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A British Practitioner's Perspective about the April 25 Peaceful Appeal As the anniversary of the peaceful appeal at Zhongnanhai on April 25, 1999 is
upon us, I am reminded of the time three years ago that I, a British Western
Falun Gong practitioner went with 3 other British practitioners to Beijing. We
were intending to appeal, in a peaceful manner, on Tiananmen Square for the
release of Falun Gong practitioners in China, who are held in unlawful
detention. As Westerners we wanted to show that there was strong support in the
West for their unjust suffering. Our appeal was also to call for the restoration
of the right to practise freely in China; and to awaken Chinese people to the
fact that Falun Gong is legal in the rest of the World and is practised in at
least 60 countries, by Western as well as Chinese people. We had intended to assemble with at least 60 other Western practitioners from
Europe and North America. The arrangements for the appeal and communication
amongst practitioners had been done with painstaking attention to security, with
as few people as possible knowing about our trip. Even my friends, family and
workplace were not aware of the real nature of my "holiday". Another
reason I didn't tell my mother was because she is inclined to worry and I didn't
want her to worry for my safety. However, a rather more selfish motive was also
that I didn't want her to try to persuade me to not go to China. I thought it
might shake my determination. In spite of our collective secrecy, we obviously had an omission, because we
were arrested upon our return to the hotel in Beijing after a day sightseeing at
the Summer Palace. A group of angry police stormed into our room, shouting about
Falun Gong in Chinese. Their reaction was hysterical and out of proportion to
the situation. We were treated like criminals, when we hadn't actually done
anything illegal. The police searched the room and found a banner with Falun
Gong written on it in Chinese. There was more shouting and demands for our
passports and they hurriedly ordered us to pack our bags. I was the only female
in the British group and two policemen dragged me out of the room, carried me
downstairs and out of the hotel, where there must have been about fifty police
lining the entrance to the hotel. I thought, "I'll not be going to
Tiananmen Square now, but I won't lose the chance to tell people the facts about
Falun Gong. That is what I've come for." So I called out loudly in Chinese,
"Falun Gong is good" as they carried me. Then they put me down and one
policeman roughly pulled my hair as he pushed me into a police bus. The other
practitioners were soon brought to the bus too. The bus took us to a hotel converted into a detention centre, near the
airport. Some of our valuable belongings were confiscated by the police and not
returned. One practitioner lost his expensive camcorder, another lost a minidisk
player, I lost a personal tape player and tapes. The police then separated us
and interrogated us for at least three hours. I was told during the
interrogation that I would be in a lot of trouble if I didn't answer their
questions. Even though I requested to speak to the British Embassy, they said
that I hadn't been arrested so I couldn't speak to the Embassy. These police
completely denied that any police beat up and torture Falun Gong practitioners.
They were young and seemed naïve. I suspected that although they were deceived
by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda about Falun Gong, they did not
know how the police really treated practitioners in the forced labour camps, and
that the CCP kept this from them. With the 4.25 incident it seems there were many levels of deception: Falun
Gong practitioners were told to go to their local appeal offices, but the
offices were closed. They were then told to go to the Appeals Office in Beijing,
yet it was also closed. From reports of practitioners, the police actually
directed them to Zhongnanhai, where police organised them on pavements around
it. The Premier came out to give reassurance about the situation. Yet later the
CCP accused Falun Gong of staging a siege on Zhongnanhai. It has become apparent that creating confusion by instilling fear and
deception are some of the main tools the CCP use against the Chinese people to
maintain complete control and to continue to hide the truth of their hideous
crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. I also personally experienced this. The
CCP has even twisted people's thinking into believing that if the leader of the
government tells lies for the sake of saving face and particularly for the
country, that it is acceptable. One young Chinese man told me this in the U.K.
How sad it is that the model for the moral standard of today's Chinese people is
a degenerate CCP, whose sole aim is to suck virtues and innate goodness from its
own people and replace them with greed, disregard for consideration of the
welfare of their fellow man, indifference to others' suffering and the belief
that lying has a positive effect. Why? Because that is the CCP's nature and it
can only survive in that environment. It has no ability to nourish people's
compassion so it only promotes selfish gain. In the U.K the media will expose lies told by a British politician and he/she
is held accountable for them. After talking to many Chinese people in the U.K,
many say that the CCP has improved the economy and people's standard of living
and so the CCP is therefore good. However, what they don't consider is that
although improving the economy is a good thing, when it is at the expense of
people's lives, where human rights are flagrantly abused, it is like covering a
rotten apple with sugar to make it taste better - and in no time the rotten
part spreads and can not be sweetened. If a person kills someone, the law
punishes the killer. That is the law in every country on Earth. If a government
kills many of its own innocent people, the government will, as history has
shown, eventually fall and then other countries will hold the perpetrators
accountable for their crimes. Such was the case in Nazi Germany. I believe such
will be the case for the CCP in persecuting to death up to 10,000 practitioners.
The CCP can't deceive people forever that it is not accountable. Yet the more
that the CCP commits crimes against Falun Gong, the more crimes Falun Gong
practitioners expose. As science says "every action has a reaction."
If the CCP were really not persecuting Falun Gong, how could nineteen lawsuits
for genocide against Jiang Zemin come about? Why would so many people in the
West condemn this wicked persecution, as they do, with thousands signing
petitions to call for an end to the persecution and release of detained
practitioners? Why would they believe the CCP to be rotten, as they do? If the CCP were really so virtuous, why have over 1,000,000 members,
including high level officials quit the CCP in the space of only a few months as
reported on www.theepochtimes.com? In my experience, in the West, if any person or organisation strongly
condemns a religious group or any group, there will be an independent enquiry of
the group. There will be open discussion for and against the group and the media
will offer its varied opinions. Different groups are allowed to peacefully
express their views and demonstrate, without the government feeling threatened,
because it is considered appropriate to question and debate points of view.
Those who refuse to debate with others are seen as having something to hide.
People are suspicious of and look down on those who relentlessly attack others.
The CCP's tactics to defame Falun Gong would be seen to be extreme and
irritating if this method was employed in the U.K media as in China. The British
would want to hear the other side before determining their judgement. "One
Hall, One Voice" would be seen to be one-sided and fanatical. Whereas on "4.25" the CCP saw it as a threat for 10,000 people to
peacefully exercise their constitutional right to appeal, through my Western
eyes, I am filled with admiration for their noble spirits and the compassion
they displayed towards their fellow practitioners suffering injustice, such that
they were moved to appeal for their release. It is truly a shame when virtue is misconstrued as vice. April 26, 2005 Posting date: 4/29/2005 |