Persecution of Falun Gong
Encyclopedia
The persecution of Falun Gong refers to the campaign initiated by the Chinese Communist Party against practitioners of Falun Gong
since July 1999, aimed at eliminating the practice in the People's Republic of China
. According to Amnesty International
, it includes a multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education, as well as a variety of extralegal coercive measures, such as arbitrary arrests, forced labour, and physical torture
, sometimes resulting in death.
Falun Gong is a qigong
discipline combining slow-moving exercises and meditation with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of Truth (or Truthfulness), Compassion, and Tolerance. It was founded by Li Hongzhi
who introduced it to the public in May 1992, in Changchun
, Jilin
. Following a period of meteoric growth in the 1990s, the Communist Party launched a campaign to "eradicate" Falun Gong on 22 July 1999.
An extra-constitutional body, the 6-10 Office
was created to lead the suppression of Falun Gong. The authorities mobilized state media apparatus, judiciary, police force, army, education system, families, and workplaces against the group. The campaign, driven by a large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet, urged families and workplaces to actively assist in the campaign. There are reports of systematic torture, illegal imprisonment, forced labour, and psychiatric abuses, with the apparent aim of forcing practitioners to recant their belief in Falun Gong.
Foreign observers estimate that since 1999, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in "re-education through labor" camps, prisons, and detention facilities for refusing to renounce the spiritual practice. Former Chinese prisoners, many of whom are not themselves Falun Gong adherents have reported that Falun Gong practitioners consistently received the "longest sentences and worst treatment" in labor camps, and in some facilities, Falun Gong practitioners were the substantial majority of detainees. At least 2,000 Falun Gong adherents have been tortured to death amidst the persecution campaign, with some observers putting the number much higher.
Since 2006, there have also been persistent, but as-of-yet unproven allegations that the vital organs of non-consenting Falun Gong practitioners have been used to supply China's organ tourism industry. The United Nations Committee on Torture called for China to schedule an independent investigation into the allegations.
Falun Gong emerged in 1992, toward the end of China’s “qigong boom”—a period which saw the proliferation of thousands of varieties of slow-moving, meditating exercises believed to affect health and well being. First taught by Li Hongzhi
in Changchun
, Jilin province,
Falun Gong differentiated itself from other qigong schools in its revival of spiritual and religious elements drawing on Buddhist and Daoist concepts.
In April 1999, He Zuoxiu, a longtime critic of qigong practices, published an editorial in Tianjin Normal University
's Youth Reader magazine. Elaborating on what he had said months earlier on Beijing Television, he again launched into attacks on qigong groups—and Falun Gong in particular—as superstitious and potentially dangerous. Falun Gong practitioners claimed the cases that He cited as evidence of the dangers of Falun Gong erroneous or otherwise "highly offensive."
He's article catalyzed a "dramatic public struggle" between Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese authorities over the legitimacy of Falun Gong. Because Falun Gong practitioners had no access to mass media, they resorted to other symbolic forms to appeal to officials and the public: peaceful protests.
After the article was published practitioners gathered to protest in meditation posture outside the editorial office of the publication in Tianjin, and sent petitions and appeals to the Tianjin party headquarters and municipal government for the retraction of He's piece. Three hundred riot police were sent to disperse the crowd. Some of the practitioners were beaten, and forty-five arrested. The practitioners were told that the police action had been carried out on orders from the Ministry of Public Security, and that those arrested could only be released with the approval of Beijing authorities.
On 25 April, ten to twenty thousand Falun Gong practitioners lined the streets near Zhongnanhai
, the residence compound of China's leaders, in peaceful and silent protest to request the release of the Tianjin practitioners and an end to the escalating harassment against them. It was Falun Gong practitioners' attempt to seek redress from the leadership of the country by going to them and, "albeit very quietly and politely, making it clear that they would not be treated so shabbily." Many Falun Gong practitioners were party members, who openly lobbied for the group. No other disenfranchised group has ever staged a mass protest near the Zhongnanhai
compound in PRC history. Several Falun Gong representatives met with then-premier Zhu Rongji, who assured them that the government was not against Falun Gong, and promised that the Tianjin practitioners would be released. The crowd outside dispersed peacefully, apparently believing their demonstration had been a success.
On 20 July 1999, public security officers throughout China quietly detained numerous Falun Gong leaders just after midnight, from hundreds of homes, and hauling them to prison. Falun Gong's four Beijing "arch-leaders" were arrested, and quickly tried. The Public Security Bureau
ordered churches, temples, mosques, newspapers, media, courts and police to suppress Falun Gong. Three days of massive demonstrations by practitioners in some thirty cities followed. In Beijing and other cities, protesters were detained in sports stadium.
The government’s strongest discursive attack on the Falun Gong up to this point occurred on 20 June, when the People’s Daily published a long article urging people to give up Falun Gong practice. On this same day the official media published several editorial directed toward Communist Party members who practiced Falun Gong, strongly reminding them that as Party members they were atheists and must not allow themselves to "become superstitious by continuing to practice Falun Gong." If they did not give up Falun Gong beliefs, they would be forced out of the Party.
On July 22 1999, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a statement declaring the Falun Dafa Research Society to be an illegal organization on the grounds that it had not been properly registered. The Ministry of Public Security simultaneously issued a notice forbidding the practice of Falun Gong, the possession of Falun Gong books, and protests appealing the ban.
‘'Xinhua said that Falun Gong was opposed to the Party, that it "preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition, and that it was disturbing social stability. Xinhua asserted that the actions taken against Falun Gong were essential to maintaining the "vanguard role and purity" of the Communist Party, and that "In fact, the so-called `truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve."
Li Hongzhi responded with a "Brief Statement of Mine" on 22 July:
A World Journal report suggested that certain high-level Party officials wanted to crack down on the practice for years, but lacked sufficient pretext until the protest at Zhongnanhai, which they claim was partly orchestrated by Luo Gan
, a long-time opponent of Falun Gong. There were also reportedly rifts in the Politburo
at the time of the incident. Willy Wo-Lap Lam writes that Jiang’s campaign against Falun Gong may have been used to promote allegiance to himself; Lam quotes one party veteran as saying “by unleashing a Mao-style movement [against Falun Gong], Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line.” Some reports indicate that Premier Zhu Rongji
met with Falun Gong representatives and gave them satisfactory answers, but was criticized by General Secretary and President Jiang Zemin
for being "too soft." Jiang is held by Falun Gong to be personally responsible for the final decision: Peerman cited reasons such as suspected personal jealousy of Li Hongzhi; Saich postulates at party leaders' anger at Falun Gong's widespread appeal, and ideological struggle. The Washington Post
reported that sources indicated not all of the standing committee of the Politburo
shared Jiang's view that Falun Gong should be eradicated. The size and reach of Jiang's anti-Falun Gong campaign surpassed that of many previous mass-movements.
Human Rights Watch notes that the crackdown on Falun Gong reflects historical efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to eradicate religion, which the government believed was inherently subversive. Some journalists believe that Beijing's reaction exposes its authoritarian nature and its intolerance for competing loyalty. The Globe and Mail
wrote : "...any group that does not come under the control of the Party is a threat"; secondly, the 1989 protests may have heightened the leaders' sense of losing their grip on power, making them live in "mortal fear" of popular demonstrations. Craig Smith of the Wall Street Journal suggests that the government which has by definition no view of spirituality, lacks moral credibility with which to fight an expressly spiritual foe; the party feels increasingly threatened by any belief system that challenges its ideology and has an ability to organize itself. That Falun Gong, whose belief system represented a revival of traditional Chinese religion, was being practiced by a large number of Communist Party members and members of the military was seen as particularly disturbing to Jiang Zemin. "Jiang accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He [wished] to purge the government and the military of such beliefs".
', an extra-constitutional body to lead the suppression of Falun Gong. Representatives were selected in every province, city, county, university, government department and state-owned business in China.
On 22 July, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security dissolved the Falun Dafa Research Society, banned "the propagation of Falun Gong in any form," and prohibited anyone from disrupting social order or confronting the government. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty stated that the official directives and legal documents issued for the purge fall short of international legal standards and China’s own constitution. Falun Gong sources have further also sought to argue that the Ministry of Public Security does not have the authority under the Chinese constitution to create laws, and that its ban against Falun Gong was itself therefore illegal.
On 26 July, several state bureaus and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued a circular calling for confiscation and destruction of all publications related to Falun Gong; it was condemned in the media, with books shredded, burned and videotapes bulldozed for TV cameras.
On July 29, 1999, the Beijing Judicial Bureau issued a notice forbidding lawyers from accepting Falun Gong clients. Weiquan Lawyers who have attempted to take Falun Gong clients have faced varying degrees of persecution themselves, including disbarment, detention, and in the case of Gao Zhisheng
, torture and disappearance.
The government enacted a statute (article 300 of the Criminal Law), passed by the National People’s Congress on 30 October 1999, with retrospective application to suppress "heterodox religions" across China, thus legitimising the persecution of Falun Gong and any other spiritual groups deemed "dangerous to the state."
In response to the suppression, from late 1999 into early 2001, Falun Gong adherents traveled daily to Tiananmen Square by the hundreds, where they practiced meditation in silent protest or unfurled banners requesting the rehabilitation of the group and an end to the ban. These protests were quickly and sometimes violently broken up by waiting security agents, and the practitioners involved were typically sent to their home cities to be punished. By 25 April 2000, a total of more than 30,000 practitioners had been arrested on Tiananmen Square. Seven hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested during a demonstration in the Square on 1 January 2001. Officials grew impatient with the constant flow of protesters into Beijing, and decided to implement a cascading responsibility system to push the responsibility for meeting central orders down onto those enforcing them: central authorities would hold local officials personally responsible for stemming the flow of protesters. The provincial government would fine mayors for each Falun Gong practitioner from their district who made it to Beijing; the mayors would in turn fine the heads of the Political and Legal commissions, who would in turn fine village chiefs, who fined police officers who administered the punishment. According to Johnson, police in turn extorted money illegally from Falun Gong practitioners, and the order was only relayed orally at meetings, “because they didn't want it made public.” A chief feature in the testimony of Falun Gong torture victims was that they were “constantly being asked for money to compensate for the fines.”
Human Rights Watch reported that some work units would summarily fire people identified as practitioners, meaning they would lose housing, schooling, pensions, and be reported to the police. Local officials would detain active practitioners and those unwilling to recant, and were expected to "make certain" that families and employers keep them isolated.
By 30 July, ten days into the campaign, Xinhua reported confiscations of over one million Falun Gong books and other materials, hundreds of thousands burned and destroyed.
At the early stages of the crackdown, the evening news would broadcast images of huge piles of Falun Gong materials being crushed or incinerated. Perry writes that the basic pattern of the offensive was similar to "the anti-rightist campaign of the 1950s [and] the anti-spiritual pollution campaigns of the 1980s." The media would focus on those who had kicked the Falun Gong habit; relatives of Falun Gong victims would talk about the tragedies that had befallen their loved ones; former practitioners would confess being "hoodwinked by Li Hongzhi and... expressing regret at their gullibility"; physical education instructors suggested healthy alternatives to Falun Gong practice, like ten-pin bowling.
According to CNN's Willy Lam, state media stated that Falun Gong was part of an "anti-China international movement". As it did during the Cultural Revolution
, the Communist Party
organised rallies in the streets and stop-work meetings in remote western provinces by government agencies such as the weather bureau to denounce the practice. Xinhua published editorials on PLA
officers declaring Falun Gong "an effort by hostile Western forces to subvert China," and vowing to do their utmost to defend the central leadership and "maintain national security and social stability."
Circulars were issued to women's and youth organisations encouraging support for the ban. Both the Youth League and the All-China Women's Federation called for greater use of science education to combat "feudalistic superstition." Xinhua reported speeches of Youth League officials. One speaker said "This reminds us of the importance and urgency of strengthening our political and ideological work among the younger generation, educating them with Marxist materialism and atheism, and making greater efforts to popularize scientific knowledge". The Women's Federation stated the need to "arm our sisters with scientific knowledge and help improve their capability to recognize and resist feudal superstition" A group of PLA veterans who had joined in the 1930s and 1940s issued a statement that "Only Marxism can save China and only the Chinese Communist Party
can lead us to accomplish the great cause of reinvigorating the Chinese nation."
Li was also a target for Chinese media during this time. The Chinese authorities charged that he had created Falun Gong on the basis of two other Qigong systems developed earlier, namely, Chanmi Gong and Jiugong Bagua Gong, and that some of Falun Gong's exercises were copied from "movements from Thai dance that he picked up during a visit to relatives in Thailand
." Chinese authorities asserted that acquaintances Li Jingchao and Liu Yuqing helped to develop the system, and other earlier followers helped write texts and touch up photographs; it was not tested exhaustively beforehand, but was completed only one month before its official launch, they alleged. James Tong notes that these allegations were brought forth in the publication "Li Hongzhi qiren qishi", some already in print before 22 July 1999, that conformed to the guidelines of the suppression of Falun Gong as specified by the Politburo and Jiang Zemin. Many were hastily compiled reprints or re-writes of Renmin Ribao articles and Xinhua dispatches on exposes of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi, and party and government documents banning the Falun Gong. Qiren qishi was itself produced by the research arm of the Public Security Bureau.
Ching (2001) states that "evil cult" was defined by an atheist government "on political premises, not by any religious authority", and was used by the authorities to make previous arrests and imprisonments constitutional. Most social scientists and scholars of religion reject "brainwashing" theories and do not use the term "cult" to describe Falun Gong. Chan claims that Falun Gong is neither a cult nor a sect, but a New Religious Movement
with cult-like characteristics. Other scholars avoid the term "cult" altogether because "of the confusion between the historic meaning of the term and current pejorative use" These scholars prefer terms like "spiritual movement" or "new religious movement" to avoid the negative connotations of "cult" or to avoid mis-categorizing Falun Gong as a "cult" if it does not fit mainstream definitions.
Nevertheless, many scholars, including notably Palmer (2007) and Ownby (2008), use the words "moralistic" and "apocalyptic" to describe its philosophy.
on 23 January 2001, seven people attempted to set themselves ablaze at Tiananmen Square. The official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency
, and other state media asserted that the self-immolators
were practitioners while the Falun Dafa Information Center disputed this, on the grounds that the movement's teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing, and further alleged that the event itself never happened, and was a cruel but clever piece of stunt-work. The incident received international news coverage, and video footage of the burnings were broadcast later inside China by China Central Television
(CCTV). Images of a 12 year old girl, Liu Siying, burning and interviews with the other participants in which they stated their belief that self-immolation would lead them to paradise were shown. Falun Gong-related commentators claimed that the main participants' account of the incident and other aspects of the participants' behaviour were inconsistent with the teachings of Falun Dafa, and some third-party commentators have also pointed out discrepancies in the government's version of events, and alleged that the incident was staged in order to turn public opinion against the practice and build public support for its persecution. Time reported that prior to the self-immolation incident, many Chinese had felt that Falun Gong posed no real threat, and that the state's crackdown had gone too far. After the event the media campaign against Falun Gong gained significant traction.
The 2002 Reporters Without Borders
' report on China states that photographers and cameramen working with foreign media were prevented from working in and around Tiananmen Square where hundreds of Falun Gong followers have demonstrated in recent years. It estimates that at least 50 representatives of the international press have been arrested since July 1999, and some of them were beaten by police; several Falun Gong followers have been imprisoned for talking with foreign journalists." Ian Johnson
, The Wall Street Journal
correspondent in Beijing, wrote a series of articles which won him the 2001 Pulitzer Prize
. Johnson left Beijing after writing his articles, stating that "the Chinese police would have made my life in Beijing impossible" after he received the Pulitzer.
Entire news organizations have not been immune to press restrictions concerning Falun Gong. In March 2001, Time Asia ran a story about Falun Gong in Hong Kong. The magazine was pulled from the shelves in Mainland China, and threatened that it would never again be sold in the country. Partly as a result of the difficult reporting environment, by 2002, Western news coverage of the suppression within China had all but completely ceased, even as the number of Falun Gong deaths in custody was on the rise.
According to the Ministry of Public Security, "re-education through labor" is an administrative measure imposed on those guilty of committing minor offences, but who are not legally considered criminals. In late 2000, China began to use this method of punishment widely against Falun Gong practitioners in the hope of permanently "transforming recidivists." Terms could also be arbitrarily extended by police. Practitioners may have ambiguous charges levied against them, according to Robert Bejesky, writing in the Columbia Journal of Asian Law, such as "disrupting social order," "endangering national security," or "subverting the socialist system." Up to 99% of long term Falun Gong detainees are processed administratively through this system, and do not enter the formal criminal justice system. Outside access is not given to the camps, prisoners are forced to do heavy work in mines, brick factories, and agriculture, and physical torture, beatings, interrogations, inadequate food rations, and other human rights abuses take place, according to Human Rights Watch.
Upon completion of their reeducation sentences, practitioners are sometimes then incarcerated in "legal education centers," another form of punishment set up by provincial authorities to "transform the minds" of practitioners, according to Human Rights Watch. While Beijing officials initially portrayed the process as "benign," a harder line was later adopted; "teams of education assistants and workers, leading cadres, and people from all walks of life" were drafted into the campaign. In early 2001 quotas were given for how many practitioners needed to be "transformed." Official records do not mention the methods employed to achieve this, though Falun Gong and third party accounts indicate that the mental and physical abuses could be "extraordinarily severe."
The Falun Gong website Clearwisdom report numerous cases of extreme psychological and physical torture, accompanied by testimonies and details of identities of the victims, resulting in impaired mental, sensory, physiological and speech faculties, mental trauma, paralysis, or death. Over 100 forms of torture are purported to be used, including electric shocks, stress positions
, branding, force-feeding, and sexual abuse
, with many variations on each type.
Since 2000, the Special Rapporteur to the United Nations highlighted 314 cases of torture, representing more than 1,160 individuals, to the Government of China. Falun Gong comprise 66% of all such reported torture cases, 8% occurring within Ankangs
. The Special Rapporteur refers to the torture allegations as "harrowing" and asks the Chinese government to "take immediate steps to protect the lives and integrity of its detainees in accordance with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners" Corinna-Barbara Francis of Amnesty says Falun Gong's (death toll) figures seem a little high because they are not the result of formal executions.
In August 2006, a Congressional Research Service
report said that some of the key allegations of the Kilgour-Matas report appeared to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations. In November 2008 the United Nations Committee Against Torture called for the Chinese state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for any such abuses are prosecuted and punished.
Robin Munro
, former Director of the Hong Kong Office of Human Rights Watch and now Deputy Director with China Labour Bulletin
, drew worldwide attention to the abuses of forensic psychiatry
in China in general, and of Falun Gong practitioners in particular. In 2001, Munro alleged that forensic psychiatrists in China have been active since the days of Mao Zedong, and have been involved in the systematic misuse of psychiatry for political purposes. He says that large-scale psychiatric abuses are the most distinctive aspect of the government’s protracted campaign to "crush the Falun Gong." Munro notes a very sizeable increase in Falun Gong admissions to mental hospitals since the onset of the government's persecution campaign. However, Stone said that Munro's allegations were constructed from "his layman's reading and tendentious extrapolations of Chinese psychiatric publications".
Munro claimed that detained Falun Gong practitioners are tortured and subject to electroconvulsive therapy
, painful forms of electrical acupuncture
treatment, prolonged deprivation of light, food and water, and restricted access to toilet facilities in order to force "confessions" or "renunciations" as a condition of release. Fines of several thousand yuan may follow. Lu and Galli write that dosages of medication up to five or six times the usual level are administered through nasogastric tubes as a form of torture or punishment, and that physical torture is common, including binding tightly with ropes in very painful positions. This treatment may result in chemical toxicity, migraines, extreme weakness, protrusion of the tongue, rigidity, loss of consciousness, vomiting, nausea, seizures and loss of memory.
Stone said that the pattern of hospitalisation varied from province to province, and did not suggest any uniform government policy was in force. After having been given access to and examining several hundred cases of specific Falun Gong practitioners in named psychiatric hospitals, the medical personnel, "a significant number of the reported cases... had been sent on from labor camps where they... may well have been tortured and then dumped in psychiatric hospitals as an expedient disposition.
Among the first torture deaths reported in the Western press was that of Chen Zixiu, a retired factory worker from Shandong Province. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning article on the suppression of Falun Gong, Ian Johnson reported that labor camp guards shocked her with cattle prods in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused, officials “ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood...She crawled outside, vomited, and collapse. She never regained consciousness.” Chen died on Feb 21, 2000.
On 16 June 2005, 37-year-old Gao Rongrong, an accountant from Liaoning Province, was tortured to death in custody. Two years before her death, Ms. Gao had been imprisoned at the Longshan forced labor camp, where she was tortured and badly disfigured with electric shock batons. Gao escaped the labor camp by jumping from a second-floor window, and after pictures of her burned visage were made public, she became a target for recapture by authorities. She was taken back into custody on 6 March 2005, and killed just over three months later.
On 26 January 2008, security agents in Beijing stopped popular folk musician Yu Zhou and his wife Xu Na while on their way home from a concert. The 42-year-old Yu Zhou was taken into custody, where authorities attempted to force him to renounce Falun Gong. He was tortured to death within 11 days.
reported that “the central government intensified its nine-year campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in the months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.” The 6–10 Office issued an internal
directive mandating that local governments take steps to prevent Falun Gong from ‘‘interfering
with or harming’’ the Games. Public Security Bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai issued directives
providing rewards for informants who report Falun Gong activities to the police.
In the months leading up to the Olympics, the Falun Dafa Information Center reported that over 8,000 Falun Gong adherents were abducted from homes and workplaces by security agents. The Center reported that many of these practitioners were later sentenced to lengthy prison terms—some in excess of 15 years—and that several were tortured to death in custody. Amnesty International observed that Falun Gong was among the groups most harshly persecuted in 2008, and reported that during the year over 100 Falun Gong practitioners died as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody.
, a campaign headed by Xi Jinping
intended to crack down on potential dissidents during politically sensitive anniversaries. The project's name refers to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising
, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests
, and the 10th anniversary of the suppression of Falun Gong.
In parallel to the 6521 Project, a top-level coordinating body was created under the direction of Zhou Yongkang
, called the "Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social Order." Falun Gong was among the groups targeted for increased monitoring and suppression. The Committee revived a network of volunteer informants in schools and neighborhoods, and established a joint responsibility system that holds heads of households, work units, and local governments accountable in the event of protests or other destabilizing events.
adherents. The Congressional Executive Commission on China reported that Chinese authorities seized upon the Expo as an opportunity to conduct propaganda campaigns deriding Falun Gong, and detained and imprisoned over 100 Shanghai practitioners. Shanghai authorities offered monetary incentives to citizens who reported on Falun Gong adherents. The Commission also noted that some who refused to disavow Falun Gong were subjected to torture and sent to reeducation through labor facilities. Amnesty International
issued an urgent action notice in connection with the disappearance of Shanghai practitioner Jiang Feng, who was reportedly abducted at the Shanghai airport on 18 Feb 2010 while en route to the United States. Jiang disappeared into police custody, and was said to be at risk of torture.
The United States Congress has passed six resolutions - House Concurrent Resolution 304, House Resolution 530,House Concurrent Resolution 188, House Concurrent Resolution 218, - calling for an immediate end to the campaign against Falun Gong practitioners both in China and abroad. The first, Concurrent Resolution 217, was passed in November 1999. The latest, Resolution 605, was passed on 17 March 2010, and called for "an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners."
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
since July 1999, aimed at eliminating the practice in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. According to Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, it includes a multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education, as well as a variety of extralegal coercive measures, such as arbitrary arrests, forced labour, and physical torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, sometimes resulting in death.
Falun Gong is a qigong
Qigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
discipline combining slow-moving exercises and meditation with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of Truth (or Truthfulness), Compassion, and Tolerance. It was founded by Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong , a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the qigong tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China...
who introduced it to the public in May 1992, in Changchun
Changchun
Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin province, located in the northeast of the People's Republic of China, in the center of the Songliao Plain. It is administered as a sub-provincial city with a population of 7,677,089 at the 2010 census under its jurisdiction, including counties and...
, Jilin
Jilin
Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...
. Following a period of meteoric growth in the 1990s, the Communist Party launched a campaign to "eradicate" Falun Gong on 22 July 1999.
An extra-constitutional body, the 6-10 Office
6-10 Office
The 610 Office is an extralegal, Communist Party-led security agency in the People’s Republic of China. It is the executive branch of the Central Leading Group on Dealing with the Falun Gong , also known as the Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions. Named for the date of its...
was created to lead the suppression of Falun Gong. The authorities mobilized state media apparatus, judiciary, police force, army, education system, families, and workplaces against the group. The campaign, driven by a large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet, urged families and workplaces to actively assist in the campaign. There are reports of systematic torture, illegal imprisonment, forced labour, and psychiatric abuses, with the apparent aim of forcing practitioners to recant their belief in Falun Gong.
Foreign observers estimate that since 1999, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in "re-education through labor" camps, prisons, and detention facilities for refusing to renounce the spiritual practice. Former Chinese prisoners, many of whom are not themselves Falun Gong adherents have reported that Falun Gong practitioners consistently received the "longest sentences and worst treatment" in labor camps, and in some facilities, Falun Gong practitioners were the substantial majority of detainees. At least 2,000 Falun Gong adherents have been tortured to death amidst the persecution campaign, with some observers putting the number much higher.
Since 2006, there have also been persistent, but as-of-yet unproven allegations that the vital organs of non-consenting Falun Gong practitioners have been used to supply China's organ tourism industry. The United Nations Committee on Torture called for China to schedule an independent investigation into the allegations.
Background
Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong , a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the qigong tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China...
in Changchun
Changchun
Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin province, located in the northeast of the People's Republic of China, in the center of the Songliao Plain. It is administered as a sub-provincial city with a population of 7,677,089 at the 2010 census under its jurisdiction, including counties and...
, Jilin province,
Falun Gong differentiated itself from other qigong schools in its revival of spiritual and religious elements drawing on Buddhist and Daoist concepts.
Official registration issues
In 1993 Falun Gong was accepted into the state-run China Qigong Research Association (CQRS), and became an “instant star” of the qigong movement, enjoying considerable official support. By 1996, however, the relationship between Falun Gong and the CQRS had become strained. Palmer noted that Li objected to the new policy of the CQRS to formalise the structure of Falun Gong, and also objected to the requirement to start up a Communist Party branch. In March, 1996, Falun Gong filed to withdraw from the CQRS, with Li explaining that he believed the CQRS seemed more interested in making money from qigong than conducting research. Falun Gong subsequently attempted to register with other government bodies, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Minority Nationalities' Affairs Commission, the Chinese Buddhist Association, and the United Front Department, but was rebuffed. In 1997, Falun Gong informed the Civil Administration and Public Security ministries that it had not succeeded in applying for recognition.Initial restrictions and criticism
In July, 1996, possibly in response to its withdrawal from the state-run Qigong Association, and possibly as part of a broader government backlash against qigong practices, Falun Gong’s books were banned from further publication. The group also became a target of media criticism in the state-run press. Falun Gong adherents typically responded to what they perceived as unfair media treatment by picketing editorial offices to request retractions of critical stories. According to David Ownby, approximately 300 such demonstrations occurred between 1996 and 1999, and many, if not most, were successful.Protests in Tianjin and Zhongnanhai
By the late 1990s, the relationship between Falun Gong and the Chinese state was growing increasingly tense. In 1999, official estimates put the number of Falun Gong adherents at approximately 70 million, making it arguably the largest independent civil society group in the history of the PRC.In April 1999, He Zuoxiu, a longtime critic of qigong practices, published an editorial in Tianjin Normal University
Tianjin Normal University
Tianjin Normal University is a university in Tianjin, China.-History:Tianjin Normal University was established August 1, 1958. Originally called Tianjin Normal College 天津师范学院, it was renamed in 1982. April 8, 1999 Tianjin Municipal Committee, City Hall and Ministry of Education agreed to establish...
's Youth Reader magazine. Elaborating on what he had said months earlier on Beijing Television, he again launched into attacks on qigong groups—and Falun Gong in particular—as superstitious and potentially dangerous. Falun Gong practitioners claimed the cases that He cited as evidence of the dangers of Falun Gong erroneous or otherwise "highly offensive."
He's article catalyzed a "dramatic public struggle" between Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese authorities over the legitimacy of Falun Gong. Because Falun Gong practitioners had no access to mass media, they resorted to other symbolic forms to appeal to officials and the public: peaceful protests.
After the article was published practitioners gathered to protest in meditation posture outside the editorial office of the publication in Tianjin, and sent petitions and appeals to the Tianjin party headquarters and municipal government for the retraction of He's piece. Three hundred riot police were sent to disperse the crowd. Some of the practitioners were beaten, and forty-five arrested. The practitioners were told that the police action had been carried out on orders from the Ministry of Public Security, and that those arrested could only be released with the approval of Beijing authorities.
On 25 April, ten to twenty thousand Falun Gong practitioners lined the streets near Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai is an area in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The term Zhongnanhai is closely linked with the central government and senior Communist...
, the residence compound of China's leaders, in peaceful and silent protest to request the release of the Tianjin practitioners and an end to the escalating harassment against them. It was Falun Gong practitioners' attempt to seek redress from the leadership of the country by going to them and, "albeit very quietly and politely, making it clear that they would not be treated so shabbily." Many Falun Gong practitioners were party members, who openly lobbied for the group. No other disenfranchised group has ever staged a mass protest near the Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai is an area in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The term Zhongnanhai is closely linked with the central government and senior Communist...
compound in PRC history. Several Falun Gong representatives met with then-premier Zhu Rongji, who assured them that the government was not against Falun Gong, and promised that the Tianjin practitioners would be released. The crowd outside dispersed peacefully, apparently believing their demonstration had been a success.
Statewide suppression
On the night of April 25, 1999, then-Communist Party chairman Jiang Zemin issued a letter indicating his desire to see Falun Gong defeated. The letter expressed alarm at Falun Gong’s popularity, and in particular, its popularity among Communist Party members. In early May, reports were circulating that Jiang Zemin was establishing a high-level task force to deal with the threat, with Luo Gan in charge. Authorities started rounding up known Falun Gong organizers. According to the BBC, Falun Gong mobilised "tens of thousands of followers in some 30 cities" in mid June after the arrests.On 20 July 1999, public security officers throughout China quietly detained numerous Falun Gong leaders just after midnight, from hundreds of homes, and hauling them to prison. Falun Gong's four Beijing "arch-leaders" were arrested, and quickly tried. The Public Security Bureau
Public Security Bureau
In the People's Republic of China, a public security bureau refers to the government offices while the smaller offices are called Police posts which are similar in concept to the Japanese Kōban system) present in each province and municipality that handles policing , public security, and...
ordered churches, temples, mosques, newspapers, media, courts and police to suppress Falun Gong. Three days of massive demonstrations by practitioners in some thirty cities followed. In Beijing and other cities, protesters were detained in sports stadium.
The government’s strongest discursive attack on the Falun Gong up to this point occurred on 20 June, when the People’s Daily published a long article urging people to give up Falun Gong practice. On this same day the official media published several editorial directed toward Communist Party members who practiced Falun Gong, strongly reminding them that as Party members they were atheists and must not allow themselves to "become superstitious by continuing to practice Falun Gong." If they did not give up Falun Gong beliefs, they would be forced out of the Party.
On July 22 1999, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a statement declaring the Falun Dafa Research Society to be an illegal organization on the grounds that it had not been properly registered. The Ministry of Public Security simultaneously issued a notice forbidding the practice of Falun Gong, the possession of Falun Gong books, and protests appealing the ban.
‘'Xinhua said that Falun Gong was opposed to the Party, that it "preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition, and that it was disturbing social stability. Xinhua asserted that the actions taken against Falun Gong were essential to maintaining the "vanguard role and purity" of the Communist Party, and that "In fact, the so-called `truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve."
Li Hongzhi responded with a "Brief Statement of Mine" on 22 July:
Rationale
Foreign observers have attempted to explain the Party’s rationale for banning Falun Gong as stemming from a variety of factors. These include Falun Gong’s popularity, its independence from the state and refusal to toe the Party line, internal power politics within the Communist Party, and Falun Gong’s moral and spiritual content, which put it at odds with the officially atheist ideology.A World Journal report suggested that certain high-level Party officials wanted to crack down on the practice for years, but lacked sufficient pretext until the protest at Zhongnanhai, which they claim was partly orchestrated by Luo Gan
Luo Gan
Luo Gan is a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China and former Political and Legislative Affairs Committee secretary of the People's Republic of China.-Biography:...
, a long-time opponent of Falun Gong. There were also reportedly rifts in the Politburo
Politburo of the Communist Party of China
The Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China or Political bureau of the CPC Central Committee , formerly as Central Bureau before 1927, is a group of 24 people who oversee the Communist Party of China...
at the time of the incident. Willy Wo-Lap Lam writes that Jiang’s campaign against Falun Gong may have been used to promote allegiance to himself; Lam quotes one party veteran as saying “by unleashing a Mao-style movement [against Falun Gong], Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line.” Some reports indicate that Premier Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
met with Falun Gong representatives and gave them satisfactory answers, but was criticized by General Secretary and President Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
for being "too soft." Jiang is held by Falun Gong to be personally responsible for the final decision: Peerman cited reasons such as suspected personal jealousy of Li Hongzhi; Saich postulates at party leaders' anger at Falun Gong's widespread appeal, and ideological struggle. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
reported that sources indicated not all of the standing committee of the Politburo
Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China
The Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Communist Party of China, whose membership varies between 5 and 9 people. The inner workings of the PSC are not well known, although it is believed that decisions of the PSC are...
shared Jiang's view that Falun Gong should be eradicated. The size and reach of Jiang's anti-Falun Gong campaign surpassed that of many previous mass-movements.
Human Rights Watch notes that the crackdown on Falun Gong reflects historical efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to eradicate religion, which the government believed was inherently subversive. Some journalists believe that Beijing's reaction exposes its authoritarian nature and its intolerance for competing loyalty. The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
wrote : "...any group that does not come under the control of the Party is a threat"; secondly, the 1989 protests may have heightened the leaders' sense of losing their grip on power, making them live in "mortal fear" of popular demonstrations. Craig Smith of the Wall Street Journal suggests that the government which has by definition no view of spirituality, lacks moral credibility with which to fight an expressly spiritual foe; the party feels increasingly threatened by any belief system that challenges its ideology and has an ability to organize itself. That Falun Gong, whose belief system represented a revival of traditional Chinese religion, was being practiced by a large number of Communist Party members and members of the military was seen as particularly disturbing to Jiang Zemin. "Jiang accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He [wished] to purge the government and the military of such beliefs".
Legal and political mechanisms
On 10 June 1999 the Party established the '6-10 Office6-10 Office
The 610 Office is an extralegal, Communist Party-led security agency in the People’s Republic of China. It is the executive branch of the Central Leading Group on Dealing with the Falun Gong , also known as the Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions. Named for the date of its...
', an extra-constitutional body to lead the suppression of Falun Gong. Representatives were selected in every province, city, county, university, government department and state-owned business in China.
On 22 July, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security dissolved the Falun Dafa Research Society, banned "the propagation of Falun Gong in any form," and prohibited anyone from disrupting social order or confronting the government. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty stated that the official directives and legal documents issued for the purge fall short of international legal standards and China’s own constitution. Falun Gong sources have further also sought to argue that the Ministry of Public Security does not have the authority under the Chinese constitution to create laws, and that its ban against Falun Gong was itself therefore illegal.
On 26 July, several state bureaus and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued a circular calling for confiscation and destruction of all publications related to Falun Gong; it was condemned in the media, with books shredded, burned and videotapes bulldozed for TV cameras.
On July 29, 1999, the Beijing Judicial Bureau issued a notice forbidding lawyers from accepting Falun Gong clients. Weiquan Lawyers who have attempted to take Falun Gong clients have faced varying degrees of persecution themselves, including disbarment, detention, and in the case of Gao Zhisheng
Gao Zhisheng
Gao Zhisheng is a Chinese human rights attorney and dissident known for defending activists and religious minorities and documenting alleged human rights abuses in China. Because of his work, Zhisheng has been disbarred and detained by the Chinese government several times and released...
, torture and disappearance.
The government enacted a statute (article 300 of the Criminal Law), passed by the National People’s Congress on 30 October 1999, with retrospective application to suppress "heterodox religions" across China, thus legitimising the persecution of Falun Gong and any other spiritual groups deemed "dangerous to the state."
In response to the suppression, from late 1999 into early 2001, Falun Gong adherents traveled daily to Tiananmen Square by the hundreds, where they practiced meditation in silent protest or unfurled banners requesting the rehabilitation of the group and an end to the ban. These protests were quickly and sometimes violently broken up by waiting security agents, and the practitioners involved were typically sent to their home cities to be punished. By 25 April 2000, a total of more than 30,000 practitioners had been arrested on Tiananmen Square. Seven hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested during a demonstration in the Square on 1 January 2001. Officials grew impatient with the constant flow of protesters into Beijing, and decided to implement a cascading responsibility system to push the responsibility for meeting central orders down onto those enforcing them: central authorities would hold local officials personally responsible for stemming the flow of protesters. The provincial government would fine mayors for each Falun Gong practitioner from their district who made it to Beijing; the mayors would in turn fine the heads of the Political and Legal commissions, who would in turn fine village chiefs, who fined police officers who administered the punishment. According to Johnson, police in turn extorted money illegally from Falun Gong practitioners, and the order was only relayed orally at meetings, “because they didn't want it made public.” A chief feature in the testimony of Falun Gong torture victims was that they were “constantly being asked for money to compensate for the fines.”
Human Rights Watch reported that some work units would summarily fire people identified as practitioners, meaning they would lose housing, schooling, pensions, and be reported to the police. Local officials would detain active practitioners and those unwilling to recant, and were expected to "make certain" that families and employers keep them isolated.
Media campaign
Since the organization's ban by the government of China on 22 July 1999, the state-controlled media declared Falun Gong to be an "evil cult" that spreads superstition.By 30 July, ten days into the campaign, Xinhua reported confiscations of over one million Falun Gong books and other materials, hundreds of thousands burned and destroyed.
At the early stages of the crackdown, the evening news would broadcast images of huge piles of Falun Gong materials being crushed or incinerated. Perry writes that the basic pattern of the offensive was similar to "the anti-rightist campaign of the 1950s [and] the anti-spiritual pollution campaigns of the 1980s." The media would focus on those who had kicked the Falun Gong habit; relatives of Falun Gong victims would talk about the tragedies that had befallen their loved ones; former practitioners would confess being "hoodwinked by Li Hongzhi and... expressing regret at their gullibility"; physical education instructors suggested healthy alternatives to Falun Gong practice, like ten-pin bowling.
According to CNN's Willy Lam, state media stated that Falun Gong was part of an "anti-China international movement". As it did during the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, the Communist Party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
organised rallies in the streets and stop-work meetings in remote western provinces by government agencies such as the weather bureau to denounce the practice. Xinhua published editorials on PLA
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
officers declaring Falun Gong "an effort by hostile Western forces to subvert China," and vowing to do their utmost to defend the central leadership and "maintain national security and social stability."
Circulars were issued to women's and youth organisations encouraging support for the ban. Both the Youth League and the All-China Women's Federation called for greater use of science education to combat "feudalistic superstition." Xinhua reported speeches of Youth League officials. One speaker said "This reminds us of the importance and urgency of strengthening our political and ideological work among the younger generation, educating them with Marxist materialism and atheism, and making greater efforts to popularize scientific knowledge". The Women's Federation stated the need to "arm our sisters with scientific knowledge and help improve their capability to recognize and resist feudal superstition" A group of PLA veterans who had joined in the 1930s and 1940s issued a statement that "Only Marxism can save China and only the Chinese Communist Party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
can lead us to accomplish the great cause of reinvigorating the Chinese nation."
Li was also a target for Chinese media during this time. The Chinese authorities charged that he had created Falun Gong on the basis of two other Qigong systems developed earlier, namely, Chanmi Gong and Jiugong Bagua Gong, and that some of Falun Gong's exercises were copied from "movements from Thai dance that he picked up during a visit to relatives in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
." Chinese authorities asserted that acquaintances Li Jingchao and Liu Yuqing helped to develop the system, and other earlier followers helped write texts and touch up photographs; it was not tested exhaustively beforehand, but was completed only one month before its official launch, they alleged. James Tong notes that these allegations were brought forth in the publication "Li Hongzhi qiren qishi", some already in print before 22 July 1999, that conformed to the guidelines of the suppression of Falun Gong as specified by the Politburo and Jiang Zemin. Many were hastily compiled reprints or re-writes of Renmin Ribao articles and Xinhua dispatches on exposes of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi, and party and government documents banning the Falun Gong. Qiren qishi was itself produced by the research arm of the Public Security Bureau.
Use of the cult label
The government re-used many of the arguments which had been advanced by critics of the movement prior to the ban, including allegations that Falun Gong was "propagating feudal superstition", that Li had changed his birthdate, and that the practice exploited spiritual cultivation to engage in seditious politics. In exposés such as "Falun Gong is a Cult", "Exposing the Lies of the 'Falun Gong' Cult", and "Cult of Evil", they alleged that Falun Gong engaged in mind control and manipulation via "lies and fallacies," causing "needless deaths of large numbers of practitioners." State media seized upon Li's writing in which he expressed that illnesses are caused by karma, and that Li has stated on several occasions that the sign of a true practitioner is to refuse medicine or medical care. The authorities claimed over 1,000 deaths because practitioners followed Li's teachings and refused to seek medical treatment, that several hundred practitioners had cut their stomachs open "looking for the Dharma Wheel" or committed suicide, and that over 30 innocent people had been killed by "mentally deranged practitioners of Falun Gong." Li was portrayed as a charlatan, while snapshots of accounting records were shown on television, "purporting to prove that [he] made huge amounts of money off his books and videos."Ching (2001) states that "evil cult" was defined by an atheist government "on political premises, not by any religious authority", and was used by the authorities to make previous arrests and imprisonments constitutional. Most social scientists and scholars of religion reject "brainwashing" theories and do not use the term "cult" to describe Falun Gong. Chan claims that Falun Gong is neither a cult nor a sect, but a New Religious Movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
with cult-like characteristics. Other scholars avoid the term "cult" altogether because "of the confusion between the historic meaning of the term and current pejorative use" These scholars prefer terms like "spiritual movement" or "new religious movement" to avoid the negative connotations of "cult" or to avoid mis-categorizing Falun Gong as a "cult" if it does not fit mainstream definitions.
Nevertheless, many scholars, including notably Palmer (2007) and Ownby (2008), use the words "moralistic" and "apocalyptic" to describe its philosophy.
Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident
On the eve of Chinese New YearChinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
on 23 January 2001, seven people attempted to set themselves ablaze at Tiananmen Square. The official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
, and other state media asserted that the self-immolators
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
were practitioners while the Falun Dafa Information Center disputed this, on the grounds that the movement's teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing, and further alleged that the event itself never happened, and was a cruel but clever piece of stunt-work. The incident received international news coverage, and video footage of the burnings were broadcast later inside China by China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
(CCTV). Images of a 12 year old girl, Liu Siying, burning and interviews with the other participants in which they stated their belief that self-immolation would lead them to paradise were shown. Falun Gong-related commentators claimed that the main participants' account of the incident and other aspects of the participants' behaviour were inconsistent with the teachings of Falun Dafa, and some third-party commentators have also pointed out discrepancies in the government's version of events, and alleged that the incident was staged in order to turn public opinion against the practice and build public support for its persecution. Time reported that prior to the self-immolation incident, many Chinese had felt that Falun Gong posed no real threat, and that the state's crackdown had gone too far. After the event the media campaign against Falun Gong gained significant traction.
Interference with foreign correspondents
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China have complained about their members being "followed, detained, interrogated and threatened" for reporting on the crackdown on Falun Gong. Many foreign journalists attending a news conference organised by practitioners which took place in Beijing on 28 October 1999, were accused by the Chinese authorities of "illegal reporting." Others have been punished for communicating with the foreign press or for organising the press conferences. Journalists from Reuters, the New York Times, the Associated Press and a number of other organisations were interrogated by police, forced to sign confessions, and had their work and residence papers temporarily confiscated. Correspondents also complained that television satellite transmissions were interfered with while being routed through China Central Television. Amnesty International states that "a number of people have received prison sentences or long terms of administrative detention for speaking out about the repression or giving information over the Internet."The 2002 Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
' report on China states that photographers and cameramen working with foreign media were prevented from working in and around Tiananmen Square where hundreds of Falun Gong followers have demonstrated in recent years. It estimates that at least 50 representatives of the international press have been arrested since July 1999, and some of them were beaten by police; several Falun Gong followers have been imprisoned for talking with foreign journalists." Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson may refer to:*Ian Johnson , English professional footballer*Ian Johnson , former Australian Test cricket captain*Ian Johnson , managing director of the Seven Network...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
correspondent in Beijing, wrote a series of articles which won him the 2001 Pulitzer Prize
2001 Pulitzer Prize
-Journalism awards:-Letters awards:*Fiction:**The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon *History:**Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis *Biography or Autobiography:...
. Johnson left Beijing after writing his articles, stating that "the Chinese police would have made my life in Beijing impossible" after he received the Pulitzer.
Entire news organizations have not been immune to press restrictions concerning Falun Gong. In March 2001, Time Asia ran a story about Falun Gong in Hong Kong. The magazine was pulled from the shelves in Mainland China, and threatened that it would never again be sold in the country. Partly as a result of the difficult reporting environment, by 2002, Western news coverage of the suppression within China had all but completely ceased, even as the number of Falun Gong deaths in custody was on the rise.
Internet censorship
Freedom House reported that Falun Gong is among the most hermetically blocked topics on the Chinese Internet. In his account of the genesis of China’s internet censorship and surveillance capabilities, Ethan Gutmann suggests that many of these methods — including denial of service attacks — were first employed by Chinese authorities against Falun Gong. According to analyst James Mulvenon of the Rand Corporation, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security uses cyber-warfare to attack Falun Gong websites in the United States, Australia, Canada and England, and blocks access to internet resources about the topic.Reports of violence and abuse
Since 1999, foreign observers estimate that hundreds of thousands—and perhaps millions—of Falun Gong practitioners have been held extrajudicially in reeducation-through-labor camps, prisons, and detention centers.Arbitrary arrests and imprisonment
Recent estimates, such as those cited by the U.S. State Department, suggest that hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong adherents are detained extrajudicially in China, mostly in reeducation-through-labor camps. According to a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, petitioners who were not themselves Falun Gong practitioners reported that most of the detainees in reeducation-through-labor camps were Falun Gong adherents. They also noted that Falun Gong practitioners received the “longest sentences and worst treatment” in the camps.According to the Ministry of Public Security, "re-education through labor" is an administrative measure imposed on those guilty of committing minor offences, but who are not legally considered criminals. In late 2000, China began to use this method of punishment widely against Falun Gong practitioners in the hope of permanently "transforming recidivists." Terms could also be arbitrarily extended by police. Practitioners may have ambiguous charges levied against them, according to Robert Bejesky, writing in the Columbia Journal of Asian Law, such as "disrupting social order," "endangering national security," or "subverting the socialist system." Up to 99% of long term Falun Gong detainees are processed administratively through this system, and do not enter the formal criminal justice system. Outside access is not given to the camps, prisoners are forced to do heavy work in mines, brick factories, and agriculture, and physical torture, beatings, interrogations, inadequate food rations, and other human rights abuses take place, according to Human Rights Watch.
Upon completion of their reeducation sentences, practitioners are sometimes then incarcerated in "legal education centers," another form of punishment set up by provincial authorities to "transform the minds" of practitioners, according to Human Rights Watch. While Beijing officials initially portrayed the process as "benign," a harder line was later adopted; "teams of education assistants and workers, leading cadres, and people from all walks of life" were drafted into the campaign. In early 2001 quotas were given for how many practitioners needed to be "transformed." Official records do not mention the methods employed to achieve this, though Falun Gong and third party accounts indicate that the mental and physical abuses could be "extraordinarily severe."
Torture in custody
A 2001 article by John Pomfret and Philip P. Pan in the Washington Post said that no practitioner was to be spared coercive measures in an attempt to make them renounce their faith. According to their source in the security apparatus, the most active are sent directly to labor camps, “where they are first 'broken' by beatings and other torture.” They write that some local governments had tried brainwashing classes before, but only in January 2001 did the “secret 610 office, an interagency task force leading the charge against Falun Gong, order all neighborhood committees, state institutions and companies to start.”The Falun Gong website Clearwisdom report numerous cases of extreme psychological and physical torture, accompanied by testimonies and details of identities of the victims, resulting in impaired mental, sensory, physiological and speech faculties, mental trauma, paralysis, or death. Over 100 forms of torture are purported to be used, including electric shocks, stress positions
Stress positions
A stress position, also known as a submission position, places the human body in such a way that a great amount of weight is placed on just one or two muscles. For example, a subject may be forced to stand on the balls of his feet, then squat so that his thighs are parallel to the ground...
, branding, force-feeding, and sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
, with many variations on each type.
Since 2000, the Special Rapporteur to the United Nations highlighted 314 cases of torture, representing more than 1,160 individuals, to the Government of China. Falun Gong comprise 66% of all such reported torture cases, 8% occurring within Ankangs
Ankang (asylum)
Ankang is a name shared by a number of psychiatric hospitals or asylums in China. The term literally means "peace and health [for the mentally ill]". Many of these institutions are prison-hospitals for holding prisoners judged to be mentally ill, and operate directly under the local Public...
. The Special Rapporteur refers to the torture allegations as "harrowing" and asks the Chinese government to "take immediate steps to protect the lives and integrity of its detainees in accordance with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners" Corinna-Barbara Francis of Amnesty says Falun Gong's (death toll) figures seem a little high because they are not the result of formal executions.
Organ harvesting
In March 2006 the Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times published a number of articles alleging that the China was conducting widespread and systematic organ harvesting of living Falun Gong practitioners. The website alleged that practitioners detained in labour camps, hospital basements, or prisons, were being blood- and urine-tested, their information stored on computer databases, and then matched with organ recipients. Within one month, third party investigators including representatives of the US Department of State, said that there was insufficient evidence to support the allegation. Former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas were commissioned by Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong to investigate the allegations. In July 2006, they published "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China", which concluded that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners were victims of systematic organ harvesting throughout China, whilst still alive.In August 2006, a Congressional Research Service
Congressional Research Service
The Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...
report said that some of the key allegations of the Kilgour-Matas report appeared to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations. In November 2008 the United Nations Committee Against Torture called for the Chinese state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for any such abuses are prosecuted and punished.
Psychiatric abuse
Falun Gong and human rights observers began reporting widespread psychiatric abuse of mentally-healthy practitioners since 1999. Falun Gong says that thousands have been forcefully detained in mental hospitals and subject to psychiatric abuses such as injection of sedatives or anti-psychotic drugs, torture by electrocution, force-feeding, beatings and starvation. It also alleges that practitioners are involuntarily admitted because they practice Falun Gong exercises, for passing out flyers, refusing to sign a pledge to renounce Falun Gong, writing petition letters, appealing to the government etc. Others are admitted because detention sentences have expired or the detainees have not been successfully “transformed” in the brainwashing classes. Some have been told that they were admitted because they had a so-called “political problem”—that is, because they appealed to the government to lift the ban of Falun Gong.Robin Munro
Robin Munro
Robin Munro is a British legal scholar, author, and human rights advocate. He received his PhD from the Department of Law, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London....
, former Director of the Hong Kong Office of Human Rights Watch and now Deputy Director with China Labour Bulletin
China Labour Bulletin
China Labour Bulletin is a non-governmental organization that promotes and defends workers’ rights in the People’s Republic of China. It is based in Hong Kong and was founded in 1994 by labour activist Han Dongfang...
, drew worldwide attention to the abuses of forensic psychiatry
Forensic psychiatry
Forensic psychiatry is a sub-speciality of psychiatry and an auxiliar science of criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry...
in China in general, and of Falun Gong practitioners in particular. In 2001, Munro alleged that forensic psychiatrists in China have been active since the days of Mao Zedong, and have been involved in the systematic misuse of psychiatry for political purposes. He says that large-scale psychiatric abuses are the most distinctive aspect of the government’s protracted campaign to "crush the Falun Gong." Munro notes a very sizeable increase in Falun Gong admissions to mental hospitals since the onset of the government's persecution campaign. However, Stone said that Munro's allegations were constructed from "his layman's reading and tendentious extrapolations of Chinese psychiatric publications".
Munro claimed that detained Falun Gong practitioners are tortured and subject to electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
, painful forms of electrical acupuncture
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....
treatment, prolonged deprivation of light, food and water, and restricted access to toilet facilities in order to force "confessions" or "renunciations" as a condition of release. Fines of several thousand yuan may follow. Lu and Galli write that dosages of medication up to five or six times the usual level are administered through nasogastric tubes as a form of torture or punishment, and that physical torture is common, including binding tightly with ropes in very painful positions. This treatment may result in chemical toxicity, migraines, extreme weakness, protrusion of the tongue, rigidity, loss of consciousness, vomiting, nausea, seizures and loss of memory.
Stone said that the pattern of hospitalisation varied from province to province, and did not suggest any uniform government policy was in force. After having been given access to and examining several hundred cases of specific Falun Gong practitioners in named psychiatric hospitals, the medical personnel, "a significant number of the reported cases... had been sent on from labor camps where they... may well have been tortured and then dumped in psychiatric hospitals as an expedient disposition.
Deaths
The Falun Dafa Information Center reports that over 3,400 Falun Gong adherents have been killed as a result of torture and abuse in custody, typically after they refused to recant their belief in the practice, though these numbers are impossible to independently corroborate. The preponderance of reported deaths occur in China’s Northeastern provinces, Sichuan Province, and areas surrounding Beijing.Among the first torture deaths reported in the Western press was that of Chen Zixiu, a retired factory worker from Shandong Province. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning article on the suppression of Falun Gong, Ian Johnson reported that labor camp guards shocked her with cattle prods in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused, officials “ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood...She crawled outside, vomited, and collapse. She never regained consciousness.” Chen died on Feb 21, 2000.
On 16 June 2005, 37-year-old Gao Rongrong, an accountant from Liaoning Province, was tortured to death in custody. Two years before her death, Ms. Gao had been imprisoned at the Longshan forced labor camp, where she was tortured and badly disfigured with electric shock batons. Gao escaped the labor camp by jumping from a second-floor window, and after pictures of her burned visage were made public, she became a target for recapture by authorities. She was taken back into custody on 6 March 2005, and killed just over three months later.
On 26 January 2008, security agents in Beijing stopped popular folk musician Yu Zhou and his wife Xu Na while on their way home from a concert. The 42-year-old Yu Zhou was taken into custody, where authorities attempted to force him to renounce Falun Gong. He was tortured to death within 11 days.
Academic restrictions
According to Falun Gong lobby group World Organization for the Investigation Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), examinations contained questions with anti-Falun Gong content, and incorrect answers had serious repercussions. WOIPFG claimed that students who practiced Falun Gong were barred from schools and universities and from sitting exams, and that "guilt by association" was assumed: family members of known practitioners were also denied entry. There were anti-Falun Gong petitions.Outside China
In 2004 the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a resolution condemning the CCP’s attacks on Falun Gong practitioners in the United States; it reported that Party affiliates have “pressured local elected officials in the United States to refuse or withdraw support for the Falun Gong spiritual group,” that Falun Gong spokespeoples’ houses have been broken into, and individuals engaged in peaceful protest actions outside embassies have been physically assaulted. It called on the Chinese government to “immediately stop interfering in the exercise of religious and political freedoms within the United States.”Recent campaigns
Although not as high-profile as it once was, the suppression of Falun Gong in China has continued largely unabated in recent years, with new strike-hard campaigns launched periodically against the group, particularly around sensitive events and anniversaries.2008
The Congressional-Executive Commission on ChinaCongressional-Executive Commission on China
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China is an independent agency of the U.S. government which monitors human rights and rule of law developments in the People's Republic of China. It was created in October 2001 under Title III of H.R. 4444, which authorizes normal trade relations with the...
reported that “the central government intensified its nine-year campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in the months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.” The 6–10 Office issued an internal
directive mandating that local governments take steps to prevent Falun Gong from ‘‘interfering
with or harming’’ the Games. Public Security Bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai issued directives
providing rewards for informants who report Falun Gong activities to the police.
In the months leading up to the Olympics, the Falun Dafa Information Center reported that over 8,000 Falun Gong adherents were abducted from homes and workplaces by security agents. The Center reported that many of these practitioners were later sentenced to lengthy prison terms—some in excess of 15 years—and that several were tortured to death in custody. Amnesty International observed that Falun Gong was among the groups most harshly persecuted in 2008, and reported that during the year over 100 Falun Gong practitioners died as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody.
2009
In 2009, Falun Gong practitioners were among those targeted as part of an initiative dubbed the 6521 Project6521 Project
The 6521 Project, sometimes called the "6521 Group," was the moniker given to a nationwide operation initiated by the Communist Party of China in 2009 to ensure “social stability” by cracking down on potential dissidents during anniversaries of political significance...
, a campaign headed by Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping is a high ranking politician of the People's Republic of China. He currently serves as the top-ranking member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China, the country's Vice President, Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission, President of the Central Party School and the...
intended to crack down on potential dissidents during politically sensitive anniversaries. The project's name refers to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising
1959 Tibetan uprising
The 1959 Tibetan uprising, or 1959 Tibetan Rebellion began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the Communist Party of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951...
, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests
Tiananmen Square protests
Tiananmen Square in Beijing has been the central point for several major historical protests, with their most commonly referred to Chinese name in parentheses....
, and the 10th anniversary of the suppression of Falun Gong.
In parallel to the 6521 Project, a top-level coordinating body was created under the direction of Zhou Yongkang
Zhou Yongkang
Zhou Yongkang is a senior leader of the Communist Party of China who is currently serving as the 9th ranked member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, and the head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee, an organ directing central government legal policy and the legislative...
, called the "Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social Order." Falun Gong was among the groups targeted for increased monitoring and suppression. The Committee revived a network of volunteer informants in schools and neighborhoods, and established a joint responsibility system that holds heads of households, work units, and local governments accountable in the event of protests or other destabilizing events.
2010
Human Rights groups have charged that the 2010 World Expo served as pretext for the suppression of dissidents and religious believers, including Falun GongFalun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
adherents. The Congressional Executive Commission on China reported that Chinese authorities seized upon the Expo as an opportunity to conduct propaganda campaigns deriding Falun Gong, and detained and imprisoned over 100 Shanghai practitioners. Shanghai authorities offered monetary incentives to citizens who reported on Falun Gong adherents. The Commission also noted that some who refused to disavow Falun Gong were subjected to torture and sent to reeducation through labor facilities. Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
issued an urgent action notice in connection with the disappearance of Shanghai practitioner Jiang Feng, who was reportedly abducted at the Shanghai airport on 18 Feb 2010 while en route to the United States. Jiang disappeared into police custody, and was said to be at risk of torture.
2010 - 2012
In 2010, the Communist Party launched a 3-year campaign that requires local governments, Party organizations, and businesses to step up efforts to "transform" large portions of known Falun Gong adherents. "Transformation" refers to the often coercive process of pressuring Falun Gong adherents to renounce the practice. Several documents posted on Party and local government websites refer to concrete transformation targets to be achieved, and also set limits on acceptable rates of recidivism. The campaign is carried out through enlisting known Falun Gong adherents in mandatory reeducation classes, or sentencing in prisons or reeducation-through-labor camps.International response
Falun Gong's ordeal has attracted a large amount of international attention from governments and non-government organizations. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, have raised acute concerns over reports of torture and ill-treatment of practitioners in China and have also urged the UN and international governments to intervene to bring an end to the persecution.The United States Congress has passed six resolutions - House Concurrent Resolution 304, House Resolution 530,House Concurrent Resolution 188, House Concurrent Resolution 218, - calling for an immediate end to the campaign against Falun Gong practitioners both in China and abroad. The first, Concurrent Resolution 217, was passed in November 1999. The latest, Resolution 605, was passed on 17 March 2010, and called for "an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners."
Response from Falun Gong
Falun Gong practitioners and supporters report torture and ill-treatment of practitioners in mainland China. After 1999 practitioners also began holding frequent protests, rallies, and appeals outside The People's Republic. Some Falun Gong support groups and activists outside of China published "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party", and initiated a worldwide "Three Renunciations" Campaign. The video "False Fire: Self-Immolation or Deception?", was broadcast on Chinese television by hackers. Liu Chengjun, named as the instigator of the television hacking, was sentenced to 19 years in prison. The Falun Gong website stated that he died after 21 months in Jilin Prison, on 26 December 2003.Further reading
; Part 2: A rude awakening; Part 3: The deeper crisis facing ChinaExternal links
- zhuichaguoji.org "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" English home page
- eBook Poisonous Deceit at Deep Six Publishing
- pulitzer.org - The 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winners: International Reporting: Wall Street Journal: Ian Johnson
- clearharmony.net "An Overview of Legal Cases Filed by Falun Gong Practitioners Around the World"