Olympic Reporters’ Guide to Labor Camps Published

Author: CIPFG
Posted: August 1, 2008
News Alert via Reuters

Olympic Reporters’ Guide to Labor Camps Published

Booklet provides driving directions to notorious labor camps, urges coverage of media taboo

To help foreign reporters overcome the Chinese government’s media censorship and shed light on closely shielded rights violations, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) released today a detailed guide to detention facilities located within miles of Olympic venues and known for their severe abuse of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.

The guide, entitled “Torture Outside the Olympic Village: A Guide to China’s Labor Camps,” is available online at http://www.humanrightstorch.org/news/guide-to-olympic-village-labor-camps/ or as a 22-page downloadable PDF at: http://xiuxian.no-ip.info/rescue/upload_images/CIPFG_Labour_Camp_Guide_EMAIL.pdf

“Many of us have heard stories about China’s gulags, but when you discover how close some of these hellholes are to Olympic venues, it’s sickening,” says Clive Ansley, China Monitor for Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada and North American President of CIPFG.

The guide details seven detention facilities, in or near Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, and Shenyang, and includes:

· Map: A map showing the location of the facility, the location of the closest Olympic venue, and English-language directions to the camp from the nearest airport and train station.

· Description of facility: A photo, general description of the facility, details of its prisoner population, overall conditions, and the name, address and phone number (if available).

· Products and show tours: Products known to have been manufactured at the site and details of prior show tours to the facility, when relevant.

· Individual cases: Brief individual case summaries of current and former prisoners of conscience, the abuse they have suffered in custody, and whether they are available for interview.

“We hope this guide will draw international attention to the innocent individuals held at these locations,” says Ansley. “It should particularly aid journalists in investigating the plight of adherents of the Falun Gong, who make up a huge percentage of labor camp detainees and have suffered a brutal campaign of persecution for nine years.”

Note on censorship: Contrary to promises of “complete freedom” for foreign media, the Chinese authorities have blocked access to Falun Gong-related websites from the Olympic Media Center in a deal struck with the International Olympic Committee. To circumvent such censorship, CIPFG suggests the following measures:

· Request that colleagues outside China e-mail or fax a copy of the guide to you inside China.

· Use circumvention tools available at http://www.internetfreedom.org/ to access the guide despite the censorship.

· Once you have obtained a copy, please re-post it on other websites, blogs, etc. By creating multiple copies on the web, the Chinese government’s blocking of the original becomes obsolete.

The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) was established to unite international human rights organizations, legal experts, medical institutions, NGOs and government representatives around the world to participate in and independent investigation of the Chinese communist regime’s imprisonment, torture, killing, and organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. Since August 2007, it has also sponsored the Human Rights Torch Relay, a global grassroots campaign to raise awareness of, and stop, the Chinese communist regime’s human rights crimes against all victimized groups prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

For more information or to schedule interviews with former prisoners of conscience, contact Clive Ansley at +1-(250)334-3586, Susan Prager at (862)668-6382 or e-mail info@cipfg.org.