TAIWANESE FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER RELEASED: CHUNG TING-PANG
Amnesty International
Further information on UA: 201/12 Index: ASA 17/029/2012 China Date: 21 August 2012
URGENT ACTION
TAIWANESE FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER RELEASED
Chung Ting-Pang, a Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner who was detained in China on 18 June, was released on 10 August. The following day he was escorted to Nanchang airport where he boarded a plane to Taiwan. He has been reunited with his wife and children in Taiwan.
Chung Ting-Pang had travelled to China on 15 June to meet with his relatives who live in Nankang, Jiangxi province. He was detained at the airport in Ganzhou, also in Jiangxi province, on 18 June as he was about to return to Taiwan.
Chung Ting-Pang was held at a guesthouse under the guard of the Ganzhou National Security Bureau for 54 days. He was repeatedly interrogated but he says that he was not physically tortured or ill-treated. However, his interrogators threatened him by saying to him that if he did not cooperate, another investigation team would take over from them and that they could not protect him if that happened. During the first day of his detention, he refused to eat or drink. He began to eat after he was allowed to call home. The authorities told him what he should and should not say when speaking with his family. On 11 July he was taken to meet with a lawyer, and on 26 July he was asked to call home again, and tell his family that he was being treated well and that his family should not “make too much noise”.
The national security authorities held him due to his attempt to intercept the signal of a Chinese TV station, deemed detrimental to China’s national and public security and for his other activities to distribute information about the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China. He was released without being charged but only after he signed a statement in which he confessed to having posed a threat to China’s national security and said that he regrets having done so.
Chung Ting-Pang admits that since 2003, he has attempted to use many methods to distribute materials about Falun Gong which is banned in China. However, he says that he never posed a threat to China’s national security and that he had to make up some details during the interrogations and only signed the statement because of the psychological pressure brought upon him by his being isolated, the threats to his security, and not knowing what would happen to him.
Many thanks to those who sent appeals. No further action is required from the UA network.
This is the first update UA 201/12. Further information: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA17/022/2012/en
Name: Chung Ting-Pang
Gender m/f: Male
Further information on UA: 201/12 Index: ASA 17/029/2012 Issue Date: 21 August 2012