【大紀元2011年09月09日訊】（大紀元記者李真、林怡香港報導）香港政府近期除了對新聞採訪、市民表逹政治訴求打壓外，更以所謂交通市容、區議會選舉等事為藉口，對和平抗議發起新一輪的打壓行動，試圖全面拆掉法輪功真相點的橫幅和展板。事件引發香港各界廣泛關注，認為港府向中共獻媚的新舉措，進一步壓縮港人民主自由的空間。

HONG KONG—Every day in Hong Kong busloads of tourists from mainland China visit popular tourist sites where they encounter adherents of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) who have set up display boards and banners that tell about the spiritual practice and its persecution in China. If a new interpretation of a Hong Kong ordinance is allowed to stand, then such use of what are termed “roadside non-commercial publicity materials” will be banned, putting a crimp in the Falun Gong practitioners’ efforts to tell their story and limiting the rights of all Hong Kongers.

According to Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners, on Sept. 2 staff from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) issued notices to different sites where practitioners have displays, including in front of the Liaison Office to Beijing (the Liasion Office is equivalent to China’s Embassy in Hong Kong), the Sogo Department Store at Causeway Bay, and the Wan Chai Bridge near the Immigration Department.

The notice stated that FEHD will step up enforcement of Section 104A of the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance and demanded that the banners and display boards be removed. Violators could receive a maximum fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1,565) and a daily fine of 300 yuan (US$47).

As of Sept. 8, Falun Gong practitioners at about a dozen locations in Hong Kong have received similar notices. At one of the sites, about a dozen staff members of FEHD arrived and attached Chinese and English-language versions of the notice onto the banners and display boards. They demanded that the Falun Gong practitioners remove the banners immediately because of the upcoming district council elections and remained for an hour. They also warned that they will soon take action.

The practitioners’ activities at these sites began after the then-leader of the Chinese regime, Jiang Zemin, launched a campaign in July 1999 to “eradicate” Falun Gong. The practice, which consists of doing five meditative exercises and studying teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, had become very popular in China—in early 1999 an official with China’s Sports Administration indicated 100 million had taken it up. Some analysts say Jiang feared it posed a threat to the CCP.

The practitioners call what they are doing at the sites around Hong Kong “clarifying the truth.” They seek to disabuse Hong Kong residents and visitors of lies told about by the practice by Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Inside China, the Party has used its control of the media and all parts of society to attempt to indoctrinate the Chinese people into opposing Falun Gong.

Rights Threatened

According to Falun Gong practitioners, the FEHD has taken an ordinance directed at commercial or promotional activities and applied it to their non-commercial activities. They say that by using display boards and banners they are exercising rights to freedom of speech and assembly that are constitutionally protected.

Practitioners have refused to remove their materials. Instead, they have in the last few days been visiting government officials to explain their position.

According to Falun Gong practitioner Liao Qiulan, some high officials have been speechless when practitioners have met with them and felt they couldn’t do anything about the Hong Kong government’s new initiative.

Leung Yiu-chung, a member of LegCo, Hong Kong’s legislature, pointed to the Chinese regime as the reason for FEHD’s actions.

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has already become the puppets of the Chinese regime,” he said. “They will suppress anyone the Chinese regime tells them to and have no sense of autonomy.”

He pointed out that pro-communist organizations have illegally displayed banners before, but FEHD only took the banners down without punishing the organization members. By imposing punishment on peaceful protest groups, Leung said FEHD was clearly involved in “political suppression.”

LegCo member Wong Yuk-man said that he believes the Chinese regime is behind this incident because it cannot tolerate Falun Gong practitioners’ peaceful protests. “The communist regime needs not command before the slaves carry out the work,” he said.

Wong Ho-yin, a spokesman for the Civil Human Rights Front’s Monitoring Group Against Abuse of Power by Police, also stated that the Hong Kong government’s action is a violation of Hong Kong residents’ freedom and rights.

“Are you saying that whenever there are elections, the rights of all the citizens should be suppressed? This is not reasonable,” Wong said.

The spokesperson of the Hong Kong Falun Dafa Association pointed to an earlier court case as authoritative in the current situation. In May 2005, the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong dropped all charges against eight Falun Gong practitioners who held meditative vigil outside the Liaison Office in March 2002, citing that “the appellants were engaged in a peaceful demonstration in exercise of their constitutional rights.”

According to the spokesperson, this case affirms that practitioners have the rights to freedom of speech and assembly in any public area.

The spokesperson also indicated that Falun Gong practitioners reserve the right to hold the Hong Kong government accountable and to demand compensation should the government interfere with their activities or damage their property in an illegal way.

Read the original Chinese article.

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【大纪元2011年08月19日讯】（大纪元记者古清儿报导）山西朔州“6.23”暴力强拆血案，曾经闹的沸沸扬扬、轰动全城。被拆迁户吴学文面对200 多人的强拆队伍，和家人为守护家园爬上房顶奋力抵抗，吴面对暴力被逼持刀反击，造成包括建设局长在内的一死四伤的事件。而吴妻乔香莲在案发18小时后，死于朔城区公安分局。

Wu Ruian, a grade 12 high-school student with a disabled left foot and prosthetic right leg, clambered onto his roof to defend the family home recently. He wasn’t defending it from bandits, but rather government officials and their cronies. They’d come to demolish the building so they could make a killing from selling the land.

He took off his pants to show his left foot, yelling to the demolition crew: “If you still have human nature, do not tear down our house.”

The crew ignored him. Enraged, he threw his prosthetic leg onto the street. It did little good. The incident would end with a dead official, a broken family, and a demolished house.

The Wu family’s ordeal is one of the many dramatic stories of forced demolition as it plays out on the ground in China. This account was told to The Epoch Times in a series of interviews recently. It has become known as the “6.23 Shanxi Incident” on the Chinese Internet.

Though the incident took place on June 23 in Shuozhou, Shanxi Province in central China, it didn’t come to light until Aug. 6.

Then, Wu Caorui, the eldest son of homeowner Wu Xuewen, 47, escaped police custody and revealed what had happened.

On June 23 a 150-member demolition crew led by a district-level Party official surrounded Wu’s Xuewen’ residence at around noon. The team comprised members of the court, police, street cops (known as Chengguan), the city’s building department, and hospital and fire-brigade staff.

They knew that the demolition wouldn’t be easy.

Wu Xuewen, the owner, had armed himself with a knife when he learned of the demolition team’s approach.

They talked it over but, unable to reach an agreement, decided to atop their house roof for the defense. Wu Xuewen, his wife, his mother, and his younger son with the prosthetic leg, Wu Ruian, all climbed up.

Wu Caorui, the elder son and a sophomore in a local technical college, stood outside the house and begged the officials to stop. They ignored him. As a bucket loader was approaching the roof, an official gave the order: “Get rid of this guy first.”

Over 20 armed police dragged Wu Caorui away and beat him unconscious with batons. He was handcuffed and thrown into a police van.

As he regained consciousness in the van, he found that his family members were being thrown in too, handcuffed and brutalized.

His mother was covered with blood, both her arms had been hit, and she was crying out. His father was also badly injured and exhausted.

The father, Wu Xuewen, had actually just killed one of the officials. A man had pretended to be willing to negotiate with Wu, and held out his hand, as if to shake in reconciliation. But when Wu extended his hand he was seized by the throat and the grip on his right hand tightened. Another official shouted: “Beat him, beat him to death.”

The terrified father tried his best to fight back and took out a small knife hidden inside his trouser leg. He stabbed his assailant in the neck. Other officials quickly jumped into the fight and put him down.

Wu’s disabled younger son was not spared either. The attackers sprayed an unidentified liquid into his eyes, blinding him temporarily.

All told, one official died during the conflict, while four others were injured. But the officials would get their vengeance.

Upon arrival at the Shuocheng District Police Station the young son, the mother, and the grandmother, were interrogated separately. The mother and grandmother were placed in handcuffs and footcuffs and subject to lengthy interrogations.

The mother passed out many times during the interrogation. It is unclear what methods the police used, but eighteen hours after the incident, on the afternoon of June 24, she was dead.

Wu Caorui was notified of his mother’s death but not allowed to see the body. Along with his grandmother and brother, the family was monitored by Public Security Bureau and not allowed to move about freely. Uncles and other family members needed to get permission before seeing them.

On July 2 Wu Quan, an attorney at Hebei’s Xingwei Attorney Office, was entrusted by an uncle to be the defense counsel for the family. But on the afternoon of July 11 he was attacked by unknown men.

The two brothers, and one sister, were staying in a hotel when the unidentified men burst in on them. Wu’s brother was pressed to the floor and had his head slammed against the ground.

Since 2007 authorities in Shuocheng district had been forcefully demolishing houses in the Wu family’s neighborhood, without legal documents, compensation, or alternative arrangements for the residents.

In the lead-up to this dramatic demolition struggle, the authorities had taken a number of measures to try to force the Wu’s out: throwing bricks at their house and smashing windows, and even throwing a bomb into their home.

The house had actually been bought with the compensation money received when Wu Ruian, the younger son, was crushed in a car accident at age four. His right foot below the ankle was amputated.

It was an over 120 square meter bungalow, bought in 2003; one part was the residence, while the other part was used for the family business.

Wu Ruicai said that his neighbors had encountered similar incidents: bombs had been thrown into three houses in the area, with one of the places catching fire as a result of the blast.

Wu Xuewen’s defense attorney said that the entire process of demolition was illegal. The authorities didn’t allow lawyers to meet with the family and instead arranged their own lawyer. The process of appointment of that lawyer was illegal too, he said.

Detaining Wu Xuewen’s mother and two children was also illegal; the behavior of the court staff and that of the public security officials were also all illegal, this lawyer said.

According to local residents, authorities in Shuocheng District of Shuozhou City regularly use violence to obtain land. Forced demolitions are carried out almost every day, residents said, with thugs working with local officials to evict residents so the houses can be bulldozed and the land sold to developers.

China is currently in the midst of a real-estate bubble, partly because local governments derive most of their revenues from land sales. The case of the Wu family is a dramatic illustration of this dynamic as it plays out in individual houses across the country.

Read the original Chinese article.

chinareports@epochtimes.com

 

 

【大纪元2011年09月07日讯】（大纪元记者洪宁报导）近日，上海“11•15”静安大火善后风波再起。灾后社会各界共捐款4,480万元，如今只有约420万元发放到受害人手中，另有4,000多万元去向不明。目前，21名受害人作为维权代表已委托律师追查善款去向，并要求当局将善款使用真相公布于众。

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