Americans Protest Deportation of Refugees from Russia
| May 17, 2007 | ||
| By Evan Mantyk/Epoch Times New York Staff | ||
NEW YORK—Falun Gong adherents protested outside the Russian Consulate in Manhattan on Tuesday, calling on the Russian government to stop following suit with the Chinese Communist regime in its persecution of the peaceful spiritual practice. The protest was sparked after the deportation of an elderly Falun Gong adherent who had United Nations refugee status—the second such deportation in the last two months.
The deported Falun Gong adherent was Professor Gao Chunman, 73. Gao, an invalid due to a stroke he suffered two years ago, was forcibly carried away from his home in Russia on Sunday morning by Russian Federal Immigration Service police. Gao’s wife, a Russian citizen, said the agents entered their home under the pretence of wanting to rent their flat. They showed no court documents and cut Gao’s phone line before abducting him.
Chinese leader Hu Jintao visited Russia in March, and is believed to have put pressure on Russian authorities to mistreat Falun Gong adherents living in Russia. Gao was likely viewed as a high-profile adherent because of he was a former professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s top universities
“I just feel that human rights and the value of human life should always be primary, if they are not treated as such and international laws are violated and a person is put into immediate danger than this doesn’t lead to a good future for the Russian people,” said Ms. Lidya Talaizadeh, a Russian citizen living in New York who protested outside the consulate.
Falun Gong was banned in China in 1999 by the Chinese Communist regime apparently because of its popularity. Steeped in the Buddhist spiritual tradition, the practice had spread to over 70 million people in China, including top members of the officially atheist Chinese government.
Ms. Talaizadeh said she believes the Chinese Communist regime is completely corrupt and will fall apart like the Communist Party did in Russia in the early 90s. Over 21 million people have renounced membership and any ties to the Chinese Communist Party, as posted on The Epoch Times Web site.
“The Chinese Communist regime is collapsing, so following it and violating human rights, following it and persecuting Falun Gong will not bring Russia a good future but would rather make Russia complicit in the crimes of the Chinese Communist regime,” said Ms. Talaizadeh.
At least 3,000 Falun Gong adherents have verifiably been killed by the government’s persecution, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. The actual number of those killed or “diasappeared” is suspected to be possibly 20 times that, and the center notes that millions of adherents have been harassed, arrested and tortured by Chinese authorities. The persecution is acknowledged and condemned by the U.S. government, the United Nations and human rights organizations worldwide.
Gao began practicing Falun Gong in 1994. He was forced to leave China in 2000 to escape persecution. Granted U.N. refugee status in 2003, he was in the process of seeking asylum in Russia when he was deported.
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