Falun Gong practitioners who live outside of China have had reason to be on their guard lately as PRC President Jiang Zemin is apparently pushing his vendetta against Falun Gong beyond Chinese borders. Confidential sources revealed that a highly classified document circulated mainly to top ministers and military officers on October 12, 2000 stated that Falun Gong would henceforth be classified as "counter-revolutionary," as "anti-Party," and as an "anti-socialist organization." This is significant because this is the same terminology that was used to describe student protestors immediately preceding the government's bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But perhaps the most ominous directive in the document is one which exhorts government officials to "intensify the struggle [against Falun Gong] overseas."1
Although only a short time has passed since this report surfaced, we have already had ample opportunity to judge its accuracy based on events that continue to take place around the world. In the following article, we will recount many instances of the Chinese government's attempts to persecute Falun Gong practitioners outside of China. All of these stories have been validated by truthful and responsible witnesses, and many have also been reported in mainstream media outlets.
We begin with a very serious incident, one which happened only last month in a nation that was founded on the principles of human rights, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech--the United States of America.
On the morning of October 22, 2000, during the San Francisco Experience Sharing Conference, about 75 Falun Gong practitioners went to China Garden Park to meditate, practice their exercises, and distribute literature. Linda Dai, a resident of Berkeley, was handing out flyers to passersby when a large group of Chinese men approached. Swearing in Cantonese and Taishan dialects, they grabbed the brochures out of Ms. Dai's hands and began tearing them up. Someone tried to call the police on a cellular phone, but the phone was snatched away and thrown on the sidewalk. Then two young male practitioners--Jun Pan of San Francisco and Gary Wong of Fremont--got out their cameras and began taking pictures, but they were immediately attacked and knocked to the ground. One of the cameras was smashed on the pavement; the other was stolen. Jun Pan bore the brunt of the attack, receiving a bloody mouth, broken glasses, and having his shirt ripped right off his back. When his wife pleaded with the men to stop beating her husband, she was kicked numerous times in the legs.
After ten minutes, the police arrived and arrested one of the assailants when they found the stolen camera hidden in his pants. Other members of the gang fled as more police cars approached.
An eyewitness reported hearing one of the men say, "beat them up and you'll get paid." 2 At this time, we cannot confirm that this incident was related to Jiang Zemin's recently declared policy of "intensifying the struggle overseas" against Falun Gong practitioners, but when the following stories are taken into account, a clear pattern begins to emerge.
On July 20, 2000, Falun Gong practitioners had scheduled a group practice and peaceful demonstration at the Chinese Embassy in Paris. On the day of the demonstration, two Embassy officials paid a visit to a Paris restaurant where a practitioner named Wu was employed. When asked about Falun Gong, Mr. Wu was happy to tell them all of the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits he had gained from his practice. He even offered to teach them the exercises if they would like to learn. At this point, the two officials sternly asked Wu if he intended to participate in the group practice and demonstration scheduled to take place that afternoon. Making veiled threats, they told him that he would be responsible for any consequences stemming from his actions. Without hesitation, Mr. Wu said, "I am going to participate in this afternoon's activities. I'm doing this not only because I am a Falun Gong practitioner, but also because I have an obligation to tell the truth to the Chinese government. Plus, I really do want the best for China."
Two weeks later, Mr. Wu arrived at the restaurant one morning to find that it had been vandalized. The exterior glass door was smashed, and the interior of the building was totally ransacked. However, the cash register had not been touched, and no money or goods were missing. In addition, the Falun Gong materials displayed in the restaurant were scattered all over the room.
Another incident took place the next day in the same area in Paris. Practitioners had set up a display to inform people about the practice of Falun Gong and about what is taking place in China. Near the display, two Chinese people and a Frenchman were talking in low voices and gesturing back and forth. Suddenly, the Frenchman rushed toward the display, pushed it to the ground, and crumpled two large posters. He ran away long before the police could arrive. 3
American universities have always been bastions of freedom of speech and expression, but the freedom of Falun Gong practitioners to meet and promote their spiritual beliefs came under strong attack at Cal-Tech University in California. On the morning of February 18, 2000, Ramanuj Basu, the Audience Services Manager of the Cal-Tech Public Events Office, received a phone call from a man named Liu Wansheng, who introduced himself as an official of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. Liu asked Mr. Basu to cancel a seminar event by the Cal-Tech Falun Club that was scheduled to take place in a few days at Baxter Auditorium in Pasadena. "I am representing the Chinese government," Liu said. "Falun Gong is illegal in China."
"I really wanted to remind him that this is an American university," Mr. Basu said later; but instead he politely told the caller that this issue should be handled by the Office of the Vice-President for student affairs. Vice-President Brennan expressed surprise that the Chinese government would make such a request, and he told Falun Gong Club President John Li the following: "Let me assure you and the Cal-Tech community that Cal-Tech has no intention of taking any action to interfere with the lawful activities of the Falun Gong Club. Moreover, we remain committed to the free exchange of information throughout the world." David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize Laureate in Biology and president of Cal-Tech, also expressed his support in an e-mail message to John Li. On a further note, several months prior to this incident, Cal-Tech had also rejected China's request to remove the Falun Gong Club's web site. 4
The internet, in fact, has been an important weapon in China's overseas war against Falun Gong. Volunteer practitioners in cities all over the world have established web sites for the purpose of providing brief introductions to Mr. Li Hongzhi's teachings and posting local practice and seminar schedules. One day last July, a practitioner received a message from the U.S. Department of Transportation stating that the server that was hosting the falundafa.org site was attacking their systems. Government officials had already figured out that Falun Gong people were being framed because they noticed they were being attacked by several servers, all of which hosted different Falun Dafa sites. The attacks were found to be originating from a phone number in Beijing, and when they called this number, the party on the other line answered: "Beijing Public Security Bureau." Other attacks have also originated from this same number.
One European site was hacked, and the web page contents were replaced by slanderous articles from The People's Daily, the Chinese government's official newspaper. In addition, many local contact persons worldwide whose e-mail addresses were posted on web sites were "spammed" with large quantities of e-mail messages -- in some cases, numbering in the thousands every day. Major Falun Dafa sites in the U.S. and Canada, such as falundafa.ca, and minghui.ca, have been under continuous attack, and sometimes they have been shut down for days on end. In China, all Falun Gong web sites were eradicated long ago, and filtering software was installed to block mainland Chinese internet users from accessing similar web sites overseas. 5
Since the PRC embassies and consulates abroad represent the Chinese government, they have come under scrutiny as being major instigators of attempts to persecute Falun Gong. Many routine functions of the embassy, such as issuing passports and visas, have been politicized and turned into weapons against practitioners. An interesting example of this can be found in the case of You Minghui, a seven month old infant whose parents are Chinese citizens studying in England. According to Chinese law, a baby born abroad to Chinese parents is automatically considered a Chinese citizen. The baby can either be added to the mother's passport or be issued a separate one at the nearest Chinese Embassy. This is a right granted automatically to every Chinese citizen and guaranteed by numerous international laws and treaties. According to these laws and treaties, a country cannot revoke the citizenship of its own citizens living overseas without cause and force them to become refugees without a country.
You Minghui was originally granted a passport, but when the Chinese government learned that the child's parents were Falun Gong practitioners who had demonstrated in Beijing, the passport was revoked. This act of the Chinese Embassy is unprecedented. Even babies born to well known dissidents living in exile have always been granted Chinese passports. This action angered many people in England, and it became a potentially serious diplomatic issue between the two countries. Now, under pressure from its own citizens to respond to this matter, the British government is closely examining the way in which the Chinese government has spread its persecution of Falun Gong to English soil. 6
In May of 1999, Ms. Tian Yunshan, who works for a Chinese subsidiary in the United States, went to the Chinese consulate to have her passport extended, as it had just expired. The Consulate, it turns out, knew a lot about her: they knew that she practiced Falun Gong, and that its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, had once stayed at her home. The Foreign Affairs Administration, which grants permission for travel in China, notified her company's operations manager that not only would her passport be denied because of her affiliation with Falun Gong, but the passports of other company employees would also be suspended. In order to have these restrictions lifted, the operations manager had to write a guarantee that Tian was no longer with the company. Currently, Tian still has no valid passport, and the only way she can return to China is to apply for a temporary passport at the same Chinese Consulate. 7
The embassies have also been instrumental in trying to negatively affect the perceptions of American citizens toward Falun Gong. In July of 1999, San Francisco issued a proclamation honoring Falun Gong founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi. Preparations for the event went smoothly until the day before the ceremony, at which time practitioners were notified that the award had been cancelled. The next day, news of the cancellation was headlined in a major Chinese newspaper. The state of Maryland and the cities of Seattle and Baltimore also rescinded proclamations honoring Li Hongzhi after receiving pressure from the Chinese government. According to Washington Post Staff Writer Steven Mufson, the main reason for the cancellation of these honors was fear of hurting local trade relationships with China.
Clifford Traisman, an aide to Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, stated that the proclamation honoring Li Hongzhi caused the Chinese ambassador to "make his displeasure clear in no uncertain terms." Not only did Mayor Schell retreat from his previous position, he also apologized to the Chinese ambassador, writing: "I hope you will convey my regrets to your government for this unfortunate situation. I assure you that there was never any intent to cause embarrassment or insult to...China." Through a subordinate, Governor Glendenning of Maryland sent a similar message, which was reviewed, and some sources say, crafted, by the State Department. It read: "Please accept our humblest and most sincere apologies for the misunderstanding caused by the awarding of a Certificate of Honorary Citizenship to Li Hongzhi. We meant no offense to you or to the people of the People's Republic of China." It should be noted that publicly, State department officials condemned China's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and denied giving local or state governments guidance on apologies. 8
Down under, Australian practitioner Qiwen Yao's home was broken into and his web site was repeatedly hacked and shut down. And while Mrs. Cuiying Zhang was presenting her opinions to the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, her car windows were smashed and her tires were punctured. The consulate also conducted a slander campaign designed to keep local city councils and other governing bodies from allowing Falun Gong practitioners to use public facilities for practice and community outreach activities. The illegal harassment of practitioners in Australia became so severe that Foreign Affairs Minister Downer had to publicly warn China that this behavior was unacceptable in a civilized and free society.
According to David Lague, foreign affairs correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr. Downer's warning to China was made against the advice of other senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. "We would not expect anybody to harass Australian citizens either within Australia or outside Australia," Mr. Downer said. The Chinese Embassy angrily denied all complaints that it had been attempting to curb the activities of Falun Gong practitioners. 9 But NineMSN, an Australian TV channel also reported on November 26 that:
"[PRC] consulates have taken it upon themselves to inform Australian councils about the evils of letting practitioners loose in parks and halls across the country. In Bankstown the embassy tried to have a motion which was before the council, condemning China over its abuse of the prisoner Cuy Ying Zhiang, withdrawn. Councillor Clive Taylor was outraged. "Two reps from the consulate had a meeting with the general manager and tried to pressure him to withdraw my motion. If they were trying to educate council they educated us only in one aspect, that was that they wanted to interfere in our democratic process."10
Finally, there is this ominous message coming out of China: A practitioner in mainland China who is privy to various clandestine activities organized by the Chinese Public Security Ministry states that the Ministry has selected a large group of top agents and has ordered them to memorize Zhuan Falun, Mr. Li Hongzhi's most important and most widely read book. He says that the plan is to send these agents overseas under a variety of disguises so that they can find ways to damage Falun Gong activities all over the world. All overseas practitioners have been warned to be on the lookout for these people.11
Of course, this report cannot yet be verified at this time, so we hope the media will do a little investigation into the matter. Nevertheless, similar reports coming out of China in the past have been consistently accurate, and a clear pattern of hostile action taken by PRC embassies and consulates certainly can be seen in these events. Few could claim that these events, among many others, are mere coincidences or isolated incidents.
Just how effective these attempts by the PRC leadership to do harm to Falun Dafa overseas remains to be seen. In Western nations, where the rule of law is more than just a hollow phrase, citizens are disdainful of such under-handed tactics. These attacks may be counterproductive for another reason. When persecution of innocent people takes place in their own backyards, people are much more likely to take a close look at the problem than when it happens half way around the world. And what Falun Gong practitioners all over the world want more than anything else is just that: for people to take a close look at what is happening and find out the truth.
Kaishin Yen graduated from Columbia University with a Masters Degree in International Marketing. She currently spends her time on translations, editing and speech writing.
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
