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Faluninfo.net | Faluninfo TV | Faluninfo LIBRARY |
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 * WHAT IS FALUN GONG?
 * WHY PERSECUTION?
 * THE STORY
   * 01 | Ancient Roots, Almost Lost
   * 02 | The Rise of Falun Gong
   * 03 | Eve of Persecution
   * 04 | Terror Unleashed
   * 05 | Violent Suppression
   * 06 | Peaceful Resistance
 * KEY TOPICS
   * What Is The Evidence?
   * Forced Organ Harvesting
   * Genocide
   * Why Haven’t I Heard about This?
   * Family Rescue
   * Transnational Repression
   * Independent Documentation
   * Government Actions
   * Investigative Journalism
   * Misconceptions
 * NEWS
   * Latest News
   * Films & Videos
   * Survivor AccountsTest content
   * Deaths
   * Newsletters
   * In the NewsThird-party news reports from media outlets around the world.
   * Press Releases
   * Events
   * Key Topics
   * Photo Galleries

What is Falun Gong? Why persecution? Brutal & widespread? Genocide? What is the
evidence? Why haven’t I heard? Misconceptions?
Falun Gong Story
Ancient Roots The Rise of Falun Gong Eve of Persecution Terror Unleashed Violent
Suppression of 100 Million Peaceful Resistance
KEY TOPICS NEWS TAKE ACTION




CCP PROPAGANDA & CENSORSHIP

A hate-filled propaganda campaign of enormous proportions has been central to
the persecution of Falun Gong.

Under the direction of the aptly named Ministry of Propaganda, Chinese state-run
television immediately launched disinformation marathons, broadcasting
defamatory attacks on the meditation group 24 hours a day.

To target the entire society, the propaganda was spread across every medium
imaginable: state-run radio stations, newspapers, billboards, comic books,
posters, movies, a TV series, and even theatrical plays. “Beijing has ratcheted
up the campaign to a fever pitch, bombarding citizens with an old,
communist-style propaganda war,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 13,
2001.

> “Beijing has ratcheted up the campaign to a fever pitch, bombarding citizens
> with an old, communist-style propaganda war.” —Wall Street Journal


THE KINGDOM OF FAKE NEWS

Mr. Clive Ansley, Esq., a renowned lawyer who has practiced and taught in China
for 14 years,  would joke with his Chinese colleagues that the only truthful
thing in the Chinese media was the date. Mr. Ansley, an advising professor at
Shanghai’s Fudan University, worked and taught international economic law at
Shanghai’s Jiaotong University and lived in China for 14 years.

After the Falun Gong persecution officially started on July 20, 1999, Ansley
testified that he witnessed on a daily basis “the most extreme campaign of
unmitigated hatred” that he had ever seen in Chinese print and television media,
including young people’s programs, cultural presentations, comic books, and news
programs.

What he found equally shocking was how his highly educated colleagues could fall
for the same propaganda tactics in the media that they had all ridiculed in the
past. It was then that he knew this campaign was different from the rest.


How does the Chinese Communist Party utilize state-run media and its control
over society to bend the minds of its people to its will? Censorship.
Propaganda. Unfortunately, these tactics work to tragic effect. In this video,
we’ll take a close look at exactly how the Chinese Communist Party terrified the
Chinese people into submission. Watch more videos and movies on tv.faluninfo.net


HYPOCRISY IN ACTION

The CCP had initially used its state-run media to promote Falun Gong for its
health benefits and for uplifting the morality of society. Falun Gong was
respected, awarded, and praised by government bodies, including the Public
Security Bureau, which lauded Falun Gong for “promoting the traditional
crime-fighting virtues of the Chinese people, safeguarding social order and
security, and promoting rectitude in society.” The Public Security Bureau even
invited Mr. Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong’s founder, to give a seminar on Falun Gong at
the bureau office in 1993, which he accepted. 

China experts believe that Falun Gong’s rapid growth surprised then-Party chief
Jiang Zemin, who regarded Falun Gong’s skyrocketing popularity and its
Buddhist-like precepts of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance as an
existential threat to the CCP’s doctrines of atheism, class struggle, and
violent revolution. So on July 20, 1999, Jiang started his campaign of
persecution and propaganda, demanding that the regime “use all measures
necessary to eliminate Falun Gong.”


THE DEADLY ‘EVIL CULT’ LABEL

A 1999 Washington Post article reported that it was Jiang who ordered that Falun
Gong be labeled a “cult,” and then demanded that a law be passed banning cults.
David Ownby, a leading scholar on Chinese religions, notes: “The entire issue of
the supposed cultic nature of Falun Gong was a red herring from the beginning,
cleverly exploited by the Chinese state to blunt the appeal of Falun Gong and
the effectiveness of the group’s activities outside China.”

In 2017, a Freedom House report titled The Battle for China’s Spirit stated that
the “evil cult” label against Falun Gong only appeared in Party discourse in
October 1999, months after the repression was launched, suggesting that the term
was applied retroactively to attempt to justify a violent, irrational campaign
that was provoking international and domestic criticism.

In 2014, a BBC News China article reported that 13 years after the start of the
persecution, Falun Gong was still not on any of China’s official lists of “evil
cults.” The severity of the persecution, including spreading dehumanizing
messages, however, has not abated.

Some international media outlets have chosen to adopt the perpetrator’s language
by including the CCP labels “cult” and “evil” in their reporting of Falun Gong,
perhaps under the guise of “balanced reporting.” Canadian human rights lawyer
David Matas explains that using propaganda terms to contextualize what the
propagandist thinks validates the propaganda and the propagandist, thus giving
credence to slander and aiding in the oppression. No media outlet today would
report what Hitler labeled Jewish people.



When journalists use the labels crafted by a tyrannical regime to demonize the
oppressed, they’re putting innocent lives at risk. It’s important that reporters
and readers understand clearly what demonizing terms are—tools of oppression,
not genuine attempts at characterization and not valid reporting. Falling short
of the truth is simply allowing the media to be used by the Chinese Communist
Party to extend the reach of its propaganda and its ability to oppress.


THE STAGED SELF-IMMOLATION ON TIANANMEN SQUARE

In the year 2000, the persecution seemed to be losing the hearts and minds of
people in China. In addition, the international community viewed Falun Gong as
yet another victimized group attacked by the world’s largest human rights
abuser. But everything changed on Jan. 23, 2001, when Communist Party mouthpiece
Xinhua News Agency falsely claimed that five Falun Gong practitioners, including
a 12-year-old girl, had attempted to “enter heaven” by setting themselves on
fire on Tiananmen Square. (See sidebar: “Beijing’s Deadly Hoax.”)

Around the clock, gruesome videos and pictures were broadcast through every
newspaper, magazine, radio, and TV station in China. They featured a badly
burned and mutilated little girl lying on a stretcher, her face and lips charred
black, whimpering, “Mama, Mama.”

Days later, reports from Western media started to blow gaping holes in the story
that pointed to a government conspiracy. A CNN reporter who was on the scene
never saw a 12-year-old girl at the site. For The Washington Post’s
investigative report titled “Human Fire Ignites Chinese Mystery,” the reporter
interviewed neighbors of the 12-year-old and her mother, who died at the scene.
The neighbors said that the mother had mental problems and that “no one ever saw
her practice Falun Gong.”

However, nothing could stop the power of that terrible story of self-immolation.
What was once seen in the West as a peaceful meditation group and a victim of an
oppressive regime was now seen as  a fringe group and possibly a questionable
one at that. 


False Fire Documentary – Analysis of the “Self-Immolation” Inccident.


HATEFUL MESSAGES COMPLETE THE VIOLENT MACHINERY

Between 1999 and 2001, media watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders grew
more concerned about the inability to report on Falun Gong in China and the
arrest and harassment of reporters who tried.

A few of the successful reporters included John Pomfret and Philip Pan from The
Washington Post. In August 2001, they published an article titled “Torture Is
Breaking Falun Gong, China Systematically Eradicating Group.” They secretly
interviewed a government official who exposed the three ingredients that the
regime was using against Falun Gong.

The first ingredient was the CCP’s sanctioning of widespread violence against
Falun Gong practitioners. The second was intense brainwashing sessions to get
practitioners to give up their faith. And the third and most crucial was the
high-pressure propaganda campaign. As Chinese society turned against Falun Gong
after the staged Tiananmen Square self-immolations, pressure on practitioners to
abandon their beliefs increased, and it became easier for the regime to use
violence against those who did not.

“Each aspect of the campaign is critical,” the official told The Post. “Pure
violence doesn’t work. Just studying doesn’t work either. And none of it would
be working if the propaganda hadn’t started to change the way the general public
thinks. You need all three. That’s what they’ve figured out.”


ONLINE TROLLS-FOR-HIRE — THE 50-CENT ARMY

In addition to controlling the message, CCP leaders knew from experience they
had to prevent the masses from having access to the big picture and the free
flow of information. Internet censorship has been a major concern for the CCP
since 2000. They created the world’s largest firewall system as part of the
Golden Shield Project. Not surprisingly, all Falun Gong-related websites are
blocked, including MIT’s website at one point because it hosts the MIT Falun
Gong club.

> “We estimate that the [Chinese] government fabricates and posts about 448
> million social media comments a year.” — Harvard Study “How the Chinese
> Government Fabricates SocialMedia Posts for Strategic Distraction” (2016)

A 2016 Harvard study reported this finding: “The Chinese government has long
been suspected of hiring as many as 2 million people to surreptitiously insert
huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of
real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary
people. … We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million
social media comments a year.”

These online commentators are called “the 50-cent party” because they are
reportedly paid 50 cents for every post. Inciting hatred, spreading
misinformation, and promoting state propaganda against Falun Gong is their job.

Falun Gong practitioners have resisted the onslaught of falsehoods about them
through their courage, ingenuity, and technical know-how: They’ve tapped into
state-controlled cable television networks to broadcast truth-telling videos,
invented and circulated software to circumvent the internet blockade, hung
banners in trees, and produced and distributed CDs, DVDs, fliers, and
leaflets—all to get the truth to the Chinese people. For these seemingly simple
acts, many have been abducted and tortured, and many have died in detention.

In the words of U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, “Falun Gong practitioners have
been great witnesses of courage and peace.” 

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50-Cent Army
Chinese Censorship
Chinese Propaganda
Fake News
Tiananmen Square "Self-Immolation"



READ NEXT

Abductions & Imprisonment

 * What is Falun Gong?
 * Why persecution?
 * Brutal & widespread?
 * Genocide?
 * What is the evidence?
 * Why haven’t I heard?
 * Misconceptions?




THE FALUN GONG STORY

 * Ancient Roots
 * The Rise of Falun Gong
 * Eve of Persecution
 * Terror Unleashed
 * Violent Suppression of 100 Million
 * Peaceful Resistance


 * Persecution in China
   * Overview
   * Organ Harvesting
   * CCP Propaganda & Censorship
   * Abductions & Imprisonment
   * Forced Transformations
   * Torture
   * Rape and Sexual Torture
   * Deaths
   * Family & Destitution
   * Work & School
   * The Internet
   * The 6-10 Office
 * Transnational Repression
   * Overview
   * Propaganda in the West
   * Spies & Espionage
   * International Pressure
   * Thuggery
 * Peaceful Resistance
   * Civil Disobedience
   * Grassroots in China
   * Worldwide Activism
   * Lawsuits Around the World
   * Independent Investigations
 * Personal Accounts
   * Family Rescue
   * Persecution Accounts
   * Killed for Their Belief



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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 * What is Falun Gong?
 * Why persecution?
 * Brutal & widespread?
 * Genocide?
 * What is the evidence?
 * Why haven’t I heard?
 * Misconceptions?

 * THE FALUN GONG STORY
   * Ancient Roots, Almost Lost
   * The Rise of Falun Gong
   * Eve of Persecution
   * Terror Unleashed
   * Violent Suppression of 100 Million
   * Peaceful Resistance

 * PERSECUTION IN CHINA
   * Overview
   * CCP Propaganda & Censorship
   * Abductions & Imprisonment
   * Forced Transformations
   * Torture
   * Rape and Sexual Torture
   * Forced Organ Harvesting
   * Deaths
   * Family and Destitution
   * Work and School

 * TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
   * Overview
   * CCP Propaganda in the West
   * International Pressure
   * Thuggery
 * PEACEFUL RESISTANCE
   * Grassroots in China
   * Worldwide Activism
   * Support & Awards

 * EVIDENCE
   * Personal Accounts
   * Independent Documentation
   * Investigative Journalism
   * Government Actions
 * ABOUT US
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