OPEN LETTER to Gao Zhisheng, Chinese Human Rights advocate, June=
 4 2006

By EDWARD MCMILLAN-SCOTT
VICE-PRESIDENT of European Parliament

Thank you for your remarks* after my visit to Beijing on May 20 =96=
 24 2006 
when I interviewed two Falun Gong former prisoners, after which=
 they 
disappeared. Because of this I did not meet you. I am now told I=
 was the 
first politician to hold such a meeting: if so I urge many others=
 to do 
the same.

Mr Niu Jinping and his baby daughter are under house arrest and=
 Mr Cao Dong 
has still been missing, I am pursuing their safety with the=
 regime. Mr Steve 
Gigliotti, the US citizen who organised my meeting, was arrested,=
 interrogated 
and deported. Such actions have no place in today=92s world.

I last visited China and Tibet ten years ago while preparing a=
 report for 
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.=
 Welcoming China=92s 
booming trade with Europe, but also regretting its complete lack=
 of democracy, 
I encouraged =93not just business as usual, but also politics as=
 usual=94. 
While the trade has flourished, political development has=
 remained glacial and 
the European Union=92s human rights dialogue with China, begun=
 then, continues 
to be largely fruitless.

My recent visit as rapporteur for the European Parliament on the=
 EU=92s new 
Democracy and Human Rights Instrument, to run from 2007, was to=
 examine how it 
could operate in China. I met EU diplomats, academics, NGOs and=
 individuals.

My conclusions are that the Chinese regime remains brutal,=
 arbitrary and paranoid
 but that the innate intelligence and self-discipline of the=
 Chinese, led by a 
developing civil society and emerging rule of law must lead to a=
 democratic future.

The condition of prisoners in China is increasingly well-known=
 but it is only in 
recent months that a particular mistreatment - of Falun Gong=
 practitioners - has 
come to light, namely the selection of prisoners for=
 =91reverse-match=92 organ and 
tissue transplants, leading to their deaths. This is genocide, as=
 defined in 
Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of=
 the Crime of Genocide:

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in=
 whole or in part, 
a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing=
 members of the group; 
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;=
 Deliberately inflicting
 on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its=
 physical destruction 
in whole or in part;=94

Like you, I am a Christian, by upbringing. My contacts with Falun=
 Gong practitioners 
during my visit to Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan and subsequently=
 (I visited on June 
1 an exhibition in Helsinki of paintings depicting the treatment=
 of Falun Gong prisoners
in China) do not suggest a political movement. It is, if=
 anything, a spiritual practice 
of Buddha school origin in which every adherent I have met feels=
 mentally and physically 
enhanced by a series of Tai-chi type daily exercises.

The practitioners I met in Beijing told me of their imprisonment=
 and that of their wives, 
of the specially harsh treatment they suffered, including sleep=
 deprivation, degrading 
and humiliating punishments and beatings of up to 20 hours at a=
 time to elicit denunciations 
of Falun Gong. One said he knew 30 fellow practitioners who had=
 been beaten to death. 
They were aware of organ harvesting: one had seen the cadaver of=
 his friend and fellow 
practitioner after body parts had been removed.

Since the crackdown on Falun Gong was begun by the Communist=
 Party of China (CCP) regime 
in 1999, including the establishment of a special =936-10=94 office=
 of repression, Falun Gong 
has responded by using factual disclosure of persecution and=
 other crimes by the regime. 
As a result it claims that more than 10 million Chinese have=
 resigned the CCP and its 
affiliations. 

As a British Conservative I have witnessed with relief =96 and=
 played some part in encouraging 
=96 the freedom from communism now enjoyed by millions of=
 Europeans. I urge all members of 
the CCP to recognise that the horrors perpetrated in its name =96=
 the Great Leap Forward, 
the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Massacres =96 are held to=
 be responsible for some 
80 million deaths.

It is now a matter of probably brief time before the regime=
 collapses. The massive economic 
contradictions, manifest administrative corruption, widespread=
 dissent in the countryside, 
increasing courage of religious groups and the ability of young=
 people to circumvent Internet 
restrictions are all precursors to change.

The Chinese people have friends wherever thought, religion and=
 association are free. The regime 
has no friends and, while I despise it, I hope that the change is=
 as peaceful as the process 
which ended one-party domination in Europe. 

In the meantime, like other politicians across the free world, I=
 warn those responsible of the 
consequences of genocide. 

On this anniversary of the massacres in Tiananmen Square and=
 elsewhere in 1989, I urge my 
colleagues in the European Parliament and in freely-elected=
 assemblies across the world to 
monitor systematically the abuses which you have so courageously=
 brought to public attention. 
I also urge all embassies of the EU in China to provide support =96=
 and when necessary sanctuary 
- to human rights defenders like yourself. The future will be the=
 judge of us all.