AP: Falun Gong Claims China Pressure

Wednesday April 25, 2001 NEW YORK (AP) Falun Gong claimed Tuesday that China's President Jiang Zemin cracked down on the spiritual movement to solidify his power base against ''real or imagined enemies'' in his own government and outside the country. The group claimed it had new information, verified recently by a source, about the government crackdown that followed an April 25, 1999, protest by 10,000 Falun Gong supporters. China's [party's name omitted] government banned Falun Gong three months after the Beijing demonstration. Falun Gong said Jiang, in communications at that time, indicated that he believed neither the group nor its founder, Li Hongzhi, could have amassed such a large power base. ''He voiced suspicions that the practitioners assembled outside the State Council Appeals Office had been orchestrated by rival senior officials within the Chinese government itself or by foreign forces,'' Falun Gong said in a statement read by spokesman Scott Chinn in New York. The statement claimed that Jiang, attempted to ''solidify his power base'' by cracking down on the Falun Gong. ''Consequently, what the world has been witnessing over the past 20 months is a wide section of the Chinese people being used as pawns in a desperate political struggle carried out by Chinese President Jiang Zemin against real or imagined enemies,'' it said. Shiyu Zhou, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor and Falun Gong follower who put together a report on the April 25 incident, said Jiang's statements about the crackdown have circulated in China for months but that the movement only recently was able to verify them through a [party's name omitted] source. He did not produce the documents or further identify the source. According to the report, Jiang wrote a letter to members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and other top leaders on the evening of April 25 accusing masterminds working ''behind the scenes'' at the Falun Gong protest of ''planning and issuing commands.'' The report gave the letter's number and official title. Zhou was asked whether there was evidence of a disagreement over Falun Gong in the current Chinese government. He said Falun Gong had no direct information but China scholars have told the movement that their own sources indicated ''certain disagreement regarding this issue inside the [party's name omitted].'' The report quoted high-ranking [party's name omitted] officials as saying the two classified documents from April and June 1999 ''revealed Jiang's mentality of being overly protective of his personal power and interests, and how, without any concrete evidence, he made the erroneous policy decision to persecute Falun Gong.'' [...]