Friends of Falun Gong (Tenafly, NJ) -- implements radio campaign to alert Chinese-Americans to the facts about the peaceful spiritual practice of Falun Gong and the brutal persecution of its practitioners in China. The radio ads are designed to counter the Peoples' Republic of China's propaganda campaign against Falun Gong.

Friends of Falun Gong has produced and started to broadcast two 1-minute informational ads for radio in the Tri-State area. Airing five times a day over the Chinese Radio Network (WGBB-AM 1240 and WCBS-FM/SCA 101.1) with an estimated daily audience of 150,000, the ads can also be heard over the Friends of Falun Gong web site at http://chinese.fofg.org

Major areas of broadcast influence in the Tri-State area include Long Island, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, and sections of New Jersey and Connecticut. Friends of Falun Gong (FoFG) plans to air the informational ads in key cities nationwide over the next few months.

The ads focus on key points that have been distorted by the PRC's propaganda campaign to defame and incite hatred against Falun Gong. Most notably, the ads address a self-immolation incident in which five purported Falun Gong practitioners died. The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, the Washington Post, and other independent media organizations have discredited this incident, suggesting that the terrible event was staged by the Jiang Zemin regime.

How the Chinese government uses its position to distort the truth about Falun Gong and hide the crimes against humanity it perpetrates, especially via publications aimed at Chinese-Americans nationwide, is a story waiting to be widely investigated and exposed. Independent analysis by Mei Duzhe published in China Brief by the Jamestown Foundation entitled "How China's Government is Attempting to Control Chinese Media in America" provides extensive details. English-speaking journalists are invited to visit www.fofg.org or call for more information.

The informational ads can be heard in Mandarin at http://chinese.fofg.org. In addition to the radio ads, visitors can view a video of the abovementioned self-immolation incident, read articles that examine the circumstances of this tragedy and call its conclusions into question, and learn more about the practice of Falun Gong and its persecution under the Jiang Zemin regime.

Friends of Falun Gong is an U.S.-based non-profit organization of individuals who firmly support and advocate for freedom of belief and other human rights. Friends of Falun Gong seeks in particular to free the Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in the People's Republic of China and to end the persecution there. To this end, FoFG intends to obtain broad support for this cause, and to raise international awareness about the rights violations in the persecution of Falun Gong.