Martins Rubenis To Starve Himself At Chinese Embassy Unitl Easter Monday

Martins Rubenis to starve himself at Chinese Embassy until Easter Monday

Aila Вdamsone

485 words

15 April 2006

06:46 AM

Latvian News Agency

English

(c) 2006 LETA .

RIGA, April 15 (LETA) - Hunger strike, staged in front of the Chinese Embassy by practitioners of the Falun Gong movement in Latvia, among whom are also Latvian luger and Olympic bronze medal winner Martins Rubenis, will last 72 hours.

The protesters want to attract the public's attention to the Chinese Communist regime's persecution against people.

As Martins Rubenis informed reporters yesterday, his hunger strike would last 24 hours - until Easter Monday, while 9 other members would remain outside the Chinese Embassy until April 17.

The Olympian said he is going to starve himself in protest of the suppression of religious movements, dissidents and people with different views in China. Facts about the scale of the brutal persecution in China are silenced and the Chinese government makes sure that no information reached media, as Rubenis told LETA earlier.

The athlete pointed out that in China, opponents of its Communist regime, dissidents and religious people are imprisoned in labor camps where thousands of them face certain death. Rubenis said that he as athlete cannot accept a fact that this country intends to hold next Olympic games in 2008.

The Falun Gong movement was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi who now lives in exile in New York. In his teachings, he combined Buddhist and Taoist concepts with practice of meditation and traditional Chinese qigong (breathing exercises).

The Falun Gong movement is regarded as "an evil cult" by the Chinese government. As of 1999, the movement is officially prohibited in China and its members persecuted.

Since then, almost 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners have died in police and government custody in mainland China, giving rise to allegations of torture and police brutality, but over 100,000 followers have been sentenced to forced-labor camps, the Falung Gong claims.

The Chinese government does not deny detaining Falun Gong practitioners, but insists that they died from hunger strikes and refusals to seek medical treatments.

Last month, American media brought up the issue of deaths at the Sujiatun detention compound - a labor camp and part of a hospital - located in Shenyang city. According to witnesses who managed to escape from China, about 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been held captive at the camp as of 2001, two thirds of whom have died. The witnesses also made allegations to organ harvesting and said that nobody was coming out of the camp alive.

China has denied all accusations, but the United Nations (UN) torture investigator Manfred Nowak has expressed a wish to visit China and investigate into the Sujiatun case.

UN human rights agencies regularly criticize China for its suppression of religious people - Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Falun Gong followers.

Also, this is not the first time that Falun Gong practitioners in Latvia stage protests demanding that China stopped oppression and persecution of supporters of the movement.