MOTALA TIDNING (Swedish newspaper): The Persecution of Falun Gong

Saturday, 20 October, 2001

In China, if you stand in a park and do exercises for body and soul called Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, you run a great risk of being arrested and later assaulted and tortured. You are neither allowed to read the books that form part of the method nor allowed to follow the characteristics of Truthfulness, Benevolence and Tolerance because the leaders of the regime consider the teachings to be "superstition" that "confuse the masses."

Jiang Zemin banned this movement in July 1999. Since then 301 practitioners of the practice have been tortured to death; 100 000 have been imprisoned or held in custody without trial; 20 000 have been sent to labour camps; 500 have been sentenced to long prison terms, some of them up to 18 years; and more than 1000 have been sent to mental hospitals where they are injected with drugs which destroy the central nervous system.

When an official report showed that over 70 million people practised Falun Gong, among them high-ranking politicians and officials, the highest-ranking leaders became scared and felt "threatened". The fact that the movement stands for spirituality was not good either as that goes against the communist ideology. Thus, the method was banned and since then those who hold on to their beliefs have been subjected to a large-scale, brutal persecution.

Through lies, propaganda and fabricated incidents the Chinese regime is trying to mislead the public, even here in the West. Via their embassies and their consulates vicious lies are being spread, even to schools and libraries here in Sweden.

China holds the world record in the violation of human rights, but not many dare to put pressure on this country of oppression as they do not want to destroy their good trade and political relations. And who wants to go up against mighty China? In society today profit comes before rationality, morals and conscience. Even Christians, Buddhists, monks and nuns, and other dissidents are persecuted in China. In this country there is hardly any freedom of religion and belief or any respect for human rights.

Practitioners of Falun Gong around the world are trying to draw attention to the persecution with the help of SOS marches, peaceful demonstration /processions, hunger-strikes, and various appeals to politicians and the media.

Practitioners in China have tried, in every way, to conduct a dialogue and appeal to the Government to stop the persecution, but instead they are subjected to an even more brutal persecution. The torture and the persecution are escalating in China. Now it is fully legal for policemen and guards to kill practitioners of Falun Gong. When they have died their cause of death is changed, on paper, to "suicide" or "natural causes". The fact that the victim's bodies then show clear signs of torture does not matter when those who are steered by the powers that be are confirming the "cause of death".

Now the regime has introduced new instructions. This means that those who are arrested are to be detained for life. If you are already locked up you will, in other words, not be released until you die.

Are we not also guilty of what is happening in China if we turn a blind eye towards the oppression of innocent people who wish to believe in what is closest to their hearts? Is it not time to put pressure on China so as to end the persecution? What kind of world are we living in if one cannot engage in a practice for body and soul and become a truthful, benevolent, tolerant, harmonious human being?

Our conscience must awaken, and accordingly, politicians, the media and the public should take up a definite position and act now before a new holocaust takes form!

Tony Lingefors,
Falun Gong practitioner from Motala, Sweden

Source: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/1507.html