When street demonstrations and mass telephone-call campaigns to protest Chinese government persecution fizzled, followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement did what many aggrieved parties do: They sued -- in countries other than China.
Over the past 18 months, followers of the group banned by the Chinese government as an "evil cult" have filed at least a dozen suits in foreign courts against Chinese officials they accuse of rights abuses. Their biggest target: former president Jiang Zemin (江澤民).
PHOTO: AP
It's the latest tactic in an ongoing, high-profile campaign to draw attention to China's often brutal three-year-old crackdown on the group. If the object is to rile China's leaders, who are protected at home by the Communist Party's political monopoly, it seems to be working.
"They are stigmatizing the leaders of China with invented charges. They're trying to tarnish our government, and they are trying to grab attention for themselves," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said this week.
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of new cases in Finland, Iceland, Belgium, France and Australia. The group says it has signed on high-profile lawyers such as British human rights attorney Geoffrey Robertson to represent them.
"The purpose of these cases is simple and specific: to target those responsible for the persecution. This is not a political campaign against the Chinese government," said Levi Browde, a Falun Gong spokesman in the US.
Virtually all Falun Gong activism these days comes from abroad; Chinese followers have gone into hiding. It is unclear how many people in China are Falun Gong practitioners.
The court cases apply foreign laws such as the US Alien Tort Claims Act to crimes committed in China -- the same principle under which, in 1998, a Spanish judge ordered former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to face charges of crimes against humanity.
China is believed to be exerting considerable diplomatic pressure to have the suits dismissed. Yet even if the lawsuits fail, which is likely, Falun Gong may still be able to claim public-opinion points.
"It's a good strategy. Because if you win, or even if you don't, you can call attention to what you're doing and bring shame and blame against your opponent," said Michael Davis, a professor of law and government at Hong Kong's Chinese University.
The legal campaign scored an early success against a pair of lower-level Chinese officials when American judges ruled they didn't merit immunity and found them guilty of human rights abuses by default.
But a US federal judge in Chicago dismissed a case against Jiang on grounds that courts can exempt foreign leaders from civil lawsuits in the US if the government advises. The US government in that case filed a friend-of-the-court petition requesting dismissal, reportedly after China threatened a diplomatic rift.
Falun Gong's lawyer, Terry Marsh, says an appeal is being prepared.
"It is time for the people of China to learn that their government has lied to them ... that the Jiang regime has committed crimes of torture and genocide," Marsh said.
Falun Gong's legal teams have identified Jiang as their main target, saying that as president and Communist Party general secretary he was responsible for the crackdown. Other leaders being sued include Beijing party chief Liu Qi (
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS