The Secret the Chinese Regime Has Been Trying to Keep From You for 18 Years

Since 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been desperately trying to hide the fact that it is carrying out a campaign of mass imprisonment, torture, harassment, and killing against millions of its own citizens who practice Falun Gong meditation.

Information about this human rights crime has leaked out over the years. However, the issue is still largely ignored by major media outlets. This is mainly due to the CCP’s efforts to keep the story from spreading (more about that later).

As is typical of communist regimes, the CCP has persecuted many groups of people over the decades, from landlords to Christians.

The book Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party states: “Since 1949, the CCP has persecuted more than half the people in China. An estimated 60 million to 80 million people died from unnatural causes. This number exceeds the total number of deaths in both World Wars combined.”

Practitioners of the Falun Gong meditation discipline are among the latest victims. Falun Gong practitioners strive to follow truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance in their daily lives, and they practice meditation and exercises that improve mental and physical wellness.

CCP officials have long used persecution campaigns to gain political power. In this case, it was Jiang Zemin, then the leader of the CCP, who launched the persecution against Falun Gong because he feared losing popularity. Tens of millions of people were practicing Falun Gong in China by 1999, and they outnumbered CCP members.

After the violent campaign began, Jiang needed a way to disguise it, both from China’s own citizens and from the rest of the world. The CCP controls the news media in China, so the media began to publish propaganda slandering Falun Gong.

Actors were recruited to pose as Falun Gong practitioners and commit violent acts in public in an attempt to ruin the reputation of Falun Gong. Even today, there are Chinese people who believe that seven Falun Gong practitioners once lit themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. In fact, this misunderstanding comes from a hoax video created by the CCP, which has since been debunked through close analysis (see falsefire.com).

The goal of the propaganda was to cause Chinese citizens to support the imprisonment of practitioners. In addition, the citizens would be less likely to listen to or believe practitioners who tried to explain what was really happening.

Many news media in other countries repeated what they had heard from the CCP’s propaganda, not having any other source of information about Falun Gong.

Those that could have reported the true situation were threatened or otherwise coerced by the Party into keeping quiet. Thus, 18 years later, many people in the international community still don’t know about the horrific persecution taking place in China.

Speaking Out

Outside China, Falun Gong is practiced without fear of persecution. Practitioners in other countries raise awareness by holding parades and rallies, posting on social media, creating YouTube videos, setting up Falun Gong information booths at festivals, and freely talking to people about it.

As a result of their efforts, governments have begun to speak up against the persecution. In 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.Res.343 condemning one of the most heinous crimes committed in the persecution—killing practitioners on demand in order to sell their vital organs for transplant.

In China, raising awareness involves risking life and liberty.

In one notable act of heroism, in March 2002, practitioners in the city of Changchun in northeastern China tapped into a cable TV network and broadcast a video discussing the persecution. For 45 minutes, thousands of viewers could sit in front of their TV sets and watch the true picture unfold before them.

The practitioners involved in this event were hunted down, captured, tortured, and killed.

Chinese people have not all turned a deaf ear to practitioners. Millions have quit the CCP in protest against the persecution. According to tuidang.org, over 280 million people have quit the CCP to date.

Sources:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-resolution/343

http://www.ninecommentaries.com/english-7

http://www.filmsforfreedom.com/falungong/

http://en.tuidang.org/