Terrorist Attacks and PRC National Day: New Excuses for Massive Roundup of Falun Gong Practitioners

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 9/24/2001

NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2001 (Falun Dafa Information Center) -- The Chinese regime is using the recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the upcoming National Day of the People's Republic of China on October 1st as pretexts to take even more reckless action against Falun Gong.

According to credible sources in Beijing, the head of the Chinese Communist Party Jiang Zemin has ordered the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security to conduct a nationwide roundup of Falun Gong practitioners. This new, large-scale operation against Falun Gong is already underway in the name of "maintaining social stability" for the PRC's National Day on October 1.

Those arrested have been immediately thrown into jail, labor camps, or mental institutions, regardless of whether they are local residents or just visitors.

Sources say that Beijing has become emboldened about making arrests on such a large scale because it believes that Western countries and international media are currently too preoccupied with the terrorist attacks in the U.S. to notice this human rights abuse.

In an equally disturbing development, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported on September 19: "[PRC] Propaganda departments had ordered state media organizations to describe the self-immolation by alleged Falun Gong followers in Tiananmen Square on January 23 as 'terrorist' acts'" (single quotes added). The article quotes a government source as saying that Chinese authorities will attempt to "exploit international outrage over the US attacks to aid its own fight against 'terrorism'" to justify its renewed campaign against a number of different groups, including Falun Gong.

We would like to state once again that, to this day, we have found no indication that the people involved in the tragic self-immolation incident were practitioners of Falun Gong. In fact, the Washington Post ran an investigative report shortly after the incident about one of the self-immolators indicating "no one ever saw her practice" Falun Gong. It is clear that Jiang Zemin's regime is attempting to capitalize on this tragic incident as well as the attacks against the U.S. to escalate the persecution of Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong.

Despite the ongoing attempts of Jiang Zemin's regime to slander, frame, and brutalize innocent practitioners in its own form of state terrorism, Falun Gong has never retaliated in kind and remains, as always, a peaceful and non-violent meditation practice.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER -- Contacts: Gail Rachlin 917-501-4441, Erping Zhang 646-533-6147, Adam Montanaro 917-405-4507, or Feng Yuan 646-523-5676. Email: faluninfoctr@nycmail.com, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

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