A Persecution 25 Years Too Long

Falun Gong practitioners gather for a candlelight vigil commemorating the persecution deaths of their fellow practitioners in China by the Chinese Communist Party, at the National Mall in Washington on July 11, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Commentary  

If the persecution of over 70 million Falun Gong adherents in China had been exposed and opposed by nations who uphold human rights soon after it began, could it have continued for 25 years?

On July 20, 1999, just 10 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) struck again. This time it wasn’t just students, but the entire Chinese population who was targeted.

Their “crime”? To value traditional Chinese culture—in China—and practise the meditation discipline of Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.

Rooted in the Buddhist tradition, the Chinese spiritual practice is centred on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Trade Over Human Rights

In late 1999, the world wondered what was happening in China. What was Falun Gong?

The CCP had learned from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre how to better conceal its attacks on Chinese citizens, force submission, and demonise a group it wants to eradicate.

In September 1999, then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin visited Australia followed by New Zealand for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, and personally gave anti-Falun Gong propaganda to officials he met there.

Mr. Jiang lobbied then-U.S. President Bill Clinton to support China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation. By 2001, China had joined the organisation. And so began the CCP’s bonding of human rights to trade.

For the past 25 years, millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China have suffered arbitrary detention, imprisonment, forced labor, and physical, mental, sexual and psychiatric torture. Thousands have been confirmed killed; the true number is likely many times higher.

Untold numbers have been killed-to-order to supply China’s state-sanctioned organ transplantation industry, with the country seeing a massive increase in organ transplants amid an escalation of the persecution.

China remains the only country in the world where the authorities, the CCP, oversees an illicit commercial trade in human organs.

Persecute to Control

The CCP’s hatred of Falun Gong stems from its fear that the Party’s total control of its citizens will be dissolved when the Chinese people reconnect with their traditional spiritual roots—something the Party has spent decades trying to destroy.

The principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance taught by Falun Gong have helped the Chinese people to, once again, understand and appreciate the spiritual aspect of life—a belief that transcends the Marxist materialism framework promoted by the CCP.

In defiance of the persecution, practitioners in China continue to peacefully defend their right to practise their faith. At great risk to themselves, they have helped tens of millions of fellow Chinese understand the goodness of Falun Gong, and awaken to the evil nature of the CCP.

The US Falun Gong Protection Act

On June 25, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4132, the Falun Gong Protection Act.

This historic bill is the first U.S. federal law proposed to specifically combat the decades-long human rights abuses suffered by tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners, particularly the abhorrent crimes of forced organ harvesting.

Australia does not yet have a bill for a proposed law like the U.S. legislation, but it currently has a private member’s motion tabled in the House of Representatives, and interest for a Senate motion to affirm support for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.

Senate motions, or House private members motions, do not express or determine Australia’s foreign policy. But they can express the sense of moral obligation and humanity of members of Parliament on behalf of the people who elected them.

Speaking up for Falun Gong practitioners helps break the silence around this inhumane persecution campaign and expose the continuing human rights atrocities.

It is also good for Australia and other democratic nations to stand free from coercion and subordination to China’s communist regime.

Remaining publicly silent on the persecution of Falun Gong is affording the CCP impunity. If a criminal perceives that the reward exceeds the penalty for a crime, where is the incentive to stop offending?

The CCP will not be deterred from treating human beings not as sacred lives but as objects to be used or abused to serve the Party’s interests—until there is exposure of its crimes to the Chinese people and the world.

The persecution of Falun Gong must end. That day will come soon, when the CCP faces the consequences of its own actions.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.