By Fei Ming

(Clearwisdom.net) January 23 has become an important date, almost like another birthday for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Around this day every year, the CCP mouthpiece media always create a fanfare about an old lie, and attack Falun Gong by showcasing the victims who participated in the "Tiananmen Self-immolation--" all this in a desperate attempt to breathe new life into the persecution of Falun Gong. The CCTV "Focal Point Interview" program broadcast a show this year to once again complete its political assignment.

Nevertheless, no matter how hard this TV program tries to drive the point home that the victims were Falun Gong practitioners, it fails to refute one iron-clad fact--that Falun Gong has never encouraged anyone to commit self-immolation or suicide, as Falun Gong teachings explicitly forbid killing and suicide.

Falun Gong is not a closed organization, nor does it require membership or retain a list of members. All Falun Gong activities are open to the public, and anyone can read Falun Gong books and practice the exercises. Anyone can claim to be a practitioner. But if a person claims he practices Falun Gong but his actions go completely against Falun Gong teachings, then how can that person be a Falun Gong practitioner? Can we attribute a crime he or she commits to Falun Gong? There are millions of Falun Gong practitioners abroad. Why have none of them ever committed self-immolation? Judas was also a disciple of Jesus. Can we say that Jesus taught him betrayal?

A U.S. cable TV network news report from March 30, 2004 stated that a 30-year-old mother in Texas was charged with murdering her two sons, eight years old and six years old, and severely wounding her 15-month-old son. She claimed that "God told her to kill her sons." She used to be a member of a local church choir, but none of the U.S. media attributed her irrational behavior to Christianity.

During the Vietnam War in 1963, the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam sent military forces to disperse Buddhists who were celebrating Buddha's birthday in Hue, and shot a few monks to death. In an incident that shocked the world, a monk named Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death on a busy street in Saigon. This monk obviously didn't get the idea of setting himself on fire from Buddhist scriptures, and no one blamed Buddhism for his action.

We sympathize with the victims of the Tiananmen self-immolation, regardless of their true identities, their motives, or whether they stated they practiced Falun Gong. Most likely the cause of their tragedy stems from inducement by the Jiang regime, but it is certainly not from the teachings of Falun Gong. It is basic common sense that the irrational behavior of a few individuals cannot be used as justification for condemning the righteous belief of millions.

Since the "Focal Point Interview" repeatedly advocates the CCP's and government's "caring" for the victims, let's take a look at how ordinary citizens live under the CCP's care. The Jingzhou Daily reports that a farmer drank poison in a street in Wuchang City after his appeal fell on deaf ears. The Hunan Daily reports that a middle-aged farm woman jumped in a pond and drowned herself because she could not afford to meet various government demands for money. A laid-off worker burned himself to death in the People's Square in Shanghai because he could not pay for basic living expenses. A worker named Zhu who lived on Huashan Road, Xuhui District in Shanghai poured gasoline over himself and ignited it to protest a forced eviction. A laid-off worker's mother was hit by a bicycle, resulting in a hip fracture. The family was destitute and they could not afford the 100,000 yuan surgery fee, and the whole family drank poison to commit suicide. Farmer Zhu Zhengliang in Anhui Province immolated himself in Tiananmen Square after numerous appeals about the forced demolition of his newly purchased home failed. Yang Peiquan, a laid-off worker in Hubei Province appealed three times against corruption and early termination of his job, all to no avail. He burned himself in Tiananmen Square on October 1, the national holiday.

Such is the CCP's tender care, under which ordinary citizens are forced to fight injustice with public destruction of their lives, under which appellants living at an appeals village in Beijing suffer cold, hunger, injustices as deep as the sea, including constant beatings, assaults and even being killed, and under which hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are brutally tortured in prisons, labor camps and brainwashing classes, merely for persisting in their belief. The CCP's "care" of the self-immolators is in fact nothing more than a cynical attempt to use them as tools to vilify Falun Gong. The CCP has never cared about human lives.

As a media outlet, the "Focal Point Interview" ignores the grave injustices inflicted upon the vast majority of grassroots workers and farmers. Although it has occasionally exposed cases of corruption, those who were exposed were low-level officials without highly placed connections, instead of the people in the central CCP who steal the nation's wealth. After gaining public trust through exposing minor crimes, the "Focal Point Interview" then uses this little bit of credibility to whitewash and decorate the dictatorial regime, while slandering innocent and kind people.

Posting date: 1/28/2005
Original article date: 1/27/2005
Category: Open Forum
Translated on 1/25/2005
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/1/25/94209.html

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