5,000 Worker Sit-In Strike Blamed on Falun Gong by Officials in Jilin

Practitioner in China

[Minghui Net] On June 11, 2001, the total workforce of Jilin City's Aerospace Factory #5704 in Jilin Province was informed that Aerospace Minster and Administrator, Mr. Shen, would fly here during the evening hours to announce the closing of the factory. The news upset everyone. At about 5:00 P.M, 5,000 factory workers held a protest sit-in strike on the airport runway. The airplane could not land at Jilin City Airport and had to land at Changchun City Airport.

The factory officials noticed that the strike affected the airplanes' landing and take-off. The authorities also realized the severity of the incident. In order to get out of this awkward situation in the shortest time possible, they called Jilin City's Public Security Department for help. The story they told the Security Department personnel was that Falun Gong practitioners were making trouble, and that 5,000 of them had surrounded the airport.

The people from the Security Department arranged to have Jilin City, Siping City, Jiutai County and Changchun City send 2,000 security guards and policemen, driving over 200 police vehicles, into Jilin Airport before dawn. Policemen asked one of the people on strike: are you a Falun Gong practitioner? The answer was: No, I am here for my livelihood. The policemen asked quite a few others who were on strike and they all gave the same answer. The policemen had come all that way, from hundreds of miles away, for nothing. The thousands of handcuffs to arrest the so-called Falun Gong practitioners were useless. They found no Falun Gong practitioners. The incident made big news in local areas.

The factory officials had previously arrested all the Falun Gong practitioners. The airport sit-in strike had nothing to do with Falun Gong practitioners, but the factory officials had attempted to use Falun Gong as a scapegoat. We hope that all kindhearted people will see the true story.

June 24, 2001
Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2001/6/29/12633.html

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