New York: Friends of Falun Gong USA Board Member Ambassador Mark Palmer Gives Radio Interview on Persecution of Falun Gong
(Clearwisdom.net) On Wednesday, July 16, 2003 Friends of Falun Gong USA Board
Member, Ambassador Mark Palmer gave a radio interview about the repression of
Falun Gong in China to the Batchelor and Alexander Show, 770 AM, WABC, New
York's #1 rated night-time talk show. The show is broadcast nationally over the
ABC Radio network, which has more than 4,600 affiliated radio stations and
reaches 129 million people each week. The text of the thirteen-minute interview
follows. The interview was re-aired Saturday night, July 19.
Mr. Palmer, when describing Jiang Zemin's repression of Falun Gong said,
"...he is engaging in a human rights crime which is equivalent to what
Saddam Hussein and Milosevic [did]. This is a real bad actor by any legal and
moral standard. What's happening to the Falun Gong is simply a crime against
humanity... Milosevic went to trial in the Hague, I think Jiang Zemin needs to
be brought to trial if he won't cooperate in introducing democracy and tolerance
in China."
John Batchelor: We're very pleased to be joined by Ambassador Mark Palmer,
who has served and survived five administrations, sometimes in the state
department, and sometimes looking in, as if he was in the state department, and
he's joining us tonight as the founding member of the Friends of Falun Gong,
from Washington. Mark, good evening to you.
Mark Palmer: Good evening to you, it's a pleasure to be with you.
John Batchelor: We rush to you Mark because through the SARS crisis we
learned that the explanation that the People's Republic of China's tyranny, that
is, their central committee in Beijing had for why SARS was a crisis is this,
and the dateline here is June 5th. Reuters: China has detained 180 members of
the banned Falun Gong spiritual group for spreading rumors and recruiting new
followers amid the SARS epidemic, state radio said. The practitioners were all
arrested in the northern province of Hebei, it reported. Police officials were
not immediately available for comment. And the quote from the official state
radio is "They," the Falun Gong members, "spread doomsday
theories in a bid to cause panic in society and claimed that the SARS outbreak
in China was a warning to those who persecute and hate the Falun Dafa."
Mark, we come to you for an explanation of how 1.3 billion people are ruled by a
tyranny that manages to explain the SARS epidemic by the doomsday spreading of
rumors-of which we did plenty on this show because SARS is scary-by the Falun
Gong. Who is Falun Gong and why do these people, these 180 people frighten the
central committee in Beijing?
Mark Palmer: Well, Falun Gong is a spiritual movement. It's based on ancient
Buddhist and Taoist traditions of exercise. Anybody who's seen people do Tai Chi
in a park in San Francisco or other places in the United States including
Central Park in New York knows that these are classic exercise movements
designed to improve your health and your spiritual well being. It is the largest
single movement in China according to official Chinese media. A few years ago
there were upwards of a hundred million members-people practicing Falun
Gong-therefore significantly more than the membership of the Chinese Communist
Party.
Paul Alexander: What is the origin of Falun Gong? Where did it come from? Who
invented it?
Mark Palmer: Well its leader is Li Hongzhi, who actually lives in New York
City. There was a movement in the eighties, particularly, of these exercises
throughout China, and he formulated his own approach to this and added his own
view of spirituality and health, and in 1992 he launched the movement formally
in China and it just swept like wildfire, and brought into it people within the
party, the police, the military, peasants, workers. It's an incredible movement,
and it's still very vibrant and alive not only in China but in this country.
Paul Alexander: Yes, in the United States as well. Why exactly is Falun Gong
such a threat to the Chinese Regime?
Mark Palmer: Because any organized movement that they don't control is seen
by them as a threat, and that shows how weak they really are and how vulnerable
they really are. They see the Catholic Church as a threat, they see Muslims as a
threat, and they see Falun Gong, because it's the largest spiritual movement, as
a threat.
[...]
Paul Alexander: But Mr. Ambassador, this isn't a religious movement, I could
understand why that would threaten the Chinese regime, this is like, I don't
want to compare it to Yoga because there is a spiritual quality to it, but it
has the same sort of effect, it's an uplifting and inwardly directed activity. I
don't understand why...
Mark Palmer: You're exactly right, it's entirely peaceful, they never say
anything, that is, their movements are silent. What really got this going was on
April 25, 1999, ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners showed up at the appeals
office in Beijing, and the security forces didn't know they were coming, didn't
alert the leadership of China, and the appeals office is right next to
Zhongnanhai, the part of the forbidden city where the leaders live. So they
literally woke up one morning, looked out their window, and they saw these ten
thousand people in peaceful rows, if you've ever seen them do their...
Paul Alexander: I have actually, I have friends who practice Falun Gong.
Mark Palmer: Then you know, ten thousand of the them peacefully out there
doing their movements was to some of the Chinese leadership a completely normal
and acceptable thing, and Zhu Rongji, who was the premier actually went out and
joined them and said to them we would be pleased to register your movement and
we will not ban you. But Jiang Zemin, who is the real dictator, got in his car
with colored windows and toured around and thought, no, this is the greatest
threat we've seen and he compared it to Solidarity in Poland, which also of
course was a peaceful movement, but brought down the communists, and I think
that Jiang Zemin still believes that this movement can introduce democracy and
tolerance into China and he doesn't want that.
[...]
John Batchelor: Lets emphasize Mark, lets emphasize for people who have read
Falun Gong's name in a headline somewhere and have never read the next
paragraph, and who hear persecution, that this is not the Moonie cult that it's
represented to be. This is spiritual exercise by mostly middle aged and elderly
people, can you generalize that the age group for this is older people?
Mark Palmer: No, I think there are lots of younger practitioners also, many
millions of young people.
John Batchelor: All right, however, there is no obedience that is associated
with the Moonies, there is no cultism that associated with the Maoists. What
this is is spiritual exercises, generally from what I've seen, in the morning,
and in American terms, it could not be more harmless. This is about getting up
at 5:30 in the morning to do exercises: to follow the woman or man in leotards
on the television.
Mark Palmer: No that's exactly right, and in terms of their spiritual
practice their completely apolitical. They have been forced to become more
active politically because of the repression. I mean it's important for people
to understand that Jiang Zemin, in his persecution of Falun Gong has literally
murdered something in the range of ten thousand women and young men.
Paul Alexander: For practicing Falun Gong?
Mark Palmer: Yes!
Paul Alexander: Ten thousand people?
Mark Palmer: And over one hundred thousand have been in camps. I mean, he is
engaging in a human rights crime, which is equivalent to what Saddam Hussein and
Milosevic [did]. This is a real bad actor by any legal and moral standard.
What's happening to the Falun Gong is simply a crime against humanity.
[...]
John Batchelor: Can we do some numbers Mark? We're speaking with Ambassador
Mark Palmer, who is the founding member of the Friends of Falun Gong. How many
people does your organization believe are in jail in China right now, in the
camps because of practicing Falun Gong?
Mark Palmer: Upwards of a hundred thousand.
John Batchelor: And how many do you believe have been allowed to
die-persecuted to death?
Mark Palmer: Not just allowed to die, but who've been tortured to death,
starved to death, I think in the range of ten thousand.
John Batchelor: Ten thousand. That you lay to the Central Committee of the
People's Republic of China.
Mark Palmer: Particularly to Jiang Zemin. This is a man who individually made
this decision and he tries to hide behind his party and his ideology and
Communism, and I don't think we should tolerate that anymore. We know from one
dictator after another that these are individual decisions of the dictators.
This is his decision, he went against many other people in his own politburo who
did not want to do this to the Falun Gong, some of whom even practiced the Falun
Gong or had relatives who practiced the Falun Gong. So we need to hold him
accountable. I don't believe in this sort of obscuring individual
responsibility.
John Batchelor: Alright, and I want to point out that there is a website here
for people who want to inquire further. Its Friends of Falun Gong,
Mark Palmer: Right, it's a very good website.
John Batchelor:
Mark Palmer: Thank you.
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