On initiative of Hands off Cain, the Human Rights Commission...

On initiative of Hands off Cain, the Human Rights Commission of the Italian Senate granted an informal hearing on the freedom of cult and expression to Uighur and Falun Gong representatives. Falun Gong was banned as an 'evil cult' by the Chinese authorities in 1999, and the mainly Muslim ethnic Uighurs from China's Xinjiang region are battling domination by the Chinese Han and working towards the creation of a separate state, which they call East Turkestan. Falun Gong's international spokesman Erping Zhang emphasised the persecution and torture suffered by practitioners at the hands of the Chinese authorities, who also intern adherents in labour camps or psychiatric hospitals to make them renounce their spiritual beliefs. Hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed and thousands arrested since 1999, when the Chinese authorities began a strong repression of the movement following its ban. The president of the National Council Of East Turkestan, Enver Can, denounced hundreds of executions by Chinese authorities of people accused of separatism.