Persecution of Falun Gong
The persecution of Falun Gong is the campaign initiated in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party to eliminate the new religious movement Falun Gong in China, maintaining a doctrine of state atheism. It is characterized by a multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education and reportedly a variety of extralegal coercive measures such as arbitrary arrests, forced labor and physical torture, sometimes resulting in death.
Falun Gong was founded by its leader, China-born Li Hongzhi, who introduced it to the public in May 1992 in Changchun, Jilin. Li Hongzhi currently lives near Dragon Springs in Deerpark, New York, where Falun Gong's global headquarters are. Falun Gong combines meditation, qigong exercises, and moral teachings rooted in Buddhist and Taoist traditions. Following a period of rapid growth in the 1990s, the CCP launched a campaign to "eradicate" Falun Gong on 20 July 1999.
The Chinese government had alleged that Falun Gong was an "evil cult" or "heretical sect" and had used that official rationale to justify to ban and eliminate the movement. An extra-constitutional body called the 6-10 Office was created to lead the persecution of Falun Gong. The authorities mobilized the state media apparatus, judiciary, police, army, the education system, families and workplaces against the group. The campaign was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and the Internet. There are reports of systematic torture, illegal imprisonment, forced labor, organ harvesting and abusive psychiatric measures, with the apparent aim of forcing practitioners to recant their belief in Falun Gong.
Reports from the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China and State Department include estimates that hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in "re-education through labor" camps, prisons and other detention facilities for refusing to renounce the spiritual practice. Former prisoners have reported that Falun Gong practitioners consistently received "the longest sentences and worst treatment" in labor camps, and in some facilities Falun Gong practitioners formed the substantial majority of detainees., at least 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners had been reportedly tortured to death in the persecution campaign. Some international observers and judicial authorities have described the campaign against Falun Gong as a genocide. In 2009, courts in Spain and Argentina indicted senior Chinese officials for genocide and crimes against humanity for their role in orchestrating the suppression of Falun Gong.
In 2006, allegations emerged that many Falun Gong practitioners had been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry. An initial investigation found that "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners". Ethan Gutmann estimates 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008. Following additional analysis, the researchers significantly raised the estimates on the number of Falun Gong practitioners who may have been targeted for organ harvesting. In 2008, United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated their requests for "the Chinese government to fully explain the allegation of taking vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants that has been going on in China since the year 2000".
Background
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a new religious movement that combines meditation, qigong energy exercises, and moral guidance rooted in Buddhist and Taoist traditions. Falun Gong is based around the teachings of its founder and leader: China-born Li Hongzhi. According to NBC News, to his followers, Li is "a God-like figure who can levitate, walk through walls and see into the future. His ultra-conservative and controversial teachings include a rejection of modern science, art and medicine, and a denunciation of homosexuality, feminism and general worldliness." Hongzhi instructs his followers to not talk about "Falun Gong's inner teachings" when talking to outsiders, contradictory to his teachings about "Truthfulness".The practice of Falun Gong was first taught publicly by Li in Northeast China in the spring of 1992, towards the end of China's "qigong boom". Falun Gong initially enjoyed considerable official support during the early years of its development. It was promoted by the state-run Qigong Association and other government agencies. By the mid-1990s, however, Chinese authorities sought to rein in the influence of qigong practices and enacted more stringent requirements on the country's various qigong denominations. In 1995 authorities mandated that all qigong groups establish Communist Party branches. The government also sought to formalize ties with Falun Gong and exercise greater control over the practice. Falun Gong resisted co-optation, and instead filed to withdraw altogether from the state-run qigong association.
Following this severance of ties to the state, the group came under increasing criticism and surveillance from the country's security apparatus and propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party. Falun Gong books were banned from further publication in July 1996, and official news outlets began criticizing the group as a form of "feudal superstition", whose "theistic" orientation was at odds with the official ideology and national agenda.
Tensions continued to escalate through the late 1990s. By 1999, surveys estimated as many as 70 million people were practicing Falun Gong in China. Although some government agencies and senior officials continued expressing support for the practices, others grew increasingly wary of its size and capacity for independent organization.
On 22 April 1999, several dozen Falun Gong practitioners were beaten and arrested in the city of Tianjin while staging a peaceful sit-in. The practitioners were told that the arrest order came from the Ministry of Public Security, and that those arrested could be released only with the approval of Beijing authorities.
On 25 April, upwards of 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners assembled peacefully near the Zhongnanhai government compound in Beijing 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 by going to them and, "albeit very quietly and politely, making it clear that they would not be treated so shabbily." It was the first mass demonstration at the Zhongnanhai compound in the PRC's history, and the largest protest in Beijing since 1989. 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 that their demonstration had been a success.
Security czar and politburo member Luo Gan was less conciliatory, and called on Jiang Zemin, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party to find a decisive solution to the Falun Gong problem.
Statewide persecution
On the night of 25 April 1999, then-Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin issued a letter indicating his desire to see Falun Gong defeated. The letter expressed alarm at Falun Gong's popularity, particularly among Communist Party members. He reportedly called the Zhongnanhai protest "the most serious political incident since the '4 June' political disturbance in 1989."At a meeting of the Politburo on 7 June 1999, Jiang described Falun Gong as a grave threat to Communist Party authority—"something unprecedented in the country since its founding 50 years ago"—and ordered the creation of a high-level committee to "get fully prepared for the work of disintegrating ." Rumors of an impending crackdown began circulating throughout China, prompting demonstrations and petitions. The government publicly denied the reports, calling them "completely baseless" and offering assurances that it had never banned qigong activities.
Just after midnight on 20 July 1999, public security officers seized hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners from their homes in cities across China. Estimates on the number of arrests vary from several hundred to over 5,600. A Hong Kong newspaper reported that 50,000 individuals were detained in the first week of the crackdown. Four Falun Gong coordinators in Beijing were arrested and quickly tried on charges of "leaking state secrets". 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 stadiums.
Editorials in state-run newspapers urged people to give up Falun Gong practice, and Communist Party members in particular were reminded that they were atheists and must not allow themselves to "become superstitious by continuing to practice Falun Gong."
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 Party's Marxist–Leninist 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, 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 , Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line." Jiang is held by Falun Gong to be personally responsible for the final decision, and sources cited by The Washington Post state that, "Jiang Zemin alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated," and "picked what he thought was an easy target." Peerman cited reasons such as suspected personal jealousy of Li Hongzhi; Saich postulates that party leaders' anger at Falun Gong's widespread appeal, and ideological struggle. The Washington Post reported that members of the Politburo Standing Committee did not unanimously support the crackdown, and that "Jiang Zemin alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated." 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 many 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 to purge the government and the military of such beliefs".