On March 11, the Sydney Epoch Times hosted a Nine Commentaries forum. The audience and main guest speaker expressed great concern over the recently exposed Sutiajun Death Camp in China. Many people wanted to know how true this is and the debate between speaker and audience was intense and fervent. The following is a transcript of the dialogue between guest speaker and audience.
Audience: Why is it that mainstream media have not reported on the Sujiatun concentration camp and the bird flu incident? I wonder how true this is.
Law professor Yuan Hongbin: First of all, think about this, 72 hours after a worldwide online media and newspaper make such a headline report, (if it is a report about US) what kind of reaction will the US government have? There are possibly two reactions: One, to verify the incident; second, if this concentration camp does not exist, the US government will hold the reporting media responsible for an inaccurate report. Let us see what the Chinese government has done? Since the incident came out, up till now, the CCP has remained silent for 72 hours. Therefore it is reasonable for us to conclude that this information is reliable.
This is the first point.
Secondly, can you remember what happened during the SARS outbreak a few years ago? To avoid investigations by the WHO, the Beijing city government put SARS victims in several ambulances and drove round the streets. Yet at that time Health Minster Zhang Wenkang declared at a press conference that Beijing is safe, China is safe, there is no SARS outbreak here. Faced with a regime that is consistent in telling lies, we have every reason to think it is guilty until proven innocent according to the Principle of Burden of Proof.
I would also like to remind everyone of another historical fact. From 1959 to 1961, 40 million people starved to death in China. The Chinese government claimed that this was due to three years of natural disaster.
Yet further investigations revealed, that according to records of weather reports during that time, in reality, China enjoyed good weather. If there were any natural disasters, it was on a small scale, not to the extent as to affect the whole country. The real cause of these deaths was that Mao Zedong built the world’s largest concentration camp.
When a global media makes a groundbreaking headline report on the Sujiatun labor camp, the Chinese government has no courage to come forward to deny it due to its deceitful nature. Therefore I can conclude that this incident is true.
Professor Chen Hongshen, Scholar of China Affairs: I have two points to make. You said besides The Epoch Times, no other mainstream media has made any reports on the incident. I believe very soon the English mainstream media will start reporting on it. But it is a different situation for the Chinese media because most of them are afraid of the pressure coming from the Chinese communist regime. The majority of the chief editors and organization heads are pro-comunist regime therefore they would not want to get into trouble with the Chinese regime by reporting on the Sujiatun incident.
I also have a factual story to share. During the SARS outbreak, I rang an Australian friend working in Shanghai. At that time Shanghai had announced that there were only 4 SARS victims in Shanghai and one suspected case. My friend told me there were 140 employees in his organization and there were three suspected of being infected with SARS. However they were not included in the statistics given by the Chinese government.
Guest speaker Ms. Tracy: Before the US army went into the Nazi concentration camps, there were no media reports on it but it truly existed. Many US soldiers were so traumatized by the horrors of the concentration camps, they had to undergo psychiatric treatment. An authoritarian government will never allow for the free flow of news and information. No reports on the incident does not necessarily mean such a terrible thing is nonexistent. When faced with something like this, we have to judge using our conscience and heart.
Audience: Why is the journalist’s face covered and why is it that only the Epoch Times has reported on this incident. How can we verify the authenticity of this information?
Yuan Hongbing: Why is the journalist’s face treated technologically? This reflects the humiliation of the communist regime’s barbaric rule. In China there is no freedom of thought, freedom of speech or freedom of news. The prisons in China hold many political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of thought. We can come up with a long list of their names such as Zhang Lin, Shi Tao, Zheng Yichun, Yang Tianshui.
Recently in Guizhou, another reporter was given a heavy sentence simply because he published four articles overseas. Hence in a country where there is no freedom of thought, speech or news, when the communist regime exercise state terrorism to such an extent that people are persecuted for their thoughts and speech, when The Epoch Times reports such shocking insider information, a masking of the informant’s face has been made in order to protect his identity.
Secondly, only The Epoch Times has reported on the incident because it has exceptional capability in capturing news from within China...
Third, the question of authenticity has to be verified of course. Therefore I saw a suggestion made by someone on the Internet to immediately set up a global investigation team, go to Sujiatun to take a look if such a labor camp exists. I fully support such a proposal. Although I believe the Chinese communist regime does not have the courage to allow for investigations to be carried out by an international organization.
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