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In May 2006, the Vice President of the European Parliament, Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott went to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to investigate China’s human rights situation. On May 21, 2006, in Beijing, he met two Falun Gong practitioners. After the meeting, one of the practitioners, Mr. Cao Dong, disappeared.
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(Cao Dong and his wife, Yang Xiaojing)
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Mr. Cao Dong was jailed for four years because of his belief in Falun Gong. His wife Ms. Yang Xiaojing is still being detained. When Mr. Cao met Mr. McMillan-Scott, he testified that he and other Falun Gong practitioners had been cruelly tortured in prison, along with Tibetan Buddhist monks. The other practitioner that Mr. McMillan-Scott met with was Mr. Niu Jinping, 52, who took his two-year-old daughter with him. He had been detained for two years, and his wife Zhang Lianying is still detained in a detention Center in Beijing.
After meeting with Mr. McMillan-Scott, Mr. Cao Dong left first and disappeared. He has not been seen since then. Mr. Niu said that he left a few minutes later but didn’t see Mr. Cao. So he doubted that Mr. Cao was kidnapped right away.
The detail of the interview is included as Appendix I.
Mr. Cao is also a witness to the organ harvesting in China. Below is excerpt from the Interview summary prepared by Mr. McMillan-Scott:
“Edward McMillan-Scott enquired whether he was aware of any organ harvesting camps in China. Mr. Cao said he definitely knew of them and knew people who had been sent to these camps. He had seen the cadaver of one of his friends, a Falun Gong practitioner, with holes in his body where the organs had been removed.”
Mr. Cao’s residence was ransacked after his disappearance:
At around 6:00 p.m. on the evening of May 26, 2006, five men and one woman from the National Security Bureau, along with another woman from the local residential committee, broke into Mr. Cao Dong's home (Rm. 704, Unit 3, Zhuzi Hutong, Zhaojialou, Beijing.) Without showing any search warrant, they ordered practitioner Mr. Gao Feng, who at that time was staying in Mr. Cao’s home, to squat in a corner, and then began ransacking the home. They confiscated some Falun Gong books, a hard drive, an MP3 player, an identification card, and some photos. They also body searched Mr. Gao and confiscated everything he had with him.
They took Mr. Gao to a secret base with military police standing guard. Eight people were present to interrogate him. Five other people took turns monitoring him around the clock. During the interrogation, they also beat and force-fed him. A few days later, Mr. Gao was sent to Gansu Province, his place of origin. The local authorities sent people to monitor him, and extorted 3,000 yuan from his family. Mr. Gao found a chance to escape, which he did in order to avoid further persecution.
The steps that Mr. McMillian-Scott took to find Mr. Cao Dong:
After participating in the "Future of China" forum held on May 27, 2006, in Hong Kong, Mr. McMillan-Scott called the Chinese government to ensure that the two Falun Gong practitioners returned home safely, as he had lost contact with them right after meeting them in China. He declared that Cao Dong had been missing since the interview. He also requested an urgent meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to the EU on June 5, 2006. He hoped that the government would ensure that the Falun Gong practitioners returned home safely, would not be harassed in the future, and would be allowed to practice Falun Gong freely. However, he never received any information from the Chinese government.
After Mr. McMillan-Scott returned to Europe, he reported about these events and about Mr. Cao’s disappearance in an article published on June 13, 2006, in the Yorkshire Post Today
The report is included as Appendix II.
On June 22, Mr. McMillan-Scott sent an appeal letter to the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee about Mr. Cao’s disappearance.
The letter is included as Appendix III.
More information on the persecution of Mr. Cao Dong and his wife:
Mr. Cao Dong, 36, a graduate of the French Language Department at Beijing Foreign Language University, used to work as an interpreter at a travel agency. His wife, Ms. Yang Xiaojing, a computer engineer at the Beijing Power Supply and Design Institute, is currently detained in a labor camp because she practices Falun Gong. Although they have been married for many years, the couple was together for only three weeks after they married.
After the Chinese government started the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, Mr. Cao was first detained at the Drug Rehabilitation Center in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. On October 1, 2000, Mr. Cao escorted his French clients onto an airplane as a tour guide, but he was harassed by police officers. Local policemen and State Security agents checked with his boss, asked if he had overseas relatives, and threatened his boss that Falun Gong practitioners are not allowed to do work involving any contact with foreigners, which caused him to lose his job. He had to leave home to avoid being arrested again.
On the night of November 20, 2000, the police arrested Mr. Cao at home. He was interrogated along with 20 fellow practitioners, and then transferred to and detained at several detention centers in Beijing, including the Seventh Ward, which normally detains death row or long-term prisoners. In March 2001, a court in Beijing sentenced Mr. Cao to four and a half years in prison. He was sent to a prison in his native Gansu Province.
In 2005, Mr. Cao was released and sent home, but at that time, his wife, Ms. Yang Xiaojing was detained in a labor camp. Not long after Mr. Cao was sentenced in 2001, Ms. Yang was sent to a labor camp. She was detained at the Fifth Section of the Beijing Xin'an Labor Camp. Because she refused to renounce her practice of Falun Gong, she was brutally tortured with different torture methods. After Ms. Yang returned home, the State Security Agents arrested and detained her again in April 2004. She was sentenced to two and a half years of forced labor. Because she firmly held on to her belief, she was sent to the Second Section of the Beijing Women's Labor Camp, where she has been tortured even more ruthlessly.
PDF Format
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Appendix I
- Mr.
Edward McMillan-Scott's Beijing Interview Summary
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Appendix II
- SECRET
ATROCITIES OF CHINESE REGIME, posted on Yorkshire Post Today
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Appendix III
- A
Letter to Mrs Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commisioner for External Relations,
European Commission
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