(Minghui.org) Following the arrest of Falun Gong practitioners in Tianjin in April 1999, around 10,000 practitioners gathered quietly at the National Appeals Office in Beijing on April 25, 1999, to seek their release and petition for the right to practice their faith. This historic event was praised by the international community as the largest peaceful appeal in modern Chinese history. However, then Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin started a nationwide persecution of Falun Gong three months later, in July 1999.
A reader recently wrote to Minghui about information provided by a senior CCP official, who said that Jiang had secretly mobilized soldiers in preparation for a massacre that day. The official also said that Jiang’s action had violated the Chinese Constitution.
Troops Mobilized with Loaded Weapons
According to the CCP official, Jiang, General Secretary of the CCP and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, had secretly ordered military personnel to be put on standby. To conceal their real identity, these soldiers were all dressed in police uniforms. With weapons loaded, they were ready to kill the petitioners for the crime of “besieging Zhongnanhai” (the compound that houses top CCP leaders).
According to the source, numerous high officials within the Party tried to stop the slaughter. They suggested holding a meeting to resolve the petitioners’ grievances and avoid a shooting if the petitioners agreed to leave. In the end, Premier Zhu Rongji and other officials met with practitioners’ representatives on that day, and the incident was peacefully resolved. Practitioners quickly left the site, and they even cleaned up trash as they did so. This way, a tragedy similar to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was averted.
No Legal Basis for Suppressing Falun Gong
The senior official who leaked the information said that the CCP’s decision to suppress Falun Gong was not based investigations or facts. Rather, it was Jiang’s jealousy of Falun Gong’s popularity.
The State Council has established procedures for making major policy decisions. After a problem is identified at the local level, corresponding ministries would conduct an investigation. The conclusion would then be reported to the State Council for further instruction.
But Jiang did the opposite on the issue of Falun Gong. He first concluded that suppressing Falun Gong was a political task and then identified ministries to carry out the campaign. During an internal meeting that included the Beijing municipal government and the Ministry of Public Security, no ministries were willing to take the blame for making a baseless decision to suppress Falun Gong. Under pressure from Jiang, attendees agreed to shift the responsibility to Wu Shaozu, Minister of Sports, who could not participate in the meeting that day.
Such ironies also occurred during the CCP’s Anti-Rightist Campaign decades earlier. Then CCP leader Mao Zedong had set a quota for the number of “Rightists” to be outed and condemned. A group of people were once called to “elect” a Rightist among themselves, but everyone dodged the role. In the end, someone who had gone to the restroom came back find himself “elected” a Rightist.
Genocide Continues
Despite the appeal on April 25, 1999, ending in a peaceful resolution, Jiang launched a systematic persecution of Falun Gong that July. Although Jiang retired a few years later, successive CCP leaders continued the persecution, which is still ongoing.
Although Jiang did not carry out the slaughter in April 1999, he ordered the formation of the extralegal 610 Office two months later to supervise the nationwide persecution. A large number of Falun Gong practitioners were then detained, imprisoned, and tortured for practicing Falun Gong. Many of them were subjected to forced labor and even became victims of forced organ harvesting.
Summary
Following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, Falun Gong practitioners strive to be better people. The persecution by Jiang and his successors has no legal or moral basis, and it has created a human rights catastrophe.
The persecution has also harmed ordinary people in China. If it hadn’t started, more people could have benefited from Falun Gong, and China would have stronger rule of law accompanied by a moral revival.
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