A vicious campaign of brutal torture and abductions has been carried out over China since July 20, 1999. The former Chinese Communist Party-head Jiang Zemin launched a killing campaign to “eradicate” the Falun Gong spiritual discipline. A killing regime that has been committed against 100 million of their own people. The Party has used systematic vilification in an effort to force anyone known to practice Falun Gong to recant the basic tenets of his or her peaceful faith. Why Falun Gong is persecuted in China and why does the Chinese Communist party view Falun Gong as a threat to their power? Why is it so hard to find any good answers to why such a powerful persecution befell China and why is it still happening today?
The Communist party of China rules absolutely. Any belief system that is not controlled by the party is repressed. The Communist party was gutted of its ideological content and replaced by a very clear system of capitalism. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that exercises peace and harmony through a meditation regime. However the Chinese Communist party banned the regime in 1999. The Communist party has since cast extensive repression upon the practitioners of Falun Gong even though they were the ones who introduced the practise in the first place. Documented numbers estimate that the real death toll of the regime climbs into the tens of thousands. Sixty-three thousand accounts of torture are documented and hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been sent to “reform labour camps” where they have faced long periods of detention and are forced to renounce their spiritual beliefs.
As you can imagine those who resist are subject to torture, drugged or humiliated until they break. The government then saw an opportunity and began exploiting Falun Gong members as they became such a vulnerable group of people. A report written by David Kilgore and David Matas released on the 1st of June 2006 and a second version in January 2007 under the title “Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China” concluded that between 2001 and 2006 China killed Falun Gong practitioners in the tens of thousands for their organs. The government sells these organs to foreign transplant tourists with reverse organ-matching meaning that the practitioners form a live captive organ bank. The documented yearly disappearances and killings of Falun Gong practitioners exceed the totals of any other victim group. A merciless system that dehumanizes the practitioners so that hospitals and jails throughout China do not even consider the Falun Gong individuals as people.
In 2015 the organ trade was estimated in China to be worth an incredible amount of US$1 billion dollars a year. However on the official donor roll there are only a small amount of registered names despite the fact tens of thousands of organs are transplanted every year. A former hospital worker called Annie made a statement saying “I can testify that this hospital forcibly removed organs, such as livers and cornea’s”. As if this wasn’t enough she went on to say “Some practitioners were still breathing after their organs were removed, but they were thrown into the hospital’s incinerator anyway”. China holds huge power however and the politics of it all means that millions of lives are swept under the rug for things like trade.
Why does the Communist party of China persecute the individuals of Falun Gong far worse than any followers of other beliefs? Unfortunately any large group under a repressive government system attracts attention. At the time when the campaign was launched the government estimated the Communist party had 10 million less followers than their own. Falun Gong stand for three very basic beliefs – compassion, truth, and tolerance. This is exactly what the Communist party in China views as a threat. Since the corrupt cannot bribe the honest, the Chinese Communist party can only use force. The Communist party saw a belief system completely different to their own with more followers than their own and turned a group of innocent people into an enemy.
The special Rapporteur on Torture’s 2006 report on his 2005 mission to China indicated that 66% of the victims of ill-treatment and alleged torture in China were Falun Gong practitioners. This is a crime at an epic scale since Falun Gong members represent two thirds of the torture victims in China. The remaining victims comprising Uighurs (11%), sex workers (8%), Tibetans (6%), human rights defenders (5%), political dissidents (2%), and others (persons infected with HIV/AIDS and members of religious groups (2%).
To get away with this crime the Communist Party spews propaganda. However as one can imagine the explanations never quite add up. A common explanation often referred to in Western media is the menace explanation: Falun Gong is a danger to society for Chinese officials in the Foreign Ministry, consulates, embassies, as well as Chinese journalists and scholars. In other words: Falun Gong is banned because it is a menace to society and any rational thinking government would do the same. However the Communist Party is actually the only government to have banned Falun Gong as it is practiced freely around the world in over 70 countries. Falun Gong is, and has been, strictly nonviolent. The Party has also had trouble explaining how tens of thousands practice Falun Gong just 100 miles away in Taiwan. The Chinese government have brainwashed many of their citizens into believing that Falun Gong is an “evil cult” even suggesting that they are baby eaters. This means that when people hear about the mass killings they dismiss it as okay because these people aren’t good people. However the Taiwanese government or media have not made any reports of Falun Gong being a menace. Many people even study it as an extra credential at school.
The brutality used to “transform” practitioners is too horrendous to write about in this article. If you wish to learn more visit https://fuldar.wordpress.com/ as this site tells the stories of many practioners who at the hands of police and the government face severe unjust consequences. If you wish to learn more about the cause and want to help visit http://www.stoporganharvesting.org/ and if you want to learn more about the practise or get in touch with local contacts visit http://en.falundafa.org/ . A special thank you to Margo Vicar who was kind enough to give me useful information and personal opinion on the matter.
Written by Zita Harrington
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