Tuesday, March 07, 2006

HUNGER STRIKE CONDEMNS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA

Taipei, March 6 (CNA) Human rights activists staged a 24-hour relay hunger strike in Taipei Monday to join the call from a Chinese lawyer to protest over the Chinese government's repeated violations of human rights.

Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer in China known for his public defiance of the Chinese communist regime, has called for hunger strikes across China in protest against the regime's persecution.

Human rights advocates in North America, the Asia Pacific region and Europe also joined the globally synchronized hunger strike, which in Taiwan began in front of Exhibition Hall 2 of the Taipei World Trade Center at 9 a.m. Monday and was scheduled to end 9a.m. Tuesday.

In an official statement, the protesters called for the Chinese government to unconditionally release all writers and reporters who have been secretly kidnapped and illegally detained, reinstate lawyers whose practices have been illegally discontinued, and stop the suppression of Falun Gong, which in China is viewed as an illegal cult.

Yan Peng, a Chinese dissident seeking political asylum in Taiwan, and former president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights Wei Chien-feng, a practicing lawyer, also participated in the strike.

Protesters will follow the strike with a two-week sit-in at the same location until March 19.

Gao wrote an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao last October criticizing the regime's persecution of Falun Gong. Gao has been constantly monitored by communist spies since his open letter, and in January survived an attempted assassination.