Based on our local sources in China, more than a year after the brutal crackdown on Falun Gong, at a time when the truth behind the persecution has already been exposed and Falun Gong has gained the understanding and support of more and more governments, organizations, and individuals, the Chinese leadership has again gone into reverse gear and, now in the month of August, it has given the order for yet another brutal strike against Falun Gong.

Preparations for Further Crimes and Urgent Actions

As such, some local governments have again begun urgently pushing for persecution. For example, one citys Legal and Political Commission, in keeping with the spirit of a certain central government document, has set up a vicious plan known as: "Thoroughly damage their reputation, thoroughly weaken them economically, thoroughly eradicate them within three months."

As far as we know, this city is soon planning to take a unified action and will make a full-scale round up of all practitioners who have a strong faith in Falun Dafa and will engage in further persecution. They have even implemented a regulation that "those who cannot be transformed (their minds changed) will all be sent to the labor reform camp to be held indefinitely until they are transformed." Furthermore, the Public Security Bureau of one district of Beijing has received a Labor Reform Quota and has already begun arresting large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners. In order to avoid being arrested despite their innocence, some practitioners have already been forced to leave while others have had their homes ransacked.

With no need for either evidence or any legal regulations, they can arrest and detain people simply on the basis of the personal will of their superiors or the subjectively predetermined quota. These kinds of depraved tactics obviously have much in common with methods used in certain previous political movements in China that damaged the nation and harmed the people.

Looking Back at History

Let us briefly look back upon the special period of time since April of last year whereby a very small number of the leaders in the Chinese government used disgraceful means to cause the persecution of Falun Gong escalate step by step and yet were unable to have it come to their hoped for conclusion.

In 1999:

• In Tianjin there were events that led to the "April 25^th" incident whereby Falun Gong practitioners made a peaceful appeal to the government on the street next to the Beijing government compound;
• the fabrication of the "May 1^st Xiangshan mass self-burning," "May 22 Xiangshan mass gathering and mass suicide," and other rumors along with setting up the police force to arrest practitioners;
• on June 14^th, it was falsely claimed that the state and the various levels of the government had never engaged in prohibiting Falun Gong before and that certain schemes for persecution that had already been found out, such as "double expulsion (firing from ones job and expulsion from the Party)," "extradition (attempt to have Master Li extradited from the US)," and "guilt by association (punishing family members, friends and neighbors for not turning practitioners in)" were all rumors;
• in the week before "July 20^th" the Military Police Headquarters ordered that the more than 10,000 military policemen in Beijing enter into a state of first degree battle readiness to prepare for a crackdown;
• in the early morning of July 20^th, all over the country, they began rounding up the so-called key members of Falun Gong who were on their blacklist and began beating up practitioners, including the elderly, women, pregnant women and children, out in public -- the degree of brutality was shocking;
• on the afternoon of July 22^nd, CCTV (state-run TV) broadcast a crackdown announcement, the so-called "In Regards to the Decision to Crackdown on the Falun Gong Research Society" illegally promulgated by the Civil Administration Ministry, along with various slanderous video programs containing lies and falsehoods;
• on July 21 and 22, Falun Gong practitioners who had heard the news went to their local appeals offices to ask for an end to these kinds of illegal actions, but they were forced away by police or beaten, illegally detained and interrogated -- based on incomplete figures, the number of Falun Gong practitioners around the country who were illegally detained and beaten during that time was at least 30,000;
• on July 29^th, the arrest order and extradition order that had previously been denied as rumors by certain government offices were implemented -- this arrest order was submitted to the members of Interpol but was unanimously refused by Interpol;
• on October 26^th, it was reported in the press that while in France, President Jiang Zemin had illegally announced that "Falun Gong is an evil cult;"
• on October 27^th, the Peoples Daily (state-run newspaper) ran an article setting the tone that "Falun Gong is an evil cult," effectively casting it in the role of a puppet in the persecution;
• on October 30, the Peoples Congress, in order to comply with the scheme of a few members of the Chinese leadership, passed a so-called anti-cult law;
• on November 1, Chinas judicial agencies announced through the media that four original members of the Falun Gong Research Society including Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, and Ji Liewu, who had already been illegally held in detention for a number of months, were suspected of crimes and had been arrested;
• on November 26, Vice Premier Li Lanqing held a conference in order to push forward the persecution, and during the conference, at the same time that he claimed that the crackdown had "had a definitive victory," Li Lanqing also had to admit: since July 22, Falun Gong practitioners had been "generally stubborn," "their attitude was steadfast," and the number of people who went to the appeal offices around Beijing "from October 30 until today has been more than 60 to 70 people per day; there hasnt been a day of peace, there isnt a day that there hasnt been someone going to appeal" -- this report was exposed by international media and allowed the world to see the corner that the persecutors had painted themselves into;
• at a time when the crackdown was experiencing all different kinds of failures within China, on December 6, Chinas Intelligence Agencys insidious plot to send out an assassination squad was exposed in the media overseas;
• on December 26, in order to avoid the attention and censure of the international media, Beijings First Middle Level People's Court chose the Christmas holidays to sentence Li Chang and three others to prison terms of between 7 and 18 years, but this matter still could not escape the reporting of the international media and it is repeatedly referenced as evidence of the crimes of the persecution.

• In the middle of February, the so-called "Relentless Crackdown" on Falun Gong was begun and in the Northeast, the construction on concentration camps that can hold 20,000 to 30,000 people was completed in order to hold the Falun Gong practitioners who continually go to Beijing to appeal;
• in March, before the two National Conferences, in the face of Falun Gong practitioners who dare to uphold the Truth and who continually risk their lives to appeal, Jiang Zemin viciously gave the order to "eradicate" Falun Gong;
• nonetheless, on July 19, the anniversary of the crackdown, Agence France Presse (AFP) and other international media reported that Beijing was forced to admit yet again with embarrassment that they had no way of "defeating" Falun Gong.

Based on a newswire story from Hong Kong on July 26: Since the Chinese government began its crackdown on Falun Gong in July of last year, at least 10,000 practitioners have been sent for labor reform, 450 have been given harsh jail sentences, and 25 have been beaten or tortured to death while in custody. Based on the statistics on the Minghui site, up until August 20, the number of cases of death that have made it through the Public Security Bureaus strict blockade and have been made public has risen to 43, including Zhao Jinhua, Chen Zixiu, and Su Gang. The cruel tortures inflicted on every goodhearted practitioner in the course of the crackdown are shocking, and the karmic debts that the Chinese leadership has incurred in the course of the crackdown are more than can be recorded.

Being fired from their jobs, expelled from school, having their homes ransacked, having to pay heavy fines, the possibility of being arrested at any time, detention, labor reform, torture, various different kinds of inhuman treatment, bloody brutality, absurd and shameless libel and slander -- these things have not only failed to frighten genuine practitioners but have forged the unshakable faith of tens of thousands of Dafa practitioners such that they would rather die than give up practicing cultivation

and it has given them a nobility founded upon great compassion and forbearance. Since ancient times, the will of the people cannot be denigrated, let alone the will of Falun Dafa practitioners who have been pushed onto the international stage and who have awakened to the truth of life and the universe.

Today, for the sake of their own selfish interests, a very small number of individuals are announcing various kinds of vicious plans like "thoroughly damage their reputation, thoroughly weaken them economically, thoroughly eradicate them within three months," with no regard for the voices of censure at home and abroad, from either the people or within the government. After a year of persecution that has depleted the propaganda machinery, the police force, and the spies of the entire country, these kinds of policies and actions can only reveal all the more the frustrations of a very small number of the leaders of the Chinese government as they exhaust all their measures, focusing all their effort on something that has yielded no results.

The universal principle of "goodness is rewarded with goodness, evil is rewarded with evil" is fair to all. Even though those who have reached the dead end can strike a final blow, they are nothing more than a few tyrants and robbers of the people who, having done so many terrible things, are trying to grab a few more accomplices who will meet the same end.

For the eternal happiness of humankind, it is hoped that the worlds men and women of conscience and justice will together vanquish evil.

The Truth is bound to prevail. The coming of "the Fa rectifying the human realm" is something that can never be prevented by any living being.

Minghui Commentator

August 20, 2000