IRF Summit 2023: Simon Zhang Speaks about Persecution of Falun Gong and Mother's Death

Thank you. My name is Simon Zhang. I am an architect in New York. I'm here to share a story of my mom. This is a photo of quite a lady. Unfortunately, she died in custody last March in China simply for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition. Since the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, she was sent to forced labor camps twice, first in 2001 and then in 2008, right before the Beijing Summer Olympics. In forced labor camps, she was tortured by police using electric batons for two hours until she had an involuntary urination and her face was burned. That torture destroyed her health, but the abuse did not stop there. Both times, we were only allowed to bring her home when she was about to die due to the severe torture and abuses. Last year in 2022, she was arrested again on the Chinese New Year, three days before the Beijing Winter Olympics. In detention center, she went on a hunger strike to protest the arbitrary detention. The guards responded with torture, forced feeding, and humiliation. As a result, she lost consciousness and was sent to hospital, where she was handcuffed to bed for the last month of her life. They also placed iron fetters on her ankles. On March 21, 40 days after she was arrested, my mom died. My father demanded an explanation, but was only met with indifference. Instead, nearly 50 policemen guarded my mom's body and monitored my parents' apartment. On April 7th, my mom was cremated. My father was forced to give permission. After the police threatened, they would fire my cousin, who is my father's close nephew, from his government job. They also threatened him, my father, using photos of me joining Falun Gong events in the United States, telling him that they know everything about what's happening here. My mom had one strong wish to see for herself how we can practice Falun Gong freely in the United States. A few years ago, she planned to visit me here, but her passport application was denied because she practiced Falun Gong. Now, she would never have that chance. In the 65 years of her life, the last 23 years were filled with surveillance, harassment, arrest, torture, and abuses. My entire family also suffered for 23 years because of this. All she did was to stay faithful to the principles of Falun Gong, truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. She refused to give them up, even in the face of physical and mental torture by the communist regime. My family is only one of the millions of families torn apart by this persecution, and in my own experience, I have seen so many of my close friends and close fellow practitioners and their family were torn apart in front of my eyes. My mom is just one of over 4,900 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners who died due to torture and abuses. Another untold number of Falun Gong practitioners, likely hundreds of thousands, have been killed through forced organ harvesting. This is a much, much bigger crime than China's human rights issue. What the Chinese communist regime has done to Falun Gong, including my mom, is a genocide and it's a crime against humanity. Thank you very much.