Washington Times: Site claims 3 million former Communists

More than 3 million members of the Chinese Communist Party have publicly renounced their membership through a dissident Web site over the past six months, adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement said.

Every week up to 20,000 people post statements on a Web site set up by the Epoch Times, [...] announcing that they are quitting the Chinese Communist Party.

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An overwhelming majority of these renunciations come from mainland China, and they use false names to avoid persecution, Sherry Zhang, a reporter for the Epoch Times, said at a Falun Gong rally in front of the Capitol last week.

"Many more would quit if they had access to the Internet. Others are just too scared of the consequences," Miss Zhang said.

In November, the Epoch Times published a nine-part polemic called "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" that was distributed clandestinely in China and outlined the Communist Party's history of repression and human rights violations.

"The goal is not to overthrow the [the Communist Party], but to give people information so they can make their own moral judgment," said Shujia Gong, a practitioner of Falun Gong and student at George Mason University, who said he has 10 friends in China who have quit the party.

Many of the Internet messages from people who have withdrawn from the party stated that "Nine Commentaries" marked the first time they had learned of the abuses of the party, Mr. Gong said.

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The party has initiated a nationwide re-education campaign titled "Maintain the Advancement of the Communist Party," in which members are required to take loyalty oaths.

The Chinese government has orchestrated a series of arrests of Falun Gong members over the past few months in response to the release of "Nine Commentaries," Miss Zhang said.

"You know something is happening when the authorities feel the need to respond," she said.