History of Falun Gong

Falun Gong practitioners enacting torture scenes in New York City

Demonstration against persecution of Falun Gong at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City

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Arrest of People practicing the 5th. exercise in China

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Arrest of Falun Gong Practitioners in Beijing

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An allegation of Falun Gong ispired suicide. Li Youlin, a farmer, was said to be infatuated with "Falun Gong." On May 21, 1999, he said to his wife: "Tomorrow is my master's birthday. I'll go and burn joss sticks for him." On May 23, he was found to have committed suicide by hanging himself.

Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, introduced the practice to the public in May 1992. For the first few years after introducing Falun Gong to the world, Li Hongzhi was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered by them to be a wholesome practice. Invited by Qigong organizations from each area in China, during the period from 1992 to the end of 1994, Li traveled to almost all major Chinese cities to teach the practice. In the later part of that period, there were four to five thousand people attending each seminar. Its scale was unprecedented at that time. Since 1995, Li has been teaching outside China. The practice was popularized in mainland China for seven years, mainly by word of mouth and through the Internet.

At the end of May 1998, a Chinese physicist from the Chinese Academy of Science, He Zuoxiu, denounced Falun Gong in an interview on Beijing Television. The program, after showing a video of one of the practice sites, called it a "feudalistic superstition". Falun Gong practitioners have affimed that the people seen in the video were not actually practitioners. The TV station was swamped by protest letters from Falun Gong practitioners, and practitioners were also protesting in front of its offices.

On April 11, 1999, He Zuoxiu published an article in the Tianjin College of Education’s Youth Reader magazine entitled "I Do Not Agree with Youth Practicing Qigong". From April 18 to April 24, Falun Gong practitioners went to Tianjin College of Education, which published the magazine, and related governmental agencies and held peaceful protests.

Some practitioners were arrested and were, according to reports, beaten by the police. Several days later, for 12 hours on April 25, about 10,000 people gathered at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street, outside Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of Chinese Communist Government and lined up along a 2 km stretch. They held no signs and chanted no slogans. Premier Zhu Rongji met with some representatives of the practitioners and promised to resolve the situation within three days. The practitioners dispersed peacefully after they received word that Zhu had agreed to their requests. Nevertheless, it was widely reported by the Chinese media that Falun Gong practitioners organizing a protest in the heart of the Chinese Communist Party alarmed many senior leaders, particularly Jiang Zemin. According to some estimates, at this time there were more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing alone. Some analysts claimed that about 70 million people practice it, which is more than the number of members in the Chinese Communist Party (about 60 million people). [1]

Julie Ching (2001) has stated: "The overseas Chinese-language press has suggested that the Zhongnanhai demonstrations were actually organized in part by the government, to help trump up charges against the Falun Gong, which it had observed and monitored for years through its infiltrators. It even gives the name of a high official, [Luo] Gan, as being the chief Communist organizer of the Zhongnanhai gathering. As secretary general of the State Council, [Luo] had been investigating Falun Gong and had wanted it banned since 1996 but could not find any legal basis for transgression. In that case, it is not certain where the Falun followers intended first to make their petition, but [Luo] had the police direct them to Zhongnanhai, in order to create an incident with which they afterwards could be charged." [2]

On June 10, 1999, the government established the "6-10" office, an extra-constitutional body, to facilitate the crackdown. Most political analysts believe that this was the direct result of events that occurred in April 1999.

In July 1999, the government declared the practice of Falun Gong illegal. The government had become especially concerned by reports that significant numbers of government officials, as well as military and police personnel, were practitioners. Another influence in the change in policy was the cultural memory of the 19th century Taiping Rebellion, when a religious cult had caused a civil war.

"By unleashing a Mao-style movement [against Falun Gong], Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line," a Communist Party veteran later told CNN's Willy Lam. "This will boost Jiang's authority-and may give him enough momentum to enable him to dictate events at the pivotal 16th Communist Party congress next year."

The Falun Dafa Information Center, a website which "endeavors to compile, cross-check, organize and publish" [3] reports about the government crackdown on Falun Gong, has confirmed that at least 2,840 (March 2006) Falun Gong practitioners have died while in police or government custody.

The CCP has issued reports claiming that some believers hurt or kill themselves after reading Li's books, and that 1404 people died in China as result of practising Falun Gong, mostly by not seeking medicine for various illnesses [4]. Some scientists in China claim that there is no scientific evidence to show Falun Gong is beneficial for health. A frequent argument made by Chinese scientists is that followers are encouraged to avoid, by practice, most conventional medicine. Falun Gong practitioners point out that no such incident has been reported outside China and that such accusations surfaced only after the persecution started.

He Zuoxiu has also accused some Falun Gong practitioners of harassment because of the articles he wrote, and published a book entitled How Falun Gong Harassed Me and My Family. He Zuoxiu is a relative of Luo Gan, one of the chief perpetrators of the persecution, and he is said to have "become a national hero" for opposing Falun Gong. [5] Therefore, some sources have suspected him of politically motivated careerism (e.g. [6], p99).

The CCP has burned and destroyed books and other materials about Falun Gong, and blocked access to internet resources about the topic. Treatment of Falun Gong practitioners has been regarded by some in the West as a major international human rights issue affecting freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

The media war

The People's Republic of China (PRC), led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on July 20, 1999, began a nation-wide suppression of Falun Gong, referring to the practice as an "evil cult" spreading superstition to deceive people. Jiang, the former leader of the CCP, condemned the group in the state-controlled media, stating a position the Chinese government promotes to this day.

CCP claims that the practice has deviated its focus from engaging in spiritual cultivation to engaging in politics, basing their opinions on the existence of numerous websites disparate from, yet in support of, Falun Gong (such as Friends of Falun Gong). Due to an implication derived from its core principles, the teachings of Falun Gong are said to forbid any political involvement, and practitioners claim to have little interest in power or politics, the large number of protests to the crackdown notwithstanding. Falun Gong's supporters, such as The Epoch Times, tend to be conservative and anti-communist. Kangang Xu, a Falun Gong speaker, is the Chairman of the paper's board.

H. Con. Resolution 188 unanimously Passed by the United States Congress states:

"Falun Gong is a peaceful and nonviolent form of personal belief and practice with millions of adherents in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere"

"Propaganda from state-controlled media in the People's Republic of China has inundated the public in an attempt to breed hatred and discrimination."

In China, the CCP has blocked access to certain sites on the Internet (including this article, see History of Wikipedia), all Falun Gong Websites[7] and burned Falun Gong's books and materials. In addition, some junk mail filters are targeting [8] emails related to the Falun Gong spiritual movement and other dissidents[9].

On the other hand, there have been incidents in which China's state-owned television networks were jammed with reports on the persecution of Falun Gong. In addition, a syndicated Chinese language newspaper with worldwide circulation, The Epoch Times (English)(Chinese), is accused of having a pro-Falun Gong platform, mainly because it has been the mouthpiece of much of Falun Gong's claims of suppression and torture, but also partly because it has published articles suggesting a declining state in the CCP. These articles include Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party (jiuping), New Zealand to Celebrate 7 Million Renouncing Chinese Communist Party, and others [10].

According to WOIPFG reports, eight Falun Gong practitioners were arrested after one of the jamming incidents in Changchun city, including Liu Chengjun, who was allegedly tortured to death after 21 months incarceration in Jilin Prison.

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

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Slow motion of the video broadcasted by Xinhua News Agency, an object is seen flying off Liu Chunling's head or neck. She collapses, suddenly, as if from a blow.

The campaign of government criticism begun in 1999 was considered by most observers to be largely ineffectual until January 2001, when persons whom the government claimed were Falun Gong practitioners, among them a 13-year-old girl Liu Siying, doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. Videos of the incident were widely broadcast on Chinese state television, as were interviews with Siying, who was horribly burned and whose mother, Liu Chunling, did not survive the incident.

Falun Gong practitioners emphatically denied that the people who set themselves on fire could have been actual practitioners, since suicide is completely against Falun Gong's principles. On the same day, the Falun Dafa Information Center made an announcement entitled, "China Staged Self-Immolation Act; Xinhua News Framed Falun Gong with Slanderous Lies, calling for a third-party independent investigation to uncover the truth". However, according to a Time aticle[11], a Beijing arm of Falun Gong actually believed the people who committed suicide were Falun Gong practitioners, heeding to their master's call to strengthen their fight against evil.

Falun Gong members point several inconsistencies in the government's version of the story. Though the Chinese media claimed that it was CNN journalists who recorded the close-up shots, the head of the International Department of CNN stated that CNN did not film anything because at the very beginning of the incident, CNN reporters were arrested and their equipment confiscated. However, in the CNN original report the CNN reporters were able to film the scene[12]. Authorities did not allow any reporters other than those from the Xinhua News Agency to interview 13-year-old Siying, nor did they allow any of her family members to visit. Two months after the incident in Tiananmen Square, the hospital announced the sudden death of Siying.

International Education Development (IED) report, announced at the United Nations, states:

"This government took out this so-called self-immolation incident that happened on January 23, 2001, in Tiananmen Square and used this as evidence against Falun Gong. We have reached the conclusion after watching a videotape on this incident, that this incident has however been completely orchestrated by the government.

According to slow motion footage [13][14]of the video broadcast by State-run Xinhua News Agency, an object is seen flying off Liu Chunling's head or neck. She collapses, suddenly. Charles A Radin of Boston Globe says: "In the slowed version, it appears that Liu Chunling, one of two people who died, collapsed not from the flames but from being bludgeoned by a man in a military overcoat.”[15] An analysis, self published by Falun Gong, also says that the body language of the policemen suggests foul-play. In addition, the analysis also points out: The burn victims seem to be wearing protective clothing, has unburnt hair, and the green plastic bottle that supposedly carried the gasoline was not even burned.

Independent, third-party investigations continue to be withheld by the PRC government.

Falun Gong practitioners believe that the incident is an attempt of the Chinese government to turn public opinion in China against Falun Gong to rally support for government crackdown.

Allegations of Imprisonment and Torture of Practitioners

Allegations of organ harvesting

On 9 March2006, allegations were made of deaths at the Sujiatun detention compound, an alleged labor camp and part of the China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center located in Shenyang City, Liaoning province. According to at least two witnesses interviewed by The Epoch Times, internal organs of living Falun Gong practitioners have been harvested and sold to the black market, and the bodies have been cremated in the hospital's boiler room. The witnesses make allegations of nobody coming out of the camp alive, as well as six thousand practitioners being held captive at the hospital since 2001, two-thirds of them have died to date. According to these sources, removed organs include hearts, kidneys, livers and cornea. The news were quickly covered by some minor media outlets, including the Metro newspaper in Spain and Holland's APS.

WOIPFG, providing evidence for Organ Harvesting from live Falun Gong Practitioners, have released recordings of telephone messages[16]. Transcription of a telephone message recorded by WOIPFG says:

A: Hi. Is this Zhongguo Medical University’s Director Song?

B: Yes, please speak...

A: …..His doctor told him that the kidney is quite good because he practices gong(=qigong). Then asked which qigong? He said Falun gong. People know that when practising Falun Gong the health would be better.

B: Of course. We have all those who breathe and with heart beat. We have these. Up until now, for this year, we have more than 10 hearts, more than 10 such hearts.

A: More than 10 of this kind of hearts? You meant live bodies?

B: Yes, it’s so.

( Dated: March 30, 2006 )

According to The Epoch Times, Timothy Cooper, the executive director of Worldrights, said in a Washington D.C. rally against alleged Chinese human rights violations (March 12): "If what has been reported is accurate, then Shenyang has become the Auschwitz of China. But this time, unlike the situation during the Second World War in Nazi Germany, America must not fail to act. America must not fail to confront these atrocities — unimaginable in any civilized society" and "A whole new level of depravity is being practiced by the CCP." Also, Nina Shea from Freedom House has called for investigation of the case. Guido Tastenhoye, a member of the Belgian parliament, has questioned Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht about the imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners in Sujiatun. [17]. Worldrights and Freedom House themselves have not covered any of the above in their websites and press releases.

The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper run by the Unification Church, covered the allegations on 24 March 2006 in an article by Bill Gertz. According to the article, Jin Zhong (a pseudonym for the journalist who fled China recently) said he first learned of the harvesting operation between October and December. Mr Jin, who in the past has been a contributor to a Japanese news agency, calls Sujiatun "a murder sponsored by a state". Jin came across the underground detention center while researching the Chinese government's response to SARS. The article claims that several other hospital workers have also revealed details about the prisoner organ harvesting. Jin Zhong has had to hide his true identity after being threatened by Chinese government agents. He was arrested twice for his reporting and recently fled to the United States, where he hopes to seek political asylum. Jin also professes that the bodies of prisoners were burned in the boiler room of the hospital and that boiler room workers had taken jewelry and watches from the dead and sold them. [18] Gertz himself, however, is a noted conspiracy theorist for presenting allegations of a "Chinese threat" against America.

On 28 March, over two weeks after the allegations surfaced, the Associated Press reported on the Chinese government's rebuttal. The Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang stated: "This absurd lie is not worth refuting and no one will buy it." He also urged reporters to go to Shenyang's Sujiatun district to look into the claims. [19][20] However, on the official website of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, this was not mentioned [21].

On 30 March, Reuters released an article entitled "U.N. envoy looks at Falun Gong torture allegations". According to the report, the United Nations torture investigator Manfred Nowak shall be looking into the Sujiatun case. "I am presently in the process of investigating as far as I can these allegations ... If I come to the conclusion that it is a serious and well-founded allegation, then I will officially submit it to attention of the Chinese government," he told a news briefing. Nowak also stated that he found torture widespread in China when he got to visit the country in late 2005 after a decade of negotiations. Furthermore, Nowak's new report insisted on the Chinese government to abolish its "re-education through labour" system and urged authorities to release all political prisoners and people held for exercising their right to freedom of speech, assembly and religion. China has denied earlier abuse and torture charges made by Nowak and asked the U.N. envoy to "think again." [22]

On 30 March, Epoch Times reported that a new informant, identifying himself as a veteran military doctor in Shenyang military zone, has told about a system of similar concentration camps in China. Because the Chinese government has defined Falun Gong practitioners as class enemies, they're officially declared as felons. The informant states: "The reports from outside China about Sujiatun Concentration Camp imprisoning Falun Gong practitioners are true, although some of the details are incorrect." He says that more than 10,000 people were detained in Sujiatun in early 2005, but now the number of detainees is maintained at 600-750. Many detainees have been transferred to other camps, especially after the news on Sujiatun was publicized. The informant also asserts that the hospital in Sujiatun is only one of 36 similar camps all over China. Jilin camp, codenamed 672-S, holds over 120,000 people, not only Falun Gong practitioners. Specially dispatched freight trains can transfer 5,000-7,000 people in one night, and everyone on the trains is handcuffed to specially designed handrails on top of the ceiling, claims the informant.

On April 1, 2006, The Australian published initial finding from US congressional researcher that the concentration camp allegation is substantially exaggerated.

On April 4, 2006, Falun Gong announced the establishment of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) on their 'clearwisdom' website [23]. However, as of April 21, 2006, despite Qin Gang's invitation, several members have been denied visas to China according to the clearwisdom.net website [24].

On April 13, 2006, the official from the hospital gave the following statement: “the hospital is lacking the required facilities to conduct organ transplants and has no basement to house the Falun Gong practitioners.” [25]. According to a document from Ministry of Health of Malaysia, this this hospital--Liaoning Thrombus Medical Treatment Center--is not a state owned company but one partly invested by a Malaysian company (Country Heights Health Sanctuary). And in an official visit to China the Minister of Health of Malaysia visited the hospital in September, 2004.

On April 14, 2006, US State Department released a statement [26] [27] that "found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital". The hospital itself was a joint venture with a Malaysian government-sponsored company[28], open to foreign visitors.

As of April 21, 2006, despite Qin Gang's invitation, several CIPFG members have been denied visas to China according to The Epoch Times[29].

On May 8, 2006, a press conference was held in Ottawa, Canada, in which Former chairman of Canada's Sub-Committee on Human Rights of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and former director of the Asian Pacific Division of Canada's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr. David Kilgour, and international human rights attorney Mr. David Matas, announced that they will jointly lead the efforts to investigate the organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Kilgour stated that he wished the investigation to be completely independent. As of the press conference, the plan includes interviewing witnesses and telephone investigators from the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, as well as going to China to conduct on-site investigations[30]

Some human rights activists are also sceptic of Falun Gong's claims. Harry Wu, best known for his investigations of Laogai and alleged organ harvesting of executed prisoners, claimed that the the allegations were just heresay. "No pictures, no witnesses, no paperwork, no detailed information at all, nothing." [31]