[Minghui Net] News from Renminbao.com: According to reliable sources, Jiang Zemin has recently proclaimed that whoever beats or even kills Falun Gong practitioners will be free of any legal responsibility. In essence, he has said, "You are free to beat them to death." According to recent media reports, Chinese Communist Party leaders at the highest levels have indicated that when practitioners are killed, their deaths will be reported as suicides. This obviously represents a new escalation in Jiang Zemin's reign of terror against Chinese citizens, while at the same time revealing that he has reached an impasse in his efforts to crush Falun Gong. Jiang has finally dropped his disguises and has openly exposed his evil, cruel nature.

Under this new order, Jiang Zemin's accomplices do not even need to create "suicide scenes" after killing practitioners. Jiang has mobilized all of the government's propaganda machinery to fabricate lies about Falun Gong, and to smear its reputation so he can more effectively persecute the practitioners. For instance, Xinhua News Agency reporters spread a fictitious rumor about a "mass suicide at Fragrant Mount," and made unsubstantiated references to suicide cases among the 1400 people that supposedly died while practicing Falun Gong.

Regarding the recent self-immolation case at Tiananmen Square, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stated that the United States was saddened by the incident. "I would renew our condemnation of China's crackdown on Falun Gong," he stated, "and call on China to release all of those detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising their internationally recognized rights to freedom of religion, freedom of belief and freedom of conscience." It was also reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell conversed with some Falun Gong practitioners about the persecution in China. As he shook hands with each practitioner present at a Senator's office in Washington D.C., Powell said, "Everyone is entitled to freedom of religion and freedom of belief. Falun Gong practitioners do not hurt anyone. What is happening in China at present is very deplorable."

Since July of 1999, when Jiang Zemin began his brutal crackdown and persecution of Falun Gong, over 130 practitioners have been tortured to death, and untold thousands have been illegally sent to jails, labor camps, or mental hospitals. Although the Chinese Government denies these facts, it admits that the "struggle" against Falun Gong is becoming tougher and tougher.