Article from Leading Bulgarian Newspaper Details the Systematic Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners
By Ekaterina Popova
(Clearwisdom.net) During the last five to six years the international
community quakes when hearing stories about the Chinese subjected to inhuman
torture. In the 21st century similar accounts cause strong suspicions that the
torture methods include force-feeding by pouring food in the trachea, burning
with cigarettes, branding, electric-shock batons, beating and injecting drugs
that cause harm to the nervous system. What is common between these cases is
that the torture is directed towards a specific group of people, practicing an
ancient system to cultivate mind and body called Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong). [Falun Gong practitioners] represent a huge number - 70 to 100 million people
in China alone. The persecution against them began in 1999, when the former
Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, decided that the huge popularity of this
cultivation system that refines mind and body and the overwhelming growth of the
number of practitioners may have become a threat to his political power. He
declared the system an unlawful[Jiang's slanderous term deleted] and
ordered the physical elimination of its followers. Since then, the people who
are known to practice Falun Dafa, as well as their relatives, have been thrown
in labor camps, jails, psychiatric hospitals, tortured in the most brutal ways
and even killed. Photos taken in Inner Mongolia show a barely alive body that is under thirty
kilos. It belongs to Wang Xia, thirty years old, who is unconscious. The cause
of her condition is two-years of torture for practicing the ancient Chinese
system for self-cultivation, Falun Gong. Wang was sentenced to seven years in prison for distributing information
about Falun Dafa. She had to serve the sentence in the city prison of Huhot in
Inner Mongolia. There the woman was tied to a bed and her limbs were stretched.
She was hung up with her head facing the ground, whipped with electric-shock
batons, and deprived of food or use of the toilet. The purpose of the torture
was to force her to sign a declaration to stop practicing Falun Gong. But she
didn't give in. Her body became skin and bone and she was barely conscious. The
culmination was reached when the supervisors decided to cremate her body while
still alive. Their chief, however, refrained from that after her story was
published on the Internet. They called her family to take her home to her
four-year-old son. A System for Obtaining Wisdom and Health Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) is an ancient system for cultivation of character
and body, integrating cosmic principles and five exercises. It was updated and
offered to the public in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. In only six to seven years
the followers would become seventy million. The practice goes way beyond the
goal of qigong (the basis of Falun Gong) for treating illnesses and fitness and
aims at wisdom and going back to the original altruistic nature of people. The
basis of Falun Dafa is the cultivation of morality and refinement according to
the cosmic nature and the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.
Practitioners upgrade their spirit, applying these principles in their daily
lives and striving to be better and better. They try not to argue, swear or
cause violence and they try not to be jealous, covetous, egoistic, haughty, etc.
This, along with five meditative exercises, guarantees good health, relief from
stress and inner peace. Falun Dafa has No Religious Leader and is Free of Charge Falun Dafa has no political, religious or commercial nature. The practice has
no rituals or hierarchy. It is completely free of charge and followers are not
obliged to express any special attitude towards its founder like others who
proclaim themselves as messiahs and leaders of religious organizations. This
universal system doesn't have any limitations in everyday life and can be
practiced anytime anywhere, which makes it very comfortable and interesting. By
1999 the practice became very popular in China. The government estimated that
practitioners in parks and gardens were between 70 and 100 million people, i.e.
much more than the communist party members (app. 65 million). The former
president Jiang Zemin feared that the great popularity of Falun Dafa may
threaten his political power and outlawed the practice over the protests of many
of the Politburo members of the Chinese communist party. Those Beaten to Death are to be Counted as Suicide "Ruin their reputation, bankrupt them and eliminate them
physically!" "Every Falun Gong practitioner beaten to death is to be
counted as suicide!" These are orders from the former head of China. Since
then the people who are known to practice Falun Dafa, as well as their
relatives, have been thrown in labor camps, prisons and psychiatric hospitals.
They are tortured and even killed by the most inhumane methods - beating,
forced feeding with a tube into the trachea, deprivation of sleep and toilet
facilities, burning with cigarettes and branding, beating with electric-shock
batons and mind-altering drug injections. These are just a fraction of the
documented torture methods which China continues implementing before the eyes of
the international community. Community activists, human rights defenders and
international organizations have been trying to stop the violence in China for
five to six years now. According to a report of Amnesty International, Falun
Gong practitioners are the largest group of people in the world subjected to
systematic torture and harassment. More than Twenty Lawsuits Filed for Harassment During the last six years, there are 1099 registered Falun Gong death cases
as a result of torture in Chinese prisons and police stations. More than twenty
lawsuits have been filed in more than fifteen countries against Jiang Zemin and
other high-ranking government officials who participated in the persecution of
Falun Dafa followers. The victims have won some of the lawsuits. Following the repression initiated by the Chinese government in the summer of
1999, the founder of Falun Dafa made a short statement where he explains the
methodology of Falun Gong which is a popular qigong activity. "We are not
against the government, nor will we be in the future. Others may treat us badly
but we do not treat others badly, nor do we treat people as enemies", Li
Hongzhi said.(1) He currently lives in the USA and continues writing books and
teaching those who want to practice Falun Gong. He appeals to all the
governments, international organizations and people of goodwill to extend their
support to Falun Gong so that the current crisis can be resolved and the
persecution stopped. The International Community Condemns the Persecution There are numerous opinions condemning the repression in the reports of
international human rights organizations. Unfortunately they are in vain. The
last reproaching resolution came on the 11th of October this year in Washington,
the unanimously passed concurrent resolution 304. It condemns the repression
against Falun Gong by the Chinese Government on the territory of both China and
the US. The grounds for passing such a resolution are the registered cases in
which agents of the Chinese Government exerted pressure on US officials, as well
as dissemination of propaganda against practicing Falun Dafa. The resolution
appeals for the release of all prisoners of conscience and an end to the
persecution. According to American congressman Tom Lantos, "The campaign of
the Chinese Government for intimidation, brainwashing, arrests, torture and even
killing of Falun Gong practitioners is one of the most chilling, cruel phenomena
ever seen in China". The Controversial Self-immolation on Tiananmen Square One of the biggest actions against Falun Gong took place on the 23rd of
January 2001. On the day before the Chinese Lunar New Year the media announced
that on Tiananmen Square in Beijing five people had set themselves on fire. A
week later, Chinese state television broadcast footage showing what happened on
the square. The close-up frames of the video are taken from a recording
confiscated from a journalist of CNN. The TV broadcast a soul-stirring story of
twelve year-old Liu Chunling with horrifying burns and her mother dead as a
result of the self-immolation. The Washington Post made a private investigation of the incident and
discovered many debatable aspects. Journalists and experts bring into question
whether the victims practiced Falun Gong. Neither the way of sitting of the
self-immolators (practitioners sit in the lotus position) nor the hand position
conform to those in Falun Gong. Beijing stubbornly rejected any interviews with twelve years-old Liu Chunling
by the international media, as well as with the other three people surviving the
self-immolation. While making an analysis of the TV footage, international journalists
discovered that when looking at it in slow motion, it is seen that the woman
dies not from the flames but from a blow to her head. The blow is delivered by a
man in a military uniform. What happened on Tiananmen Square in 2001 still
remains a mystery. In Bulgaria: Falun Gong in Boris Garden Falun Dafa is also practiced in Bulgaria. On Saturday and Sunday followers of
the practice do the exercises in Boris Garden near the water lily pond. The
practitioners who make smooth hand movements, are software developers,
economists and architects. They practice the new exercises for achieving
physical and mental refinement. Unfortunately we have witnessed a bad attitude and discrimination against a
Falun Gong practitioner in Bulgaria as well. The general secretary of the
Parliament Mr. Ognian Avramov cancelled an art exhibition by the artist Zhang
Cuiying (a Falun Gong practitioner who was detained in a Chinese prison for
eight months). She was released after the intervention of the Australian
authorities because she had double citizenship. "The art exhibition was
removed from the program one day before opening after interference from the
Chinese Ambassador Xie Hansheng," stated Kremena Krumova from the Bulgarian
Falun Dafa Association, an organizer of the exhibition. (1) "A Brief Statement Of Mine," July 22, 1999
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