Publication date: 05/03/2002
San Francisco Examiner
Crackdown document worries Chinese chiefs
By Ted Anthony
Associated Press
    BEIJING -- Telling police to "arrest them, then do the paperwork," China
is girding for the 2008 Olympics by ordering a crackdown on Falun Gong
and all other dissent in a northeastern province, according to a document
that Chinese democracy activists say is an official decree.

    It was not possible to independently verify the authenticity of the
document released in the United States by the Free China Movement, a
Washington-based group that opposed Beijing's selection to host the
2008 Summer Games.
    The Free China Movement said the decree came from
the highest levels of China's government. Andrew Nathan, a China scholar at
Columbia University who co-edited "The Tiananmen Papers," about other Chinese
government documents, said he believed the order was authentic.
    The one-page order, directed to police bureaus and courts in Jilin,
said it came from that northeastern province's police headquarters and top
court.
It appeared to sanction the arrest of Falun Gong practitioners even
without formal warrants.
    The Free China Movement faxed a photocopy of the document to
reporters in Beijing.
    Jilin, about 500 miles northeast of Beijing, has been a stronghold
of Falun Gong, the exercise and meditation movement banned by China's
communist leaders in 1999 as an "evil cult." Other northeastern
provinces were wracked by protests by laid-off workers this March.
    The Connecticut-based China Support Network, a lobbying group,
called the document "a smoking gun" -- and a problem for the
International Olympic Committee.
    "Do the executives there in fact sanction the abuse of human rights
under the cheerfully applied seal of the Olympics?" it said
in a statement.
"If the IOC has a shred of humanity, it will deny China the opportunity to host
these games."
    A senior Beijing Olympic organizing official, Wang Wei, expressed
doubt about the document's authenticity but said he could not comment. Jilin
police said they had no information and asked why reporters
were interested.
    The IOC headquarters in Geneva was closed for the day but U.S.
committee member Anita DeFrantz said she hadn't seen the
document. She noted that Wang and other members of China's organizing committee were
looking into the issue.
    In the past, DeFrantz said, these reports "often don't pan out."
However, she added that IOC President Jacques Rogge said last
week that the committee would take action if it felt human rights issues were
interfering with Beijing's ability to hold the Games.
    Beijing pins great hopes on the 2008 Olympics as a
showcase of China's progress and increasing international prestige, and
high-profile protests would mar its efforts at shaping its world image.
    The notice was not dated. But it ordered the
campaign from May 20, 2000
-- 13 months after Beijing submitted its bid to the
International Olympic Committee but before it was chosen -- until Dec. 30,
2007.
    Nathan said the link to the Olympics could be peripheral, and
perhaps was just a way of putting existing policy on paper. "It
may be consistent with their view of the rule of law."
    The Free China Movement said it released the
document during the U.S. visit of China's vice president and expected future
leader, Hu Jintao, who has defended Beijing's rights record during his trip.
    It said the decree was obtained by the U.S.-based
Committee for
Investigation of Religious Persecution in China, which
in February released scores of what China scholars said appeared to be
genuine internal government documents.
    On Wednesday, the head of an IOC inspection commission visited
Beijing and declared himself fully satisfied with
preparations. Hein Verbruggen sidestepped reporters' questions about China's rights
practices.
    The decree, titled "Notice on severely striking
illegal organizations," bore two official-looking seals and said it was
designed "to better welcome the smooth holding of the 2008 Olympic Games in our
country" and "to stabilize social order."
    The notice ordered that organizers of large protests "who refuse to
mend their ways" be sentenced to up to three years'
imprisonment and fined $1,200.
Leaders of "illegal organizations," it added, "should be punished
severely."
    "Falun Gong practitioners and instigators should
be cracked down upon to a greater degree," the order said. "First arrest them,
then do the paperwork."