Talk:Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident
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[edit] A list of qustion we try to answer in this article (please feel free to add more):
Who were the self-immolators?
- Wang Jin Dong (王進東)
- Liu Chun Ling (劉春玲)
- Liu Si Ying (劉思影)
- Hao Hui Jun (郝惠君)
- Chen Guo (陳果)
- Liu Bao Rong (劉葆榮)
- Liu Yun Fang (劉雲芳)
Why did they set themselves on fire?
When did this incident took place?
- 2001/1/23
How did they do it?
What happened on the square after they set themselves afire?
What did the Chinese government say about it?
What did the FG say about it?
What happen to these people now?
Were they interviewed?
What did they say in the interview?
What prompted the self immolation? It happened soon after Master Li's "Goning Beyond Forebearance" article in January. Whatever happened to the New Years article that stated "opening the floodgate"?
[edit] Reports of the incident
Let's pile up as many reports of the incident as possible here. Please list only the title of the articles, the names of the reporters and the date published, most importantly, a link to the article. --Yueyuen 08:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Not much coming to mind currently, but I'll start with two of my favorite articles FLG choose to twist or neglect. --Yenchin 09:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
- "Too Hot to Handle" by Hannah Beech, Time (Asia Edition), Febuary 5, 2001, retrieved July 28, 2006
- "A Beijing arm of the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong strongly suggested the protesters, one of whom died, were devotees. "We heeded a call from our master to strengthen our fight against evil," said a member of the group based in the Chinese capital. Yet hours later, Falun Gong's New York head office distanced itself from the act: "This so-called suicide attempt on Tiananmen Square has nothing to do with Falun Gong practitioners because the teachings of Falun Gong prohibit any form of killing." "
- "Tiananmen tense after fiery protests" by CNN Staff and wire reports, CNN, January 24, 2001, retrieved July 28, 2006
- "Moments later four more people set themselves alight as military police detained the CNN crew, which had been taping the events."
Self-Immolation Survivors Denounce Falun Gong People's Daily, April 10, 2002 "'I don't want that kind of tragedy to happen again,' said Chen Guo, her face scared with massive grafts and her hands missing. Chen then a 19-year-old gifted student at the Central Conservatory of Music set herself on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square over a year ago."
One-Way Trip to the End in Beijing International Herald Tribune/February 5, 2001 By Philip P. Pan "Other human rights activists say the five set themselves on fire to protest the government's crackdown on Falun Gong, which has resulted in thousands of arrests and as many as 105 deaths in police custody. All but Liu Siying, 12, had protested Beijing's actions against Falun Gong in Tiananmen Square previously, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy."
Survivors say China Falun Gong immolations real Reuters/April 4, 2002 By Jeremy Page "'We wanted to strengthen the force of Falun Gong,' said Chen Guo, 20, lying in a hospital bed in her home town of Kaifeng, her face a blotchy mass of grafted skin with no nose and no ears. One eye was open, the other covered by a flap of skin. 'We decided burning ourselves was the best way,' said Chen, who also lost both her hands. 'It was totally due to our own will. We were not forced by anyone.'"
The Breaking Point Time (Asia Edition) June 25, 2001 By Matthew Forney "Falun Gong's leaders badly flubbed their damage control after the immolations. Instead of acknowledging that the five protesters might have been misguided practitioners, they denied any connection with them. Implausibly, the Falun Gong website insists the episode was set up by government provocateurs. Few were convinced by that line.
[edit] Falun Gong response
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Falun Dafa Information Center January 23, 2001 http://www.clearwisdom.net/eng/2001/jan/23/vsf012301_3.html This so-called suicide attempt on Tiananmen Square has nothing to do with Falun Gong practitioners because the teachings of Falun Gong prohibit any form of killing. Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of the practice, has explicitly stated that suicide is a sin.
Epochtimes Interviewed Falun Gong Spokesperson, Zhang Erping, Concerning the Self-Immolation Incident at Tiananmen Square http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/1/28/4943.html Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, has always explained to us that it is absolutely forbidden to take a life and this includes taking your own. Therefore the people who did the supposed self- immolation could not have even been remotely connected to Falun Gong.
"I strongly suspect that this was staged entirely for the tricking of CNN and outside media" Clearwisdom.net January 24, 2001 http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/1/24/zip.html#0 ""I strongly suspect that this was staged entirely for the tricking of CNN and outside media""
- Companion article: http://search.minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/1/24/7148.html (Chinese)
I am going to join you guys here, I will write something up. --Samuel Luo 07:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Next Step
Good job, Samuel. We can then start citing stuff and expand. --Yenchin 13:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I will add citation to it when I have time. Could someone try locating the self-immolation video? --Samuel Luo 18:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
At best I could only find the "False Fire" video or the one from "焦點訪談", which, frankly speaking are both 2nd handed. "False Fire" of course could be easily found on FLG websites. I think Fang Zhouzi's website has some 焦點訪談 videos[1]. The unfortunate part is that "False Fire" mutilated and doctored some bits of the video while the file on xys.org is low quality. I skimmed through 草色新雨 and couldn't find any file or link. --Yenchin 15:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Neutrality
This article seems to very one sided. Many of the statements would benefit from rewording to sound more neutral. Wikipedia is not a place to profess beliefs, for either side. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 157.174.221.169 (talk) 20:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Prod
Instead of deleting, can we copy the section from Suppression of Falun Gong and then summarize the incident on the Suppression page? The Supression article is 51kb long right now and could use shortening. If the self-immolation incident is indeed notable, then I don't see any problem with keeping that article, albeit with the content from the main page. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 23:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah it's fine by me. If you want to get cracking on a faithful short summary of the content I support you. Two things motivated me for proposing deletion, one was duplication of content and the other was the opposite, I mean, very different content describing the same thing. The things on the current version of this page are still quite below wikipedia standards, in my opinion. It was sort of the same on the Persecution page but I added a lot of content from the other perspective, and hopefully now the entry gives a neutrally worded explanation of both sides. There is still more info from the side claiming it was a hoax than that from the CCP, but I'm not sure what to do about that. I would propose the entry on the suppression page being pasted over the top of the existing material on this page, and maybe broken into subheadings. If you do not do it I will do it, but unfortunately I cannot make it high on my priority list right now. Okay, cheers.--Asdfg12345 01:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'll do it later today. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 18:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- Technical note: article with such a history should be put on AfD, not prodded. I removed the prod for this reason, please feel free to nominate it for deletion. Pavel Vozenilek 12:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
