began a brutal crackdown on Falun Gong’s estimated 70 million followers, feeling it could rival the influence of the Communist Party. In China, Falun Gong members are jailed without trial and forced into labour camps unless they renounce the movement. They say torture is commonplace. 

LI YING: Before in labour camp, I was in detention centre. They use handcuffs, hold me from back - like this position. Three days and nights I could not sleep, could not eat, could not use toilet and only after two hours, the handcuffs just make me lose feelings in my arms and legs, foot all swollen. After three days they put me down, I could not move, just another people help me sit. 

JENNIFER ZENG: I was shocked with two electric batons until I lost my consciousness and I was forced to squat under the scorching sunshine for more than 15 hours per day and I was not allowed to wash my clothes, have a shower and have a change. And I was forced to work from 5:30 in the morning till 1:00am or 2:00am in the next morning. Sometimes I didn’t have sleep at all. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Jennifer Zeng wrote a book about her experiences in a labour camp and within a week of it being published in Chinese, two agents were dispatched from China to track her down - without success. By Ms Zeng’s account, life in China’s modern-day gulags recalls the worst excesses of the Khmer Rouge and their Year Zero in Cambodia. 

JENNIFER ZENG: There, you must read out loudly your denounce, your thought report in front of all the persons, police, in the labour camp and got filmed, recorded and then you must help the police to torture your fellow Falun Gong practitioners to prove that you have reformed. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: She being forced to help keep a woman awake for 15 days, amongst other horrific incidents. 

JENNIFER ZENG: I witnessed a woman who was tortured so badly she wasn’t allowed to sleep for five days and nights and got beaten, tortured all this time. So suddenly she lost all sanity and gone mad and she started laugh so strangely. In a way that is the most terrifying thing in the world to witness - that within that one minute, people go mad because the torture was too much. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Li Ying claims her appeals to Australian Government to help her family in China still being persecuted were ignored. Now a serving immigration official has told Lateline that Falun Gong applications for protection go into a sensitive case register. At the official’s request, we have disguised their appearance and voice. 

IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: You sent it to Canberra where the lawyers send it back with a comment, depending how sensitive the case and whether the way the decision was going was in tune with what the Government wanted. Sometimes the files would be stuck in the bottom drawer. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The official told Lateline’s Margot O’Neill that includes Falun Gong cases. 

MARGOT O’NEILL: Give me an example of what you mean? What’s a sensitive case? 

IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: Chinese approvals in the asylum area. 

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Today, Hao Fengjin said he had given intelligence documents to the Immigration Department when he applied for asylum. Chinese officials say it has no knowledge of the man whose claims have struck fear into local Falun Gong followers. Hamish Fitzsimmons, Lateline.

Screenshot of ABC's Lateline program.