Help End the Persecution of Falun Gong in China

Help End the Persecution of Falun Gong in China

While Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline for mind and body, is practiced openly in the 70-plus countries where it is found, today in its homeland of China it is subject to well-documented egregious human rights violations.

To date over 3,200 deaths have been documented, as well as over 63,000 accounts of torture. An estimate of the real figure puts the actual death toll in the tens of thousands.

In addition to the deaths, hundreds of thousands have been sentenced to forced labor camps. Many thousand mentally-healthy practitioners have been locked up in psychiatric hospitals, brutally beaten, and drugged into submission with anti-psychotic drugs. Huge numbers have been forced into brainwashing sessions organized to coerce them to renounce their beliefs. Tens of thousands have been detained, jailed and/or imprisoned.

Torture is widespread and systematic, ordered by top Chinese Communist Party officials to help wipe out the practice. Popular torture techniques include shocking with electric batons, burning with irons, tying the body in painful positions for days, force-feeding saline solutions through a plastic tube inserted up the nose, and prying out fingernails with bamboo shoots, to name a few; rape and sexual torture of the Falun Gong in detention are prevalent as well.

Recent and mounting evidence also reveal that Falun Gong practitioners are being killed for their organs, bones, and tissues, which are sold and transplanted at enormous profit.

An independent report prepared by two prominent Canadians (David Kilgour, Canada's longest serving Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for Asia Pacific, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer well known for his work related to the Holocaust) came to the shocking conclusion that mass organ-harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners has taken place over the last several years. It appears that tens of thousands of practitioners have been killed for their organs. The perpetrators are officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), acting in collaboration with surgeons, police, prison authorities and military officials. The illicitly harvested hearts, livers, lungs, corneas and more were sold at huge profits to unwitting transplant patients, many from outside China. Meanwhile, the practitioners' murdered bodies were quietly and quickly cremated to destroy the evidence.

For more information about the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners:
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/

The persecution of Falun Gong has now been going on for 9 long years and reaches every corner of the country, with deaths confirmed in virtually every one of China's provinces, autonomous regions and province-level municipalities. Countless lives have been lost, thousands of families broken apart, unspeakable tragedies and crimes have been and are continuously being committed by the Chinese communist regime. This must be brought to an end. Please give us your support.


How You Can Help:

Speak to your friends, family, colleagues, and elected officials. Speak to media and ask them to cover this story. Invite your friends to join this group.

Sign an online petition at:
http://petition.fofg.org.uk/organharvesting

For more information on how you can help:
http://www.fofg.org/act/act_help.php

Thank you for your support.


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A brief introduction to Falun Gong

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline rooted in ancient Chinese culture. Its principles are based on Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance, and the practice involves slow, gentle movements and meditation. Persons who practice it regularly find it brings them better health, reduced stress and inner peace. The practice was introduced to the public in China in 1992, and is today practiced by tens of million people in more than 70 countries. The main works of Falun Gong are available in over 30 languages.

For more information: www.falundafa.org

Why is the Chinese Communist Party persecuting Falun Gong?

The Chinese government initially touted the Falun Gong meditation for its health benefits and moral elements after its introduction in 1992, and the government issued numerous proclamations and awards to the founder, Mr Li Hongzhi. However, in 1999 the Chinese communist regime reversed its seven-year endorsement of Falun Gong, and launched a brutal campaign of persecution to eradicate this group. The complex rationale behind the campaign can be broken into four elements: Falun Gong’s popularity, the role of Jiang Zemin, conflicting ideology, and the nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s system.

While a common misconception is that the gathering of 10,000 adherents in Beijing on April 25, 1999 is what led to the persecution of Falun Gong, oppression of the practice actually began at least three years earlier. The more popular Falun Gong became, the more resistance it encountered. Party leaders fear any large, independent group, and Falun Gong was probably the largest. When Falun Gong books became bestsellers in 1996 they were banned; when state-run media estimated that over 70 million people practiced Falun Gong - more than the Party’s membership - media began attacking Falun Gong and state security began spying on and harassing adherents. It was in response to these early abuses that adherents gathered in Beijing.

Fearing Falun Gong’s rapidly growing popularity was overshadowing his own legacy, then-Party leader Jiang Zemin ordered the practice “eradicated.” According to a 1999 Washington Post article, “Jiang alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated” Journalists and inside sources have described Jiang as “jealous” of Falun Gong and “obsessed” with eliminating the group. As China analyst Willy Lam has argued, by creating a national campaign Jiang sought to both align power to himself and eradicate a group he saw as a threat to his power.

The ideological differences between the atheist Communist Party and the spiritual Falun Gong also played a role. While religion is again becoming increasingly popular in China, and the Party does allow some religious affiliations, religious groups must submit to the state and their leaders must be Party approved. Other groups who, like Falun Gong, have chosen to preserve their belief system and refused to tender to the Party have also met persecution, including Tibetan Buddhists and house church members.

For more information: www.faluninfo.net