The Epoch Times: Freedom of Press - or Inciting Genocide

Jan 10, 2005

Court House of the U.S. Federal Court, District of Connecticut in New Haven, where plaintiff's are suing a Chinese TV director for inciting genocide against Falun Gong in China. Zhao Zhizhen was served with the lawsuit while visiting the United States last July.

Former Chinese television director Zhao Zhizhen is citing freedom of the press as his defense to charges of conspiring and inciting a campaign of genocide against practitioners of Falun Gong in China.

On July 14, 2004 Falun Gong practitioners filed a class-action lawsuit against Zhao in U.S. Federal Court, District of Connecticut. Zhao, the founder of the China Anti-Cult Association website and the former director of the Wuhan Television Station, was visiting New Haven at the time.

In a filing on December 30 in New Haven's Federal District Court, Zhao said freedom of the press should protect him. Zhao said he is an "independent and objective journalist," comparing his programs to "60 Minutes," and "20/20."

According to the plaintiffs' attorney, Dr. Terri Marsh, however, "There is no freedom of press in China. The CACA website founded by Mr. Zhao does not present the actual and very different views of the Chinese people regarding the practice of Falun Gong in China."

Zhao is guilty of inciting genocide, Marsh says.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Dr. Perry Link, a professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University and a China expert said that the Western world generally does not understand how the media in China is run.

"The function of the Western media is to quickly spread the information," said Link, "whereas the media in China is totally controlled by the government and its purpose is to tell the Chinese people what the government wants them to hear. As to whether the information is true or false, it's not important."

In an August 31, 2000 interview with Mike Wallace of CBS former Chinese president Jiang Zemin said, "The media should be the mouthpiece of the [Communist] Party."

At a meeting on June 7, 1999, Jiang reportedly urged party members to demonize Falun Gong through the state-run media, provoking illegal arrests, interrogation and torture of practitioners in China on a large scale.

Jiang, who officially left his final post last year, banned Falun Gong in July 1999 and has led a campaign that some legal experts are calling genocide.

In addition to directing the arrest and torture of tens of thousands of adherents, Jiang has also spurred the Chinese media to portray the traditional spiritual practicein ways reminiscent of the Nazi characterization of Jews as "devil worshipers."

Falun Gong, a discipline based on ancient Chinese spiritual traditions of self-cultivation, had been practiced by millions of Chinese in the 1990s. Some have speculated that the popularity of the practice coupled with the non-religious premise of communism were key factors in Jiang's decision to "eradicate" the practice.

Since the 1999 ban, hundreds of thousands of people have been sent to labor camps and jails for practicing Falun Gong and many have died as a result of torture and other forms of brainwashing, according to Amnesty International reports.

In the United States, several Chinese officials have been sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act for their role in the persecution of Falun Gong. Three of them, including the former mayor of Beijing, have been found liable for the crimes of torture alleged against them.

Zhao's attorney has stated that his client would not approve of the use of violence against Falun Gong practitioners. Zhao provided the court with an English translation of the transcript of a 1999 program that contained no explicit calls to violence.

Attorney Marsh, however, says that the "video is but a small part of the large body of evidence in this case."

Other evidence includes dozens of programs aired on the local television station Zhao directed in the city of Wuhan, as well as thousands of documents displayed on the CACA website, founded and co-supervised by Zhao.

The website is replete with such direct calls to violence as: "The major targets of the terrorists and the cults are the common people. Shoot them once confirmed;" "We should treat Falun Gong the same as terrorists..." and "We should attack Falun Gong the same way the U.S. attacks terrorism. Eradicate humanity's malignant tumor thoroughly."

According to Marsh, "The materials do not merely demonize Falun Gong practitioners as murderers, criminals and inhuman enemies of the state deserving of punishment, but also incite the illegal arrest and torture of Falun Gong, in a way that is both imminent and direct."

One victim of this campaign's propaganda and violence is New York resident Amy Lee, a fashion designer who was tortured in China for refusing to give up the practice of Falun Gong. Lee said Chinese police beat her, making references to Zhao's propaganda as the reason that she deserved such treatment.

"They tore my clothes, beat me, and kicked my head and chest with leather boots. I lost consciousness," said Lee. "I woke up with severe pain and found myself naked with bruises all over my body. Their eyes were burning with anger and they were repeating what they'd heard on Wuhan TV."

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