Five Years Ago: How Practitioners in Chengde City, Hebei Province Clarified the Truth and Stopped the Spread of a False News Story about Falun Gong

(Clearwisdom.net) One Friday in late March of 1999, the arts and entertainment radio station of Chengde City, Hebei Province aired a story framing Falun Gong. The story, taken from the Chengde Daily, was entitled "Li Tingting Murders his Parents with a Knife."

According to inside sources, Li Tingting had a history of depression from a young age, which caused him to drop out of Chengde's No. 2 Middle School. A doctor who worked at his school, a Falun Dafa practitioner, researched Li's medical record after the event. In it were records confirming that mental problems had led to his discontinuation of studies. Several days after the story ran, the medical records disappeared. It was later revealed that they were seized by the police).

All of Li's neighbors and relatives knew the truth - that his illness had led him to kill his parents and that he had never practiced Falun Dafa, not even the exercises. Therefore, several practitioners who heard the fallacious radio news report decided to prevent it from spreading. Two practitioners visited the radio station and explained the truth to them. The editor immediately agreed not to re-air the report, but he also warned that the manuscript had been taken by a reporter from the Yanshan Evening Newspaper for publication. Practitioners contacted the reporter and retrieved the manuscript. Another practitioner went to the radio station that night to discuss how the news report was false, and with everyone's effort, the spread of this vicious lie was stopped.

The practitioners later realized that simply preventing the news from spreading would not negate its already detrimental impact, so on the following Monday morning, practitioners made a special trip to the Police Station, where the office director instructed his secretary to meet with them. These practitioners explained that Li Tingting killed his parents because of his mental illness, and that the murder had nothing to do with Falun Gong. They also clarified the truth to Meng Qingguo, the commissar of the Police Station, and Mr. Meng replied politely, "This story was improper. It was published without the director's review, and that is our fault. Although it has already been publicized, we will not let it disseminate any further." He also proposed, "In order to make amends for its negative consequences, you can write a positive report on Falun Gong's actual situation here in Chengde City, and we will broadcast it on Chengde Radio Station's FM art and entertainment station. After reaching this agreement, a positive report entitled, "Falun Dafa in Chengde" (written by a policeman named Zhang Jun in cooperation with reporters from the newspaper) was soon broadcast over the radio, and with the practitioners' effort and the cooperation of the directors of various departments and their staff, this case was satisfactorily resolved.

From July 20, 1999 onwards, Jiang's regime has persecuted Falun Gong, and in order to fabricate reasons for the persecution, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) borrows false stories such as that of Li Tingting, to slander Falun Gong and to instigate hatred towards Falun Gong. The Li Tingting story had been resolved locally, but a few directors set aside the truth, repackaged the story and handed it over to CCTV. CCTV later broadcast the story, affected many people in Chengde City and nationwide. Moreover, they misrepresented and defamed the practitioners who clarified the truth at the police station by claiming that they "besieged" the station.

Five years have passed, and kind people have begun to awaken and witness the retribution visited upon those who persecute Falun Dafa.

Those who directly participated in framing Falun Dafa have received the following retributions:

Li Wenqi, the deputy chief of Shuangqiao District Police Station in Chengde City, died of lung cancer in June 2004.

Meng Qingguo, the commissar of Chengde City Police Station, died suddenly in the spring of 2000.

(Because five years have passed, some of the practitioners who participated in the case have since been arrested, illegally sentenced, sent to forced labor camps or become homeless. Further details will be investigated.)

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