(Clearwisdom.net) On August 13, 2009, the Xinhua website published an article that slandered Falun Gong. The article contained the same arguments the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly used to try to discredit the practice. Let's break down some of them.
I. The article states, "After ten years [of trying to eliminate Falun Gong], 98% of Falun Gong
practitioners have given up the practice..." During the first year that Falun Gong was persecuted, the CCP boasted that the "conversion rate" of Falun Gong practitioners had reached 98%. However, it doesn't make sense that after ten years of trying to eliminate Falun Gong, the number of practitioners that have quit the practice, according to the CCP, is still at 98%. Is this saying that the CCP's "work of ten years" has made no progress?
II. The Tiananmen Square "Self-Immolation" incident was brought up again in the article to mislead people by trying to shift the blame to Falun Gong. On January 23, 2001, five individuals set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. Within hours, the Chinese regime flooded the state-run media with grisly photos of the event, claiming that the self-immolators were Falun Gong practitioners. Days later, a Washington Post article revealed that at least two of the self-immolators had never been seen practicing Falun Gong. Further evidence uncovered in the subsequent weeks revealed the incident was staged. On March 5, 2002, Changchun practitioners were able to break through the CCP's informational blockade by broadcasting Falun Dafa informational programming, including "Falun Dafa All Over the World" and "Self-Immolation or Staged Act?" on Changchun's City's cable television network. People were able to learn the truth about the self-immolation incident. From the program, people saw clearly that a policeman struck Liu Chunling's head [Liu was one of the self-immolators] with a heavy object, hitting and killing her. Does the CCP dare to show people this documentary? Among the practitioners who were taken into custody for being involved in the broadcast, at least eight of them were brutally tortured and killed by the CCP. This shows how the CCP fears the exposure of the truth of the self-immolation incident.
The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights at the United Nations, International Education Development (IED) organization reviewed this documentary and reports about the incident from CNN and the Washington Post and came to the conclusion that the self-immolation incident was staged. The IED said that the video "in our view proves that this event was staged by the [Chinese] government." In November 2003, the film "False Fire," which examines the suspicious points of the "self-immolation" incident, won an award at the 51st Columbia University International Film Festival for its analysis and exposure of the tragic event.
The article also mentioned two people, who were previously part of the Falun Dafa Research Association in China, to attack Falun Gong and described how they "woke up." Actually, both have been illegally imprisoned for years by the CCP. Given their condition and under questionable circumstances, can their words really be taken at face value? The book Zhuan Falun specifically addresses the issue of killing and that practitioners can't commit suicide. None of the millions of practitioners in China or overseas have committed suicide or self-immolated to protest the persecution. All evidence points to the fact that the event was staged by the CCP in order to frame Falun Gong and bend public opinion against the practice.
III. CCP "experts" were cited in the article saying that the persecution of Falun Gong "protects human rights." They failed to mention how. As reported by the US State Department's 2008 Annual Report on Religious Freedom, Falun Gong practitioners account for over half of the people detained in labor camps in China. How can it be called "protecting human rights," when law-abiding Falun Gong practitioners face illegal arrest, detention and imprisonment, brutal torture, forced brainwashing, harassment and fines?
IV. The article mentions how people who have been "transformed" have "returned to normal society." People have the freedom to choose to believe or not to believe in Falun Gong. If you do not want to practice anymore, you can just quit and do whatever you want, as Falun Gong will not do anything to you. If you no longer practice Falun Gong, will it force you to quit your job? Will it not allow you to go to college or to be promoted? Will it force you to attend "learning classes" or undergo brainwashing sessions? Will Falun Gong force you to "reform" or put pressure on your family members to attack and monitor you? It's obvious that Falun Gong does not do these things. Who is doing all these things that were mentioned? Only the CCP.