Some foreign banks in Hong Kong are deliberating whether to relocate some operations out of the city if the government passes proposed anti-subversion laws, a lawmaker said Wednesday.

Falun Gong practitioner Jennifer Zeng was arrested in Beijing in 2000, and was detained and tortured for twelve months in a labour camp. After her release, she fled to Australia. In October this year, Jennifer submitted a lawsuit in the UN and the International Criminal Court, charging Chinese President Jiang Zemin with implementing “state terrorism”…

The Hong Kong office of HRW as well as eight other local human rights groups have called on authorities to scrap the law altogether. Rights activists say the proposals as they stand now would, for example, be used to prosecute spiritual or religious groups, such as Falun Gong (news – web sites), and political dissidents…

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International is also urging Beijing to release Yoko because she is “prisoner of conscience.”

The Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual group Falun Gong are joining forces in Hong Kong to fight new anti-treason laws. The recently-appointed Catholic Bishop for Hong Kong, Joseph Zen, has said the regulations currently being drawn up threaten Falun Gong’s freedom to practice in the territory.

She is a small, quiet woman from Australia and an internationally acclaimed artist, whose paintbrush has caressed the face of Buddha and stroked the hair of the goddess of mercy.

Many on the list are political activists and dissidents, including four members of the China Democracy Party (CDP) and 14 members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is outlawed in China.

A group of Finnish Parliamentarians sent an appeal to the Chinese President on Thursday calling on the country’s Government to end its suppression of the Falun Gong movement, as well as other violations of human rights.

The Chinese government firmly denies that Falun Gong practitioners are being tortured. Ms. Yuzhi Wang, a Falun Gong practitioner who was incarcerated in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp and was rescued from the United Arab Emirates by the Canadian government, exposed the persecution facts to this Voice of America correspondent.

It said two of those detained for Internet-related offenses, both of whom were members of the outlawed Falun Gong movement, died in custody — apparently as a result of police torture or ill-treatment.

The London-based human rights organization detailed the cases of at least 33 people who have been detained or imprisoned for offences related to their use of the Internet. They ranged from political activists and writers to members of unofficial organizations, including the Falun Gong spiritual movement, Amnesty said.

US ambassador to China Clark Randt vowed Monday to bring China to task over its dismal human rights record, despite a recent warming trend between Beijing and Washington. The US diplomat also demanded substantive results from a December 16 US-China dialogue on human rights in Beijing.