As Big Changes Happen in China, People Increasingly Admire Falun Gong

In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched a violent persecution against the 70 to 100 million Chinese citizens who practiced Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese meditation discipline for improving the mind and body.

In an attempt to justify torturing and killing these peaceful meditators, the Party began to use China’s state-run media to spread false propaganda against Falun Gong. Many Chinese believed the lies, and some even helped persecute their fellow citizens because of it.

Now, however, more and more Chinese people are realizing that the propaganda is fabricated and was created to cover up one of the harshest persecutions in history.

Minghui.org, a human rights website that documents the persecution, recently reported that many people in China are changing their attitudes and supporting Falun Gong.

For 16 years, Falun Gong practitioners in China and worldwide have worked hard to raise awareness of the situation and try to stop the persecution, and their efforts have slowly but surely paid off.

Recently, they have also begun to file criminal complaints against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin, who started the persecution. Even many police officers who have persecuted practitioners are now supporting and encouraging these lawsuits, Minghui.org reported.

According to Minghui, one officer told a practitioner, “I admire your courage.”

Chinese courts have been accepting the lawsuits, and although some plaintiffs have been arrested or harassed, the large majority have not, Minghui.org reported, according to an Epoch Times article in July.

“Even just a year ago this was unheard of. This is big change with wide-reaching ramifications,” Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Erping Zhang said in a statement, according to Epoch Times.

Why did Jiang launch the oppression in the first place? According to Minghui.org, it is partly because Falun Gong’s principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance are vastly different from the communist ideology of class struggle and violence.

Jiang became paranoid, perceiving this large group of meditators as a potential threat to his power. In a futile attempt to wipe them out, he utilized the entire Party to arrest and torture Falun Gong practitioners across China.

Falun Gong not only survived, but also continued to spread around the world as people in other countries learned of its physical and mental health benefits.

In China, meanwhile, over 213 million citizens have withdrawn from the Party, according to Tuidang.org, the website that keeps track of their statements of withdrawal.

These people quit the Party to show that they don’t support its violence and to avoid being held responsible for its crimes in the future.

Sources: http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2015/9/2/152357.html

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2015/8/30/152318.html

http://en.tuidang.org/

http://en.minghui.org/cc/3/

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2015/9/12/152498.htm

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1609346-anniversary-of-falun-gong-persecution-sees-wave-of-lawsuits-against-main-persecutor/