January 12, 2004
In the late 1990s, if you had gone for an early-morning stroll around a park
almost anywhere in China, you would have found a tranquil but powerful scene:
the grounds covered with people from all parts of society practicing the slow
movements of Falun Gong.
A Chinese government survey at the time concluded that as many as 100 million
people nationwide were practicing Falun Gong. In February 1999, US News and
World Report put the number at over 60 million. High-ranking government
officials were quoted in Chinese newspapers as praising the benefits to health
from Falun Gong practice. In 1996, the main book of Falun Gong teachings, "Zhuan
Falun," was a national best seller.
Falun Gong was the most popular meditation practice in China. Why did the
situation change so that government officials now risk their jobs, maybe their
lives, if they say a few positive words for Falun Gong? In an authoritarian
society, a dictatorship, the leader's word becomes the law. The ruler then,
Jiang Zemin, went out of his way to condemn the popularity of the practice of
Falun Gong, ordering a persecution campaign beginning on July 20, 1999, the
scope and brutality of which has been hidden from the rest of the world.
With China's huge financial resources, in part drawn from huge foreign
investment, the Communist Party has been able to devastate countless lives
inside China during this brutal, nationwide campaign. With its information
stranglehold in China and paid staff in Chinese consulates and other agencies in
other countries, the Communist Party has been able to mislead people with
state-controlled media and prevent them from learning the facts. The Jamestown
Foundation published a report showing that the Communist Party
owns or controls nearly all Chinese-language TV broadcasts and newspapers in
North America -- even Chinese people living an ocean away from the Party cannot
escape its long reach. Even if people believe only a tenth of the propaganda
against Falun Gong, they are still misled into dismissing something that is
positive as dangerous or harmful.
Here in America, and elsewhere in the world, victims of Jiang's brutal crackdown
have recourse in a functioning legal justice system. Jiang and his accomplices
are being sued for genocide, torture and crimes against humanity in U.S. Federal
District Court in Chicago. Already in the past two years, three other high level
Chinese officials have been found guilty of crimes against humanity in the U.S.
District Courts of New York and San Francisco for their role in overseeing the
Falun Gong persecution in China. These legal news can be viewed at
www.flgjustice.org.
The true stories of what Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet and Milosevic did in their own
countries to good, innocent people eventually saw the light of day. We can
expect the same for Jiang soon.
Unfortunately, the information blockade has been very severe in China and
sometimes it is difficult to get the real story. Many Web sites such has
NYTimes.com, CNN.com and even Google have been frequently blocked or restricted
by the Chinese government. For these and other reasons, Jiang Zemin was named as
one of the top Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for five years in a row by the
Committee to Protect Journalists.
Jiang's information blockade, however, is not always watertight. In a shocking
media expose on March 5, 2002, a group of individuals successfully entered the
cable TV network in Changchun, China and broadcast a video exposing the horrific
torture in labor camps and detention centers against Falun Gong practitioners.
The entire city of Changchun was in shock; the viewers were stunned to witness
video evidence of the persecution for the first time. Enraged by the publicity,
Jiang ordered a roundup of 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun,
according to FalunInfo Center. One of the arrested participants in the expose,
Mr. Liu Chengjun, died in police custody after 21 months of torture. His fate,
however, was only one of the 860 confirmed deaths under Jiang's crusade against
Falun Gong that remain largely unreported in China.
But in America, we have freedom of information. You can look up what the U.S.
State Department in its reports, or the U.S. Congress in its July 2002
Resolution 188 (passed 420-0), say about Falun Gong. You can check what Amnesty
International or Human Rights Watch say. You can read how the Chinese Communist
Party has attempted to interfere with Americans' freedom of expression on U.S.
soil Claudia Rosett's Feb. 21, 2002 Wall Street Journal column.
Anyone who wants to know what Falun Gong is about can go online to
www.falundafa.org, the main Falun Gong Web site, and read the introductory book
Falun Gong, or the full system as detailed in Zhuan Falun. Read
the whole book, then decide for yourself how to view a teaching that emphasizes
Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance foremost.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=24449