It spread very rapidly and by 1999 the Chinese authorities estimated 100 million people were practicing Falun Gong—1 in 12 Chinese and more than were members of the CCP. This made then head of the Party Jiang Zemin scared and jealous, and he ordered a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.
Jiang understood that in order to wipe out Falun Gong, he had to turn the people of China against it. As soon as the persecution began on July 20, 1999, all of China’s media began carrying stories attacking Falun Gong, just as though some switch had been flipped.
TV played a key role in this onslaught aimed at poisoning the hearts and minds of an entire nation against a meditation practice.
CCTV carried programs claiming, “1,400 people had died from practicing Falun Gong.” Practitioners often exposed these claims as lies—showing one person said to have died from practicing Falun Gong was fit and alive or showing another had never practiced Falun Gong. But getting this information to the Chinese people was difficult and dangerous.
Still, for the first year and a half after the persecution began, the Chinese people did not seem to be moved very much by the incessant lies. Then, on Jan. 23, 2001, five individuals said to be Falun Gong practitioners were filmed on Tiananmen Square setting fire to themselves. Within hours state-run media was flooded with reports about the incident.
Among those said to have set fire to themselves was a young girl, and the TV programs presented her in the most pitiable way. That the very footage used by CCTV when watched closely revealed that these immolations were an outrageous hoax did not matter. This time the propaganda took hold, and the Chinese people became angry with Falun Gong.
The persecution became more severe, and more practitioners began dying. Jiang Zemin seemed to have won a victory.
Next … Secrecy and Persecution
Secrecy and Persecution
While the regime’s propaganda has demonized Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), it has not reported on what the regime has been doing to Falun Gong practitioners in secret behind locked doors.
In the last 13 years, 3,751 Falun Gong practitioners have been confirmed killed by torture and abuse, according to the Falun Gong website Minghui. The actual number may be in the tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands are held in labor camps, psychiatric hospitals, prisons, black jails, and brainwashing centers, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
