Ms. Jin Pang was just 15 years old when on July 20, 1999, the Falun Gong spiritual practice was banned in China by Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin.
Now a thoughtful 26-year-old who only rarely smiles, Ms. Pang remembers the first day of the persecution. “There was a big truck with a sign slandering Falun Gong and a loudspeaker. The vehicle just went back and forth, broadcasting, and slandered Falun Gong practitioners and our teacher,” Ms. Pang said.
After having experienced the Chinese regime’s intense efforts to denigrate Falun Gong, Ms. Pang has now experienced the U.S. government denouncing the accusations as false.
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H. Res. 605 on March 16, with a vote of 412-1, condemning China’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, which is in its 11th year. The resolution included a condemnation of the propaganda that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used to demonize the group:
“Whereas Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time and resources over the past decade worldwide to distributing false propaganda claiming that Falun Gong is a suicidal and militant ‘evil cult’ rather than a spiritual movement, which draws upon traditional Chinese concepts of meditation and exercise.”
The House resolution provides some measure of vindication for Jin Pang and tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China and around the world who have sought to dispel the misrepresentations of their spiritual practice spread by the Chinese regime’s propaganda both inside and outside China.
The intensity of the propaganda onslaught unleashed by then paramount leader Jiang Zemin inside China may be hard for those accustomed to a free press to imagine.
Mr. Clive Ansley practiced law in China for 14 years and has studied the new Chinese legal system since its inception in 1979, publishing and lecturing widely on it. He is also president of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong.
In an affidavit he said, “I was a resident in China from the time the persecution against the Falun Gong began in 1999 until the end of May 2003. I witnessed on a daily basis during that period the unremitting vilification of Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners in all areas of the Chinese print and television media. It was the most extreme, and totally unjustified campaign of unmitigated hatred I have ever witnessed.”
He continued, “Historically, the only comparable hate campaign of which I am aware is that conducted by Adolf Hitler against the Jews in Europe.”
“There is an idiom in China,” Ms. Pang said. If one person says a tiger is coming, no one will believe it; if two people repeat it, people start to doubt, if three people repeat the same thing people will believe it.”
Ms. Pang had to watch Falun Gong propaganda even in high school. “They forced the students to watch the TV, to sit in classroom and watch the TV. It was like mental torture to me to just sit there to listen to things I totally don’t believe.” She didn’t know things would get even worse.
In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro on Oct. 25, 1999, three months after the persecution had begun, Jiang referred to Falun Gong as an “evil cult.” This label provided a neat encapsulation of the regime’s propaganda, while implanting a seed of doubt in Westerners about a group most had never heard of before.
The Chinese public, however, had not gotten behind the campaign against Falun Gong. Jiang had a plan to change public opinion.
On Jan. 23, 2001, there were alleged self-immolations on Tiananmen Square. CCTV, the Chinese regime’s official television station, replayed the film of the self-immolations repeatedly, claiming the participants were Falun Gong practitioners. Western media reported the event as if it were a normal news story.
Falun Gong practitioners disbelieved the regime’s account of what had happened, because their practice forbids killing, including suicide. The Washington Post could not verify that anyone involved in the self-immolations practiced Falun Gong, and other third party investigators found other problems with the narrative provided by the regime. “False Fire,” an award winning documentary, demonstrated that the “immolation” incident was a propaganda stunt—the self-immolations had been staged. The Falun Dafa Information Center provides a detailed analysis at http://www.faluninfo.net/article/837.
Even though the event was staged, it had an immediate impact throughout China and the world in how people viewed Falun Gong.
Ms. Pang was in college in China when the Party staged the immolation incident. “My roommates in the dormitory opened my suitcase and searched it. They thought one day I could kill them because they believed in the propaganda,” said Ms. Pang.
The roommates became hysterical and cried to their parents, according to Ms. Pang. They told parents and teachers that she would kill them one day. Her teacher-adviser knew Ms. Pang was no threat and thought so highly of her, he even wanted to nominate her to lead the class. But Ms. Pang was given the choice of renouncing Falun Gong or leaving the college. She went back home.
Western media have had a mixed record in responding to the Chinese regime’s attempts to manipulate the news about Falun Gong.
Some Western media have debunked the CCP’s propaganda.
For instance, the Wall Street Journal said in its Asian edition on Feb. 14, 2001, “Western scholars of religion who have studied Falun Gong in depth, such as David Ownby, have noted that Falun Gong does not share the characteristics of cults. It does not involve leader worship, or charge fees; nor does it isolate practitioners from society, intervene in their personal lives, or encourage any behavior that could be construed as unlawful or dangerous. Such scholars have instead recognized it as a new religious movement.”
Western media in general, though, have had a tendency to be influenced by the Chinese regime’s propaganda in their reporting on Falun Gong.
A study done in 2007 by Mr. Leeshai Lemish of the Falun Dafa Information Center shows that the Western media’s reporting on Falun Gong has often been framed by comments from CCP officials, who were cited as the main sources of news four times as often as Falun Gong practitioners.
He also found that the CCP was given the chance to respond 50 percent of the time to charges made by Falun Gong practitioners, while Falun Gong sources were only allowed to respond to charges made by the CCP 17.9 percent of the time.
House Resolution 605 stands as a rebuke to the reproduction of the CCP’s point of view in reporting on Falun Gong. It may also save lives.
In 2007, Amnesty International raised concerns that the regime’s public vilification of Falun Gong in the state-controlled media created “a climate of hatred against Falun Gong practitioners in China which may be encouraging acts of violence against them.”
According to Mr. Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, “The text of this resolution will undoubtedly be translated into Chinese and circulated among grass-roots networks throughout China. The resolution’s exposure of Communist Party fabrications and assertion of solidarity with the victims will give pause to would-be persecutors. There will literally be men and women in China who read this and stop beating and torturing illegally-held Falun Gong practitioners. It’s that important.”
Ms. Pang hopes Mr. Browde is right. Her mother and an aunt have been sentenced to 10 and 9 years, respectively, by the Chinese regime for practicing Falun Gong. She says they are being held in the Shandong Woman’s jail, a place where “the methods of torture used on practitioners are really brutal.”
In reflecting on the House Resolution passed in March, Ms.Pang recalled the effect of a resolution passed by the U.S. House in November 1999. That resolution called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. “I was in China at that time and so I know how encouraging this [current resolution] is for the people of China. For the people who are suffering it is very encouraging news. America is the only country that can give strong pressure to the Chinese Communist Party. It is possible to make things change in China,” Ms. Pang said.
Now a thoughtful 26-year-old who only rarely smiles, Ms. Pang remembers the first day of the persecution. “There was a big truck with a sign slandering Falun Gong and a loudspeaker. The vehicle just went back and forth, broadcasting, and slandered Falun Gong practitioners and our teacher,” Ms. Pang said.
After having experienced the Chinese regime’s intense efforts to denigrate Falun Gong, Ms. Pang has now experienced the U.S. government denouncing the accusations as false.
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H. Res. 605 on March 16, with a vote of 412-1, condemning China’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, which is in its 11th year. The resolution included a condemnation of the propaganda that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used to demonize the group:
“Whereas Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time and resources over the past decade worldwide to distributing false propaganda claiming that Falun Gong is a suicidal and militant ‘evil cult’ rather than a spiritual movement, which draws upon traditional Chinese concepts of meditation and exercise.”
The House resolution provides some measure of vindication for Jin Pang and tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China and around the world who have sought to dispel the misrepresentations of their spiritual practice spread by the Chinese regime’s propaganda both inside and outside China.
Extreme Campaign
The intensity of the propaganda onslaught unleashed by then paramount leader Jiang Zemin inside China may be hard for those accustomed to a free press to imagine.
Mr. Clive Ansley practiced law in China for 14 years and has studied the new Chinese legal system since its inception in 1979, publishing and lecturing widely on it. He is also president of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong.
In an affidavit he said, “I was a resident in China from the time the persecution against the Falun Gong began in 1999 until the end of May 2003. I witnessed on a daily basis during that period the unremitting vilification of Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners in all areas of the Chinese print and television media. It was the most extreme, and totally unjustified campaign of unmitigated hatred I have ever witnessed.”
He continued, “Historically, the only comparable hate campaign of which I am aware is that conducted by Adolf Hitler against the Jews in Europe.”
“There is an idiom in China,” Ms. Pang said. If one person says a tiger is coming, no one will believe it; if two people repeat it, people start to doubt, if three people repeat the same thing people will believe it.”
Staging Suicides
Ms. Pang had to watch Falun Gong propaganda even in high school. “They forced the students to watch the TV, to sit in classroom and watch the TV. It was like mental torture to me to just sit there to listen to things I totally don’t believe.” She didn’t know things would get even worse.
In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro on Oct. 25, 1999, three months after the persecution had begun, Jiang referred to Falun Gong as an “evil cult.” This label provided a neat encapsulation of the regime’s propaganda, while implanting a seed of doubt in Westerners about a group most had never heard of before.
The Chinese public, however, had not gotten behind the campaign against Falun Gong. Jiang had a plan to change public opinion.
On Jan. 23, 2001, there were alleged self-immolations on Tiananmen Square. CCTV, the Chinese regime’s official television station, replayed the film of the self-immolations repeatedly, claiming the participants were Falun Gong practitioners. Western media reported the event as if it were a normal news story.
Falun Gong practitioners disbelieved the regime’s account of what had happened, because their practice forbids killing, including suicide. The Washington Post could not verify that anyone involved in the self-immolations practiced Falun Gong, and other third party investigators found other problems with the narrative provided by the regime. “False Fire,” an award winning documentary, demonstrated that the “immolation” incident was a propaganda stunt—the self-immolations had been staged. The Falun Dafa Information Center provides a detailed analysis at http://www.faluninfo.net/article/837.
Even though the event was staged, it had an immediate impact throughout China and the world in how people viewed Falun Gong.
Ms. Pang was in college in China when the Party staged the immolation incident. “My roommates in the dormitory opened my suitcase and searched it. They thought one day I could kill them because they believed in the propaganda,” said Ms. Pang.
The roommates became hysterical and cried to their parents, according to Ms. Pang. They told parents and teachers that she would kill them one day. Her teacher-adviser knew Ms. Pang was no threat and thought so highly of her, he even wanted to nominate her to lead the class. But Ms. Pang was given the choice of renouncing Falun Gong or leaving the college. She went back home.
Western Media
Western media have had a mixed record in responding to the Chinese regime’s attempts to manipulate the news about Falun Gong.
Some Western media have debunked the CCP’s propaganda.
For instance, the Wall Street Journal said in its Asian edition on Feb. 14, 2001, “Western scholars of religion who have studied Falun Gong in depth, such as David Ownby, have noted that Falun Gong does not share the characteristics of cults. It does not involve leader worship, or charge fees; nor does it isolate practitioners from society, intervene in their personal lives, or encourage any behavior that could be construed as unlawful or dangerous. Such scholars have instead recognized it as a new religious movement.”
Western media in general, though, have had a tendency to be influenced by the Chinese regime’s propaganda in their reporting on Falun Gong.
A study done in 2007 by Mr. Leeshai Lemish of the Falun Dafa Information Center shows that the Western media’s reporting on Falun Gong has often been framed by comments from CCP officials, who were cited as the main sources of news four times as often as Falun Gong practitioners.
He also found that the CCP was given the chance to respond 50 percent of the time to charges made by Falun Gong practitioners, while Falun Gong sources were only allowed to respond to charges made by the CCP 17.9 percent of the time.
Changing a Climate of Hatred
House Resolution 605 stands as a rebuke to the reproduction of the CCP’s point of view in reporting on Falun Gong. It may also save lives.
In 2007, Amnesty International raised concerns that the regime’s public vilification of Falun Gong in the state-controlled media created “a climate of hatred against Falun Gong practitioners in China which may be encouraging acts of violence against them.”
According to Mr. Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, “The text of this resolution will undoubtedly be translated into Chinese and circulated among grass-roots networks throughout China. The resolution’s exposure of Communist Party fabrications and assertion of solidarity with the victims will give pause to would-be persecutors. There will literally be men and women in China who read this and stop beating and torturing illegally-held Falun Gong practitioners. It’s that important.”
Ms. Pang hopes Mr. Browde is right. Her mother and an aunt have been sentenced to 10 and 9 years, respectively, by the Chinese regime for practicing Falun Gong. She says they are being held in the Shandong Woman’s jail, a place where “the methods of torture used on practitioners are really brutal.”
In reflecting on the House Resolution passed in March, Ms.Pang recalled the effect of a resolution passed by the U.S. House in November 1999. That resolution called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. “I was in China at that time and so I know how encouraging this [current resolution] is for the people of China. For the people who are suffering it is very encouraging news. America is the only country that can give strong pressure to the Chinese Communist Party. It is possible to make things change in China,” Ms. Pang said.
