Persecution of Falun Gong

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On July 20, 1999, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) banned Falun Gong and began a nationwide crackdown, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. This followed seven years of widespread popularity and rapid growth of the practice within mainland China^[1][2] On April 25, 1999, the 10,000-practitioner gathering at Zhongnanhai triggered the ban.^[3] Officially, the authorities banned Falun Gong for "jeopardising social stability" and "engag[ing] in illegal activities."^[4] In late 1999 legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions," and applied to Falun Gong retroactively.^[5]

Every aspect of society was mobilized against Falun Gong, including the media apparatus, police force, army, education system, families, and workplaces.^[6] An extra-constitutional body, the 6-10 Office was created to "oversee the terror campaign,"^[7] driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet.^[5] Families and workplaces were urged to actively assist in the campaign, and practitioners were subject to severe coercion to have them recant.^[8] There are acute concerns over reports of torture,^[9] illegal imprisonment, forced labour, and psychiatric abuses.^[10] Falun Gong practitioners comprise 66% of all reported torture cases in China,^[11] and at least half of the labour camp population.^[12] In July 2006, Canadian parliamentarians David Matas and David Kilgour presented their investigative report of systematic organ harvesting from living practitioners.

Certain high-level Party officials had wanted to crackdown on the practice for some years,^[3] but lacked sufficient pretext and support--until a number of appeals and petitions to the authorities in 1999, in particular, the 10,000 person gathering at Zhongnanhai on April 25.^[3] The nature of Communist Party rule is seen as a cause for the crackdown; Falun Gong's popularity,^[13] traditional roots,^[14][15] and ideological distinction from communism was seen as a challenge.^[16] Though support was not unanimous, Jiang Zemin is considered to be personally responsible for the final decision and ensuing "Mao-style political campaign."^[17][18] Suspected motives include personal jealousy towards Li Hongzhi,^[19] anger, and ideological struggle.^[3]

Protests in Beijing were frequent for the first few years following the 1999 edict, though were later largely eradicated.^[6] Practitioners' presence in mainland China has become more low-profile, as they opt for other methods of informing the populace about the persecution, such as through overnight letterbox drops of CD-ROMs; they have also occasionally hacked into state television to broadcast their material. Falun Gong practitioners are globally active in appealing to the governments, media, and people of their respective countries about the situation in China. Lawsuits have been initiated by practitioners against Chinese officials alleged to be chiefly responsible for the crackdown, in particular Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan.

Background

See further: Founding of Falun Gong and pre-persecution

Li Hongzhi introduced the Falun Gong to the public in May 1992. During the early years he was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered to be a wholesome practice. From 1992 to the end of 1994 he traveled to most major Chinese cities to teach at the invitation of qigong organizations. Li's lectures were organised by the China Qigong Science Research Society (CQSRS), an official government body which profited the most from the lecture fees.^[20] Li later began offering free lectures. After refusing a request to raise his tuition due to complaints from other qigong masters, Li withdrew from the CQSRS, claiming that it only tried to make money off the qigong masters without doing any research on qigong.^[20] Falun Gong sources claim that some of the individuals from the CQSRS began spreading rumours about Li Hongzhi to the government, also urging the government to curtail its growth^[20] David Ownby contends that opposition to Falun Gong from within the Party began in around 1994, and increased over the following years. He notes that there is no conclusive evidence on the motivation of the Party's initial resistance.^[21] However, Johnson notes that the phenomenal growth of Falun Gong is part of a wider trend within China caused by the Government's refusal to address the social upheaval, and its refusal to ease the rigid policies on religion that were pitching Falun Gong against the Communist Party.^[22]

On June 17, 1996, the Guangming Daily (or "Enlightenment Daily"), one of the Chinese government's official newspapers, often seen as the voice of establishment intellectuals,^[21] published an editorial article titled, "A Loud and Long Alarm Must Be Sounded Against Pseudo-Science", which claimed Falun Gong promoted superstition.^[23] Falun Gong claims this was the beginning of a "concerted media campaign."^[24] A protest was held outside the journal, and the government claimed that Falun Gong supporters surrounded its offices.^[25] Following the incident, China Press and Publication Administration, which controls content in China's media instituted a "three nots" policy on groups such as Falun Dafa as part of the agency's general policy of avoiding anything controversial - media "should not be for it, should not be against it and should not label it good or bad". This caused Falun Dafa to believe that demonstrations were acceptable.^[22] According to Newsweek, practitioners respond to coverage with letters, phone calls and visits to editors saying that Falun Dafa is not a religion but rather fosters the "cultivation" of "moral qualities" and the practice of truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance. After a BBC report on the group, correspondent James Miles thought the response was "quite extraordinary", and "more... than to any article I've ever written in my entire career."^[26]

Six months later, police agencies launched a nationwide investigation into Falun Gong at the behest of certain highly-ranked Party officials--among them Luo Gan--with the purpose of finding fault with Falun Gong.^[21]

Another official investigation under the same pretext was launched in 1998, and police surveillance of practitioners increased. Though it reported that Falun Gong "only benefits, and does no harm to the Politburo and the nation,"^[20] a circular was distributed to police offices throughout the country which labelled Falun Gong as a "sect."^[21] Falun Gong materials could no longer be published through official channels,^[27] and faced confiscation.^[21] Falun Gong documents that many of the agents involved in these investigations later started practicing Falun Gong.^[24]

On May 11, 1998, He Zuoxiu, a physicist from the Chinese Academy of Science and a "crusader" against supernatural and "unscientific thinking,"^[28] denounced Falun Gong in an interview on Beijing Television. The program showed a video of one of the practice sites, and called Falun a "feudalistic superstition." The station received letters of protest from Falun Gong practitioners, and some 2000 conducted silent sit-ins in front of its offices.^[22][20] He was met with the "unpleasant experience" of having half a dozen adherents "showed up at his residence, sat in his living room for three hours, arguing with him.^[22] Under pressure from the Central Government to end the protest at the station "at any cost",^[22] they succeeded in obtaining the dismissal of the reporter responsible for the story, a retraction, and a "eulogy" of Falun Gong.^[29][30].

On April 11, 1999, He Zuoxiu published an article in an obscure, small circulation journal^[29], Tianjin College of Education’s Youth Reader magazine, entitled "I Do Not Agree with Youth Practicing Qigong," which alleged that a post-graduate student in his institute had "two relapses of mental disorder" after practising Falun Gong. Practitioners considered the article an "inaccurate, even slanderous attack, unfairly maligning the practice."^[20] Noah Porter suggests that He's critiques may have been intentional provocation to Falun Gong practitioners.^[31] He complained of "endless phone calls" and harassment.^[26] However, the publication refused a right of reply to He's claims in this case, practitioners went to Tianjin College of Education and related governmental agencies to hold appeals from April 18 to April 24.^[31] Riot police were dispatched,^[20] scuffles broke out,^[29] practitioners were beaten and 45 were arrested according to at least one report.^[32][31] According to Schechter, practitioners were "shocked" at the "unfair treatment" and complained to local authorities, who told them that the imprisoned practitioners would only be released with central government approval.^[20]

Other academics and members of the scientific community, including the head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, came out to denounce Falun Gong.^[33] He Zuoxiu, brother-in-law of Luo Gan, one of the chief taskmasters of the persecution, is said to have "become a national hero" for opposing Falun Gong.^[34] According to The New York Times He Zuoxiu played an integral role in having Falun Gong banned.^[35] He told the Times that practitionters "should be hunted down and locked up until they have recanted their beliefs",^[35] and published a book entitled How Falun Gong Harassed Me and My Family, which described Falun Gong as a "heretical cult"--a term which subsequently appeared in government pamphlets.^[20] He also went on to found the China Anti-Cult Association, which spearheaded the campaign to vilify Falun Gong as an "evil cult."

Zhongnanhai demonstration and aftermath

Several days after the initial protests in Tianjin, on the morning of April 25, 1999, an estimated ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners and sympathisers surrounded the Zhongnanhai compound where top Chinese leaders both live and work. They stayed in silence for 12 hours, reading and meditating in the quest for legal recognition as a religion, redress against He Zuoxiu,^[29] the release of imprisoned practitioners, and protection of the practice. Premier Zhu Rongji, or perhaps only his secretary^[29], met with representatives and the crowd dispersed after the arrested practitioners were released.^[36]

The Asia Times speculated that Li Hongzhi arrived in Beijing on April 22 to finalize plans for the April demonstration.^[29] The authorities claimed that Li hurriedly left Beijing for Hong Kong at 1:30 p.m. on April 24, just prior to the demonstration, and that he stayed in Hong Kong until 10:15 p.m. on April 27.^[37]. Li maintains that he merely stopped off on transit to Australia and had no knowledge of the gathering. The authorities claimed that exercise points around Beijing had received notices for practitioners to go to Zhongnanhai for a large "group practice."^[37]. However, Li denies there was any organization: "one person would trigger another person's heart, and that's why everyone came... No one mobilized them..."^[38] A World Journal article contends that the Zhongnanhai demonstrations might have been organized in part by the government to "trump up charges against Falun Gong which it had observed and monitored for years through its infiltrators."^[39] Luo Gan had allegedly wanted the practice banned since 1996 but lacked the legal basis. Credited as the chief Communist organizer of the Zhongnanhai gathering, Luo is alleged to have had the police direct them there in order to create an incident that could later be held against Falun Gong.^[3] The practitioners are said by Schechter to have wanted to make a peaceful appeal at the citizens' appeal office, located at Fuyou street, near Zhongnanhai.^[20] However, pointing to high-ranking political figures which include PLA Generals and "many" members of China's National People's Congress amongst the influential tutors of Falun Gong network, the Wall Street Journal suggested this "powerful, highly disciplined network" organised the 10,000-strong demonstration.^[40] A 74-year-old retired general, Yu Changxin, was arrested for organising the gathering, and sentenced to 17 years in jail in January 2000.^[29]

The government was alarmed after the gathering of April 25 at the possibility of such a large number of people to amass so close to the seat of power without police intervention.^[29] According to some estimates, there were more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing at this time, and it was reported that the scale of practitioners' protest pointed to the Communist Party losing its grip on the people while it tinkered with political and economic reforms.^[32]

The suppression of Falun Gong may be directly related to political suspicions,^[29] and a generalized intolerance on the part of the Communist state to any group which shows dissent. Falun Gong's large body of supporters, proliferation of exercise sites across the world, and the presence of Li Hongzhi's religious writings on the internet filled with comments about health, demons, aliens, and other ideas diametrical to Communism, fit the profile of a challenge to the Party. In response, the Government embarked on a Stalinist/Maoist drive to neutralise the threat.^[16]

The Globe and Mail wrote that Beijing's "hysterical" reaction to a harmless religious movement exposes two unpleasant things about the regime: that "it is still by instinct a totalitarian regime, incapable of tolerating any competing loyalty... every group, from [the] chess club to army command, must come under the control of the Party, and any group that does not is a threat" and secondly that the Party suffers insecurity over its rule, and since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 "leaders have lived in mortal fear of the Chinese people. Only a deeply fearful regime would go into such a panic over a bunch of middle-aged people doing strange exercises in the park."^[41]

Ban and crackdown

On July 22, 1999, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) issued a statement banning Falun Gong:

In another commentary, Xinhua said that Falun Gong was opposed to the Party, and that "It preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition." They attempted to make the distinction between "ordinary core members" and the leaders, which it referred to as "a small number of behind-the-scenes plotters and organizers who harbor political intentions". It struck a warning-bell against some important Party officials who were Falun Gong practitioners.^[42] 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."^[43]

Li Hongzhi responded with a "Brief Statement of Mine" on July 22:

On June 10, 1999 the Party established the 6-10 Office, an extra-constitutional body charged with managing the persecution. Representatives are in every province, city, county, university, government department and state-owned business in China.^[32] In the Kilgour-Matas report, a Party official is quoted recounting that in 1999, the leaders of the 6-10 Office united more than 3,000 officials at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to discuss the campaign,^[48] which was “not going well,” with constant demonstrations and appeals in Tiananmen Square. Li Lanqing, then head of the 6-10 Office, is said to have verbally announced the Party's new policy on Falun Gong, "defaming their reputations, bankrupting them financially and destroying them physically".^[48] Kilgour and Matas contend that it was only after this meeting that practitioners' deaths at police hands were recorded as “suicides.”

On July 20, 1999, the crackdown officially began. Under orders from the Public Security Bureau, churches, temples, mosques, newspapers, media, courts and police were all quickly mobilized to follow the Party line to crush Falun Gong, “no measures too excessive.”^[6] Falun Gong was “condemned” in the media, with books shredded and videotapes bulldozed for TV cameras.^[5] Within days a “wave of arrests” swept across China. Falun Gong's four Beijing "arch-leaders" were arrested, given hasty trials and sentenced for between 8 and 18 years. The arrest of other Falun Gong "leaders" across the country began, police broke into the homes of hundreds and took them to prison during the middle of the night.^[31] By the end of 1999, practitioners were dying in custody,^[6] and by February 2000, 5,000 were detained across China.^[5]

The campaign began to lay ostensible emphasis on rule by law: a statute (article 300 of the Criminal Law) was passed by the National People’s Congress on October 30, 1999 with retrospective application to suppress thousands of "heterodox religions" across China,^[49] thus legitimising the persecution of Falun Gong and any other spiritual groups deemed "dangerous to the state."^[5]

Practitioners from around the country, many of them middle-aged women, kept streaming into Beijing to appeal. They would "court detention" by unfurling banners or meditating on Tiananmen Square, and be quickly bundled into waiting vans by police, "kicking, punching, dragging them by their clothes or their hair... knocking them over if they did not move quickly or if they tried to get away."^[8] Falun Gong attempted to ensure international media were on hand to record the juxtaposition of peaceful protest and violent response; they would draw attention to arrests and suspicious deaths in custody, issue media alerts, and post information on the internet.^[8]

Officials grew impatient with the constant flow of protesters into Beijing, and decided that “drastic measures were needed.” Johnson describes the framework set up by Beijing that led to killings.^[6] This was 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. A typical “study session” of police and government officials was held in Weifang; the central government's directive to limit protesters was read aloud, no questions were asked as to how it was to be achieved —“success was all that mattered.”^[6]

Officials further began to extort money from Falun Gong practitioners when the central government upped the ante and began penalising lower-level officials: 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. The fines were illegal, as no law or regulation had officially been issued. Johnson writes that 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.”^[6]

The Party used a variety of legal and extra-legal mechanisms to stamp out public practice and protest.^[8] Some work units would summarily fire people identified as practitioners. Job loss often meant lost housing, schooling, pensions, and a report to the police. Whereas places remote from Beijing once overlooked solitary exercise and meditation, restrictions were tightened in 2001 after the self-immolation incident, and this treatment spread across the country. If brought to the attention of police or Party officials, doing the Falun Gong exercises at home proved dangerous.^[8] Local officials would detain active practitioners and those unwilling to recant, and were expected to "make certain" that families and employers keep them isolated.^[8]

Falun Gong claims to have proof that over 3000 practitioners have died through torture or beating while in police or government custody.^[51]

Media and education campaign

A "Communists against Falun Gong" poster as part of the Chinese government's propaganda campaign. It reads "Firmly support the decision of the Central Committee to deal with the illegal organization of “Falun Gong”"

Since the nation-wide crackdown began, the state-controlled media repeatedly referred to Falun Gong as an "evil cult" spreading superstition. By July 30, Xinhua reported confiscations of over one million Falun Gong books and other materials, hundreds of thousands burned and destroyed.^[52]

Elizabeth J. Perry describes media reports inundating the evening news at the early stages of the crackdown: "For weeks... each night, pictures were broadcast of huge piles of Falun Gong materials that had been either voluntarily turned over by practitioners or confiscated in police raids on bookstores and publishing houses," including the People’s Liberation Army Press. "Some were disposed of in gigantic bonfires, others were recycled..." Media reports would focus on the testimonies of relatives of Falun Gong "victims", who would talk about the "terrible tragedies" that had befallen their loved ones; former practitioners would confess being "hoodwinked by Li Hongzhi and... expressing regret at their gullibility"; "happy pictures of those who had kicked the Falun Gong habit" and were now pursuing more benign pass-times were broadcast; physical education instructors suggested healthy alternatives to Falun Gong practice, including badminton, ballroom dancing, bowling. 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."^[53]

Falun Gong was branded as part of an "anti-China international movement," according to CNN's Willy Lam.^[17] In a throw-back to the Cultural Revolution, the Party organised rallies in the streets and stop-work meetings in remote western provinces by irrelevant 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."^[17]

Circulars were issued to women's and youth organisations encouraging support for the crackdown. Both the Youth League and the All-China Women's Federation trumpeted the greater use of science education to combat "feudalistic superstition." Xinhua would report speeches of Youth League officials: "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".^[54] 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"^[54] After having "earnestly studied" Jiang's speeches on Falun Gong, the PLA also recognised 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."^[55]

The campaign entered educational institutions, with anti-Falun Gong propaganda incorporated into high-school and primary school textbooks.^[56] WOIPFG claimed that students who practiced Falun Gong were barred from schools and universities and from sitting exams; a policy of "guilt by association" was adopted, such that direct family members of known practitioners were also denied entry; schoolchildren were taught anti-Falun Gong poems;^[57] anti-Falun Gong petitions were organised on a mass scale;^[8] university professors, lecturers and students who refused to renounce or denounce Falun Gong were expelled and faced consequences such as arrest, forced labour, rape, and torture, sometimes resulting in death; students were forced to watch videos or attend seminars attacking Falun Gong;^[8] defaming banners and posters were placed around schools and universities, reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution;^[8][58] viewing Falun Gong websites could result in arrest; examinations contained questions with anti-Falun Gong contents--incorrect answers would result in reportedly violent repercussions.^[56]

According to The Washington Post, neighborhood officials compelled the elderly, people with disabilities, and the ill to attend the classes denouncing Falun Gong; universities sent staff to find students who had dropped out or been expelled for practicing Falun Gong and brought them back for the brainwashing sessions; others were forced to leave sick relatives to go to class.^[59]

The Post reported the story of a Beijing university student, Alex Hsu, who was kidnapped on his way to a computer lab. It was reported that they drove him to a hotel near a labour camp, where 20 other practitioners were detained, including students, teachers, university staff and retired professors. At the hotel three former practitioners still detained at the camp tried to persuade him to abandon Falun Gong for 12 hours a day.^[59] The Post reports that later, more 'teachers' joined the table, “analyzing the writings of Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi and refusing to let Hsu rest.” They report Hsu saying "It was mental torture... The pressure just kept growing ... And the threat was always there. You could see these people all had suffered, and you knew what would happen to you if you didn't give in too."^[59] The Post reported that practitioners are forced to remain in the classes until they renounce their beliefs, in writing, and then on videotape. They report Hsu saying, "It was very painful. They forced us to lie. We knew Falun Gong is good, but they forced us to say it was evil."^[59] Hsu wept after giving in, and later dropped out of school and went into hiding. “Those who refuse to submit in the classes are sent to the labor camps, where members face a more systematic regime of violence than in the past, according to practitioners and government sources. On average, the government adviser said, most people abandon Falun Gong after 10 to 12 days of classes, but some resist for as long as 20.”^[59]

Anne-Marie Brady of the University of Cantebury gives Falun Gong as an example of the CCP's use of new technologies as propaganda tools. "If you do a web search in China using Chinese Google on Falun Gong, all that you'll get is all the government sites." She says that relevant western companies doing business in China need to participate in this censoring system.^[60] According to James Mulvenon of the Rand Corporation, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security uses cyber-warfare to attack Falun Gong websites in the United States,^[61] Australia, Canada and England. He also concurs that the CCP blocks access to internet resources about the topic in China.^[7][62]

In July 2001, as part of House Concurrent Resolution 188, the U.S. House of Representatives denounced the "notorious" '6-10' offices which oversees the persecution through "organized brainwashing, torture and murder", and stated that propaganda from state-controlled media "inundated the public in an attempt to breed hatred and discrimination." The Resolution was passed by a 420:0 vote, calling on China to "cease its persecution and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States; to release from detention all Falun Gong practitioners and put an end to the practices of torture and other cruel, inhumane treatment against them and to abide by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights"^[63]

The 'cult' label

See further: Falun Gong and the anticult movement

The authorities claimed that the practice exploited spiritual cultivation to engage in seditious politics. In exposés such as "Falun Gong is a Cult",^[25] "Exposing the Lies of the 'Falun Gong' Cult", and "Cult of Evil", the Party alleged that Falun Gong engaged in mind control and manipulation via "lies and fallacies," causing "needless deaths of large numbers of practitioners." State media claimed over 1,000 deaths because practitioners followed Li's teachings and refused to seek medical treatment for their illnesses; several hundred practitioners had cut their stomachs open "looking for the Dharma Wheel" or committed suicide; over 30 innocent people had been killed by "mentally deranged practitioners of Falun Gong."^[64]

Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal, and Pulitzer Prize winner in 2001 for his writing on the plight of Falun Gong practitioners, was skeptical: the "victims" were never allowed to be interviewed independently, making their claims "almost impossible to verify"; the number of supposed mentally disturbed Falun Gong adherents was never properly correlated to a general sample of the populace; during the greatest period of Falun Gong merchandise sales in China, Li Hongzhi received no royalties because all publications were bootleg; and fundamentally, "the group didn't meet many common definitions of a cult,"^[6] since Falun Gong practitioners do not live isolated from society; they marry outside the group; they have non-practitioner friends; they hold normal jobs; they do not believe that "the world's end is imminent"; they do not give over large amounts of money for Falun Gong, and most importantly, they believe that "suicide is not accepted, nor is physical violence."^[6]

Johnson writes that declaring Falun Gong a cult was the most "brilliant" move: the Party quickly erected websites with "overnight experts" likening Li Hongzhi to Jim Jones or L. Ron Hubbard, effectively putting Falun Gong on the defensive, cloaking the crackdown with the "legitimacy of the West's anti-cult movement," forcing practitioners to prove their innocence.^[6] 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."^[6]

Julia Ching opines that calling Falun Gong an "evil cult" after the crackdown had already begun made previous arrests and imprisonments constitutional. She states that "evil cult" was defined by an atheist government "on political premises, not by any religious authority" , and that the pronouncement was made without defining what a good cult, or a good religion would be.^[3]

Bryan Edelman and James T. Richardson stated that "Over the years, the CCP has also become more sensitive to international criticisms concerning China's human rights record. In this context, the anti-cult movement and its ideology have served as useful tools, helping efforts by the party to try to maintain a delicate balance and create the illusion that the rule-of-law has been upheld, even as actions in violation of international customary law are being taken against the Falun Gong. The social construction of the cultic threat posed to Chinese society and the rest of the world, the subsequent government's response to that threat, and its lax definition of the term 'cult" has armed the CCP with the weapons necessary to attack any religious, qigong, or sectarian movement its sees as a potential threat to its authority. By applying the label and embracing theories that posit passive followers under the mental control of a dangerous leader, the government can aggressively destroy the group, all the while claiming to be protecting religious freedom. In this respect, the Western Anti-Cult Movement has served, unwittingly or not, as a lackey in the party's efforts to maintain its political dominance." ^[65]

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

Main article: Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

On the eve of Chinese New Year, January 23, 2001, seven people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. Footage was broadcast nationally in the People's Republic by China Central Television (CCTV). Western news organizations disseminated the story as given by Xinhua, without the possibility of verifying it independently, given the tight state censorship.

CCTV image of one of the self-immolators at the scene

According to Time, the Government's media war against Falun Gong gained significant traction following the act. The six-month campaign successfully portrayed Falun Gong as an "evil cult" which could unhinge its followers.^[66] Repeated broadcasts of images of a girl’s burning body, and of interviews with the other practitioners declaring self-immolation would lead them to paradise convinced many Chinese that Falun Gong was an evil cult.^[67] The campaign is thought to be the government's first effort to gain public support for the crackdown of Falun Gong, and is "reminiscent of communist political movements -- from the 1950-53 Korean War to the radical Cultural Revolution in the 1960s."^[68]

Falun Gong disputes whether the protagonists were practitioners in reality. The state-owned broadcaster claimed the self-immolators as Falun Gong practitioners.^[69] A Time magazine article suggested that it was possible for misguided practitioners to have taken it upon themselves to demonstrate in this manner, handing a propaganda opportunity to the Chinese authorities.^[66] Falun Gong headquarters in New York emphasised that its teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing.^[70] Falun Gong and some third-party commentators claim that the event was staged by the Chinese government in order to build public support for the "persecution" of the group^[70][69] and turn public opinion against the practice.^{[citation needed]}

Reeducation through forced labor

According to the Ministry of Public Security, "reform through compulsory education" is an administrative measure imposed on those guilty of committing minor offences, but who are not legally considered criminals.^[8] In late 2000, the Party began to use this method of punishment widely against Falun Gong practitioners in the hope of permanently "transforming recidivists," who would often be immediately sentenced to reeducation for up to three years.^[8] Terms can be extended by police. Practitioners may have ambiguous charges levied against them, such as "disrupting social order," "endangering national security," or "subverting the socialist system."^[71] Up to 99% of long term Falun Gong detainees are processed administratively through this system, and do not enter the formal criminal justice system.^[71] Outside access is not given to the camps, and conditions are reported to be poor. Prisoners are forced to do heavy work in mines, brick factories, and agriculture. Beatings, interrogations, inadequate food rations, and other human rights abuses take place.^[8] A figure from 2004 sets the number of Falun Gong deaths in these institutions at 700.^[71]

There are estimates of up to 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners having been sentenced administratively to reeducation from the beginning of the crackdown,^[8] and that at least half of the 250,000 total recorded inmates in China's reeducation camps are Falun Gong practitioners.^[12] Upon completion of their reeducation sentences, practitioners are sometimes then incarcerated in "legal education centers," another form of administrative punishment^[12] set up by provincial authorities to "educate and transform the minds of Falun Gong practitioners."^[8] 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."^[8]

Torture

Falun Gong, independent human rights organisations and other NGOs monitoring the treatment of Falun Gong by the Chinese government have published allegations of torture or mistreatment. Falun Gong has documented 44,000 cases of alleged torture which have resulted in 2,804 deaths. Since 2000, the Special Rapporteur to the United Nations reported 314 cases of alleged 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.^[11] The US State Department cites estimates that practitioners may account for half of the labour camp population.^[12]

In its "United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong" (2004),^[72] Falun Gong alleges numerous cases of extreme torture, accompanied by testimonies, sometimes resulting in impaired mental, sensory, physiological and speech faculties, mental trauma, paralysis, or death. Over 100 forms of torture are purported used, including shocks, stress positions, branding, force-feeding, sexual abuse, with multiple variations on each type.^[73] The main purpose of the torture is ostensibly to have Falun Gong practitioners renounce or denounce the practice and the founder, Li Hongzhi. Kilgour and Matas also accused China of torturing prisoners to obtain their consent to have their organs removed for transplant.^[74] The Special Rapporteur refers to the torture scenarios as "harrowing" and writes that "The cruelty and brutality of these alleged acts... defy description."^[75]

John Pomfret and Philip P. Pan wrote in the Washington Post that the Party gained the upper hand on its protracted battle against Falun Gong by expanding its “use of torture and high-pressure indoctrination.”^[59] They report that, according to sources, in 2001, after a year and a half of difficulty in suppressing the practice, “the government for the first time this year sanctioned the systematic use of violence against the group, established a network of brainwashing classes and embarked on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by neighborhood and workplace by workplace.” They repeat the reports of practitioners being beaten, shocked with electric truncheons, and being “forced to undergo unbearable physical pressure, such as squating on the floor for days at a time... Many adherents are also sent to intensive classes where the teachings of Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi are picked apart by former believers, sometimes friends who have already been tortured into submission.”^[59]

They cite three main ingredients, according to a party apparatchick: violence, a high-pressure propaganda campaign, and brainwashing classes. "Each aspect of the campaign is critical," the Post reports their source saying, "Pure violence doesn't work. Just studying doesn't work either. And none of it would be working if the propaganda hadn't started to change the way the general public thinks. You need all three. That's what they've figured out."^[59]

They write that some local governments had tried brainwashing classes before, but only in January of 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.”^[59] Pomfret and Pan write that no practitioner was to be spared, and that according to their source the most active are sent directly to labour camps, “where they are first 'broken' by beatings and other torture.”^[59]

The Post reported the story of James Ouyang, who was arrested for the second time protesting in Tiananmen Square. After he was arrested, “police methodically reduced him to an 'obedient thing' over 10 days of torture ... Ouyang was stripped and interrogated for five hours. 'If I responded incorrectly, that is if I didn't say, 'Yes,' they shocked me with the electric truncheon,' he said.”^[59] After he was put in a labor camp in west Beijing, the Post reported, “the guards ordered him to stand facing a wall. If he moved, they shocked him. If he fell down from fatigue, they shocked him ... By the sixth day, Ouyang said, he couldn't see straight from staring at plaster three inches from his face. His knees buckled, prompting more shocks and beatings.”^[59] Eventually he gave in to the guards demands, and denounced Falun Gong shouting into the wall, “Officers continued to shock him about the body and he soiled himself regularly. Finally, on the 10th day, Ouyang's repudiation of the group was deemed sufficiently sincere. He was taken before a group of Falun Gong inmates and rejected the group one more time as a video camera rolled.”^[59] They report that he left jail and then entered brainwashing classes, “Twenty days later after debating Falun Gong for 16 hours a day, he 'graduated.'”

Amnesty International believes Falun Gong figures overstate the toll,^[7] but commented that independent verification would be impossible.^[7] Similarly, Human Rights Watch commented that most of the information available to it are from either official Chinese government or Falun Gong sources, both of which obviously have an interest in releasing data that supports their respective claims. "There is no sure way of checking the information from either source, making it impossible to fully assess competing claims about the numbers of judicial sentences, reeducation through labor terms, deaths in custody, and so on. "^[8]

Chinaview, an independent website focused on human rights abuses in China, reveals that the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp was the first to begin force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement in the summer of 2003, and that “…the Chinese government awarded them for this innovation, and sent labour camp staff from around the country to learn this procedure.”^[76]

Association for Asian Research reports that victims in the Dalian Labor Camp were tied up in a spread-eagle position as torturers repeatedly thrust foreign objects (toilet and shoe brushes, and long rods) into their vaginas.^[77]

Amnesty International's "Falun Gong Persecution Factsheet" lists sexual abuse among the forms of torture Falun Gong practitioners are subject to.^[78]

Gao Zhisheng, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, in his third open letter to the Beijing leadership stated his shock of the "unbelievable brutality, ...the immoral acts ...of 6-10 Office staff and the police. Almost every woman's genitals and breasts or every man's genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar fashion. Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were first stripped naked before any torture."^[79]

Psychiatric abuse

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article. (Discuss)

Soon after the onset of the persecution, Falun Gong and human rights observers began reporting widespread psychiatric abuse of mentally-healthy practitioners. 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.^[80] The Chinese government states that there had already been a sharp increase of practitioner detentions in psychiatric facilities since 1992, and that all remedial actions have been taken in accordance with the law. The World Psychiatric Association disputes claims of systematic psychiatric abuses, but is prepared to believe some abuse is merely due to "lack of training and professional skills of some psychiatrists".

Political abuse of psychiatry

Robin J. Munro was the first clinician to draw worldwide attention to the abuses of forensic psychiatry in China in general, and of Falun Gong practitioners in particular.^[81] Munro says that large-scale psychiatric abuses are the most distinctive aspect of the government’s protracted campaign to "crush the Falun Gong."

Sunny Y. Lu and Viviana B. Galli credit Jiang Zemin with reversing the declining trend of using mental hospitals as places of government-directed torture in China, as part of what they see as a comprehensive and brutal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. They draw comparison with political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet Union aimed at dissidents and nonconformists, but said that Falun Gong practitioners were "neither political nor nonconformists."^[81]

Lu and Galli assert that the authorities, and sometimes family members, began forcing sane Falun Gong practitioners into psychiatric facilities not long after the crackdown began. In cases where hospitals expressed reluctance to admit mentally healthy persons, the government would apply pressure through police. Without formal legal procedures for commitment, local police officers and members of the 6-10 Office arbitrarily commit Falun Gong practitioners to psychiatric institutions, with lengths of detention ranging from days to years. Lu and Galli state that “the perversion of mental health facilities for the purpose of the torture of Falun Gong practitioners is widespread”; the targets are from all tiers of society, including physicians, nurses, judges, military personnel, police officers and school teachers.^[81]Their crimes were practising Falun Gong, passing out flyers against the persecution, appealing and petitioning to the government, and refusing to renounce the practice. Diagnoses may include obsessive-compulsive disorder, “mental problems induced by superstition,” or “qigong-induced mental disorder.” The authorities also newly coined the “evil cult-induced mental disorder” (邪教所致精神障碍) --which Munro describes as a “politically opportunistic... hyperdiagnosis", and a throwback to the model found in Soviet forensic psychiatry. The Chinese government is effectively warning that “Spiritual or religious beliefs banned on political grounds can drive people mad.”^[82]

Munro writes that detained 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.^[82] 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. Effects of this treatment, including drug or chemical toxicity, are loss of memory, migraines, extreme weakness, protrusion of the tongue, rigidity, loss of consciousness, vomiting, nausea and seizures.^[81]

Lu and Galli claimed that the Chinese government uses extreme measures to prevent investigation of the alleged abuses: threats, bribes, summary cremation of victims' bodies, arbitrary detention of potential whistleblowers, censorship of the internet, restricted access for western media and humanitarian organisations, and detention, harassment, deportation of journalist or revoking their licenses etc.^[81]

The Washington Post repeated the reports of psychiatric abuses: "The old Soviet Union pioneered the misuse of psychiatry against political dissidents; China has followed suit..." The Post recounts the story of 32-year-old computer engineer Su Gang as "dramatic". Su had been repeatedly detained by the security department of his workplace for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. Following a protest trip to the capital, on May 23, 2000 his employer, a state-run petrochemical company, authorized the police to "drag him off to a mental hospital." According to his father, doctors injected Mr. Su twice a day with an unknown substance. "When Mr. Su emerged a week later, he could not eat or move his limbs normally. On June 10, the previously healthy young man died of heart failure."^[83]

Defence of the authorities' actions

Ji Shi cites doctors at the Beijing University of Medical Science saying that "since 1992 the number of patients with psychiatric disorders caused by practicing Falun Gong accounted for 10.2 percent of all patients suffering from mental disorders caused by practicing various qigong exercises", and that the figure had risen to 42.1% by the first half of 1999.^[84]. In 2000, state-media reported that “The cult has led to more than 650 cases of psychological disorder, with 11 practitioners becoming homicides and 144 others physically disabled.”^[85] The government's claims of admitting individuals psychologically disturbed from Falun Gong practice is dismissed by certain human rights law and psychiatry experts.

Munro says he is surprised by the "remarkable" rise in numbers of admissions of Falun Gong practitioners to psychiatric facilities (after Ji Shi) considering Falun Gong did not even exist before 1992; the 1999 assertion of an official spokesman that Falun Gong represented 30% of all mental patients in China^[84] Munro calls "absurd." He brings attention to the coincidence between the reportedly very sizeable increase in Falun Gong admissions to mental hospitals, and the fact that it was during this same period when the government began preparing its nationwide public crackdown. He remarks that this was "deemed unworthy of mention" by Chinese authorities in their publications.^[82]

Some third party commentators sympathise with the Chinese government's perspective and actions. Dr. Sing Lee from Harvard Medical School studied the practice of psychiatry in China in 1997, and cites one case of a 54-year-old housewife who had practiced Falun Gong for two years, and was apparently "[enthralled by]... the trance state and the spontaneous bodily movement that the practice brought" which she could not control

Lee and Arthur Kleinman M.D., a professor of medical anthropology and psychiatry at Harvard University, wrote a series of articles challenging Munro for use of indirect and unconfirmed accounts, allegations and reports from human rights groups "with their own axes to grind," and from Falun Gong, which is "engaged in a nasty political struggle with the Chinese state."^[86] They state that regular prisons would be much cheaper to detain Falun Gong practitioners in, and disagree that the Chinese government would use mental hospitals for reasons of ‘self-justificatory vanity’ and ‘international prestige’.^[86] They also deny that the modern Chinese psychiatric profession has become implicated in the Communist Party’s political agenda.^[86] Lee and Kleinman accused Munro of “…creating a witch hunt that attributed to the profession as a whole the misuses and abuses of what may well turn out to be only a small number of practitioners.”^[86]

In 2002, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) scheduled an investigation with the involvement of the Chinese Society of Psychiatrists' (CSP) to examine alleged abuses of Falun Gong practitioners who were sent to Chinese psychiatric hospitals and clinics as punishment. In April, several days before it was to start, the investigation was postponed indefinitely, at the Chinese government's insistence.^[87]

In August 2004, the WPA endorsed the CSP's explanation that there were unwitting abuses of human rights. "[I]nstances in which some Chinese psychiatrists failed to distinguish between spiritual-cultural beliefs and delusions, as a result of which persons were misdiagnosed and mistreated" were due to "lack of training and professional skills of some psychiatrists rather than [to] systematic abuse of psychiatry." Dr. Alan A. Stone, professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard and a member of the WPA delegation, concurred, adding that if Falun Gong practitioners had been misdiagnosed and mistreated in psychiatric hospitals across China.... "it was not because orders came down from the Ministry of Health or Security in Beijing. Nor is there any evidence that an influential group of forensic psychiatrists carried out this psychiatric suppression of the Falun Gong in the secure Ankang mental hospitals."^[88] Kleinman contends that Falun Gong's allegations were "exaggerated and distorted"; he maintains that many Falun Gong adherents had obvious symptoms of psychosis, "and were put in psychiatric hospitals for good reasons".^[87]

Friends of Falun Gong (FoFG) board member Dr. Abraham Halpern criticised this view. "The allegations of psychiatric abuse in China involve mistreatment, torture, and fraudulent diagnoses in the case of large numbers of political dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners and should not be dismissed as mere `failures in accurate diagnosis.'"

Munro maintains that the four Falun Gong case he selected were typical of the “several hundred such accounts that have so far been compiled and published by the Falun Gong,”^[89] and that "[i]ndependent investigations by foreign journalists… have confirmed the Falun Gong’s version of events in the cases that have been examined."^[89] He responds to Lee and Kleinman's doubts by saying that they, in their own published work, relied on the very same documentation, drawn from facts, commentary, and decades of survey material written and compiled by Chinese psychiatrists and law-enforcement officers published in China’s officially authorized professional literature on psychiatry and the law. He opines that since they do not make any substantive rebuttal of his evidence, they must have no answer to it.^[89]

Munro contends that decades-long political abuse of psychiatry by the Party, directly preceding the section on Falun Gong, transfers the burden of proof "squarely back onto the Chinese authorities."^[89]

Organ harvesting

Main article: Falun Gong and live organ harvesting

In March 2006, allegations were made in the Epoch Times of organ harvesting on living Falun Gong practitioners at the China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center, a Chinese joint-venture company in Sujiatun, Shenyang co-owned by Country Heights Health Sanctuary of Malaysia, and subject to oversight in Liaoning province. According to two witnesses, internal organs of living Falun Gong practitioners have been harvested and sold, and the bodies have been cremated in the hospital's boiler room. The witnesses further allege that no prisoner has come out of the centre alive, and that six thousand practitioners have been held captive at the hospital since 2001, two-thirds of whom have died to date.

Dissident Harry Wu, who immediately sent in investigators, said that the allegations were just heresay from two witnesses.^[90] On April 14, 2006, the United States Department of State reported the findings of its investigation, stating that: "U.S. representatives have found no evidence to support allegations that [Sujiatun] has been used as a concentration camp to jail Falun Gong practitioners and harvest their organs."^[91]

The Chinese Government accused Falun Gong for fabricating the "Sujiatun concentration camp" issue, reiterating that as a WHO Member State, China resolutely abided by the WHO 1991 Guiding Principles on Human Organ Transplants and strictly forbids the sale of human organs. It added that Sujiatun District government carried out an investigation at the hospital and invited local and foreign media, including NHK and Phoenix Satellite Network; and two visits were paid by US consular personnel, who confirmed that the hospital was completely incapable of housing more than 6,000 persons; there was no basement for incarcerating practitioners, as alleged; there was simply no way to cremate corpses in secret, continuously, and in large volumes in the hospital's boiler/furnace room.

In July 2006, David Kilgour and David Matas, human rights lawyers, concluded an investigation on behalf of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG).^[49] Their report gave credence to the allegations of China's harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners. The Christian Science Monitor states that the report's evidence is circumstantial, but persuasive.^[92] The conclusion of the report has been questioned, but according to David Matas has "not been refuted."^[93]

A Congressional Research Service report says that the report "does not bring forth new or independently-obtained testimony and relies largely upon the making of logical inferences". The principal allegations "appear to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations".^[49] the conclusions therein remain lacking in universal acceptance.^[94]

On August 11, 2006, three UN Special Rapporteurs had sent an urgent appeal on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. This was a joint action by the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir and the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Sigma Huda.^{[citation needed]}

Response from Falun Gong

See further: Falun Gong outside the People's Republic of China

Falun Gong groups outside of China responded to the crackdown by making films such as the anti-CCP "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party", and initiating a world-wide "Three Renunciations" Campaign, which was hosted by The Epoch Times. Since it began on Dec 3, 2004, over 22 million members of the Communist Party of China and its subordinate organizations (the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers of China) are alleged by Epoch Times to have resigned as at May 21, 2007. However, due to its anonymous nature of renunciations the figure cannot be verified.

The link between the Three Renunciations and Falun Gong is disputed, since the existence of Buddha and the Christian God is not mentioned in Falun Gong teachings. However, Fei Liangyong, Chairman of the Democratic China Front and senior member of Chinese Free Culture Movement, explicitly mentioned that the Three Renunciations campaign was indeed initiated by Falun Gong via its associated media in his speeches and his various interviews with Falun Gong related media.^[95]

Practitioners have been able to interfere with state televised broadcasts, but often with consequences: in March 2002, 15 Falun Gong practitioners hijacked a state-run cable TV station in Changchun and broadcast around 40 minutes of pro-Falun Gong material.^[96] Liu Chengjun, named as the instigator, was sentenced to 19 years in prison. He was allegedly tortured to death after 21 months in Jilin Prison, and his body cremated without autopsy.^[97].

In June 2002, Falun Gong tapped into transmissions of China's central and provincial networks via Sinosat, interrupting the final of the Football World Cup;^[98] the head of the state radio and television administration was reportedly so alarmed that he slept in his office to prevent recurrence.^[99] In September, Sinosat was reportedly twice hijacked, and Falun Gong feeds were transmitted. It was further claimed the hacked signals originated from "Taiwan province",^[100][101] and that hackers used instructions posted on Minghui.^[102] The authorities alleged that the September 9 interception seriously damaged the rights of 20,000 students across the country receiving long-distance CETV [education] broadcasts; on September 21, a "hijacking marathon" interrupted Mid-Autumn Festival programming from 19:00.^[103] In November 2004, a Hong Kong satellite broadcasting into China was hacked into, and pro-Falun Gong material reached the feeds of two stations, but no-one claimed responsibility.^[104]

Legal action

Chinese officials alleged to have taken part in human rights abuses against practitioners have become targets of legal action when they step upon foreign soil. Targets have included Jiang Zemin,^[105] trade minister Bo Xilai,^[106], Vice Premier Li Lanqing, Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng^[107] and Luo Gan.^[108] The PRC has complained about a conspiracy to sue Zhao Zhifei, head of the PSB in Hubei province, when he visited the US in mid-July 2001. Charges include genocide^[109] and torture. Since 2001, there have been in excess of 70 legal cases launched by Falun Gong practitioners or sympathisers against the Government of the People's Republic of China, its leaders, and other officers.^[110]

• An Overview of Legal Cases Filed by Falun Gong Practitioners Around the World

References

External links

• World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong
• Poisonous Deceit ISBN 0-9731181-0-5 © 2002, Deep Six Publishing
• Articles on the Falun Gong, Pulitzer Prize winner Ian Johnson, 2001, Wall Street Journal